Vuelta 2007 - Part II
23 Sep 2007
Denis Menchov easily controlled his rivals on all the climbs of the second half of the 2007 Vuelta a Espana and confirmed his superiority in the short final TT in Villalba.
Carlos Sastre attacked several times, but his accelerations were not enough to make the difference, notwithstanding the more than good climbing pace: 1820 m/h the VAM of the best group on the first 6.4 km of the Alto de Monachil (average gradient of 10%).
The tenacity and high pace of Sastre had effect on Efimkin first and secondly on an excellent Cadel Evans, but did nothing on the russian Rabobank leader, who never seemed to have any problem on the climbs, coming out as overly prudent and conservative.
In the end we've seen a technically good edition of the Vuelta, even if a bit monotonous because of the clear superiority of Menchov over his adversaries.
Questionable was in my opinion the choice of having two completely flat time trials.