TotalEnergies Gran Fondo Alberto Contador: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The start is at eight in the morning at sea level in Oliva Nova, and the first twenty-five kilometres run flat to gently rising from the coastal plain into the interior. Then the course tips up: a short ramp at kilometre 25, and at kilometre 30 the Coll de Rates begins, six and a half kilometres averaging 5.3 per cent and gaining almost 350 metres to a summit at 615 metres. It is the best-known climb on this stretch of the Costa Blanca and the first real selection of the day; the timed Coca-Cola prize segment sits immediately before it.

Above Rates the route stays high. Between kilometre 42 and kilometre 50 two steps of 3.6 and 1.4 kilometres lead to the highest point of the day, Sa Creueta at 768 metres. From there the course rolls through the thinly populated back country around Fageca, Tollos and the Vall d'Ebo, with one- to three-kilometre rises at kilometre 64, 76 and 92. The last col is the Coll Port d'Ebo at kilometre 111, three kilometres at 5.1 per cent to 536 metres. After that the final twenty-odd kilometres fall almost without interruption back to the sea at Oliva.

The setting is Mediterranean rather than alpine: start and finish sit in the Oliva Nova resort right on the beach, while the climbs thread through terraced groves, orange plantations and bare limestone sierras with near-empty hill villages. The roads are fully closed for the duration of the race, and the feed points at kilometre 46, 74 and 100 also carry mechanical support. Alberto Contador normally rides in the bunch himself; this is the fifteenth edition, run alongside his foundation.

Pacing Strategy

The gradient distribution says what kind of race this is: a good 27 per cent of the course is flat and only one and a half per cent genuinely steep. There is no wall to miscalculate, just long, even ramps around five per cent that reward a clean, steady tempo. Which is why the first trap is not on a climb at all but on the twenty-five flat kilometres after the start: in a closed-road bunch the speed rises, and the cost is invisible until the Coll de Rates asks for it back.

The day is decided between kilometre 30 and kilometre 50. The Coll de Rates and the two steps up to Sa Creueta sit so close together that roughly two thirds of the total climbing is done by kilometre 50. Ride above threshold there and ninety kilometres of rolling back country are still to come, every one of them collecting interest.

The second mistake is the heat. The start is at eight o'clock by the sea, but the Coll Port d'Ebo at kilometre 111 arrives four to five hours later, inland and around midday, with the sun standing over shadeless sierras. Drinking and eating have to be disciplined at the kilometre 46, 74 and 100 stations. After that comes the twenty-kilometre descent back to the coast, where an empty rider loses a great deal of time and the 13:48 finish control suddenly feels close.

Training plan for TotalEnergies Gran Fondo Alberto Contador: 12-week build

For 138 kilometres and around 2,350 metres of climbing, an ambitious age-group rider should plan on four and a half to six and a half hours in the saddle. The demand is mostly steady aerobic work: two longer climbs of twenty to forty minutes, a chain of five- to fifteen-minute ramps around them, and a lot of bunch riding across flat and rolling ground.

The race is decided on the Coll de Rates and the ascent to Sa Creueta, both early and both evenly graded. That calls for the ability to hold just under threshold for half an hour at a time without tipping into the red. The second block of demand comes late: the rises at kilometre 92 and the Coll Port d'Ebo at kilometre 111 are ridden with more than a hundred kilometres in the legs, so training that puts the climbing at the end of a long ride pays off directly.

Conditions are the underrated part. Mid-September on the Valencian coast is still high summer, and the course runs from sea level into shadeless limestone country where midday temperatures sit well above what you feel at the start. Two to three weeks of heat acclimatisation, a worked-out drinking and salt plan, and the willingness to deliberately ride slower through the middle of the course matter more here than the last few watts.

So the training emphasis is threefold: long rides of four to five hours carrying 1,500 to 2,000 metres of climbing; fifteen- to twenty-five-minute threshold intervals on real climbs; and explicit group and slipstream work, because the flat opening twenty-five kilometres and the fast closing twenty are ridden in a bunch. Descending skill belongs on the list too, the final drop from the Port d'Ebo to the sea is long, fast and ridden tired.