Roglic prevails in Arrate.Kiko Huesca / EFE

It is autumn of wind and water, and in Arrate, on the road that goes up to the church, the leaves that fly from so many trees and remain stuck on the asphalt proclaim it, and Perico Delgado, who has parked the kitchen pots, breathe hard and enjoy the smells, the colors of the forest and the wet grass.

The nuns of the Samaritan Carmelites are not so happy, with the convent on the mountain, who could not sell their handmade sweets to the fans of the gutters in spring, because the Tour of the Basque Country was suspended, which is the great annual representation of the Subida a Arrate, and they planned to make their August in almost November, chestnut season, and, they say, they had increased production thinking about the arrival of the Vuelta, and a week before, with the ovens at full production, they were warned that The race would come, which enjoys safe conduct to travel the confined Spain, but not the fans, and the nuns, with habit and touch, did not know who to place their products on.

Primoz Roglic neither regrets nor suffers the autumn pandemic.

The Slovenian is, like Tomás Moro, the man of all seasons, of the spring, of the hot summer of Tour and Vuelta, of the winter of when as a child he did ski jumps, of the October of the Unique Vuelta, and the Spanish race begins with the number one number of the winner of the previous year and ends the stage dressed in red, the color of the leader, his color.

It is autumn in cycling, autumn in the race of some greats, and the old cyclists understand it, Alejandro Valverde, who stays climbing Arrate, the five-kilometer port in which he has always felt comfortable, and loses 51s, and , above all, Chris Froome, who says enough before arriving in Éibar, where his metallurgists at the beginning of the last century understood that the bicycle is a weapon loaded with the future and with the same machines, molds and furnaces with which they manufactured iron tubes to making shotguns began to produce tubes for welding bicycle frames.

One year and four months after destroying his hip on the Dauphiné, and still injured and in pain, Froome, the cyclist of the decade that has just ended, four Tours, two Laps, a Giro won, returns to great cycling to make public delivery of the witness from the relief to the youngest of his team, Ineos, to Carapaz, who takes command of the race.

The Ecuadorian orders his faithful Amador to accelerate on the ascent to Elgeta and, symbol of an era that is ending, like the sun that takes so little time to set on short afternoons, the Englishman from Nairobi lets the platoon move away towards the sanctuary, and ascends at your own pace.

He has chosen to say goodbye to his role as leader (although not forever, he likes to specify, as he ensures that next year he will return stronger and win his fifth Tour at the age of 36 leading Israel) the precise place, the Subida a Arrate, a race that began in 1941 and in which Bahamontes, Julito Jiménez, Poulidor and Luis Ocaña have been crowned.

Some of the biggest.

Get to 11m 12s be the best

The Vuelta will be played by others, it will be played by Carapaz, who is part of the group that, forged by the tremendous Sepp Kuss, the Yankee from Durango (Colorado), so climber, as spectacular as in the Tour when he was the heart of the banana Roglic's mechanics, it looks like he will dominate such a hilly Tour.

There is also Enric Mas, the veteran of the youngest, who in the Tour endured as long as he could always on the wheel, and finished fifth, and in the Vuelta he has a spark and a smile, and talks about wanting to be the protagonist, and even more so his team , Movistar, who once again enjoys the pleasure of setting the rhythm of the peloton, and fans remember the 22-year-old boy who two and a half years ago moved them with his escape and his victory in the Vuelta del País Vasco.

That Itzulia Roglic won, but Mas prevailed in Arrate.

Carapaz is fast, but Roglic is more so, who takes everyone off the wheel, enters the last corner first and wins with a 1s advantage, a whole picture, five meters in the photo between him and those who are chasing him, and says that he has gone to seek victory not because in the Vuelta he only likes to wear red, but also, nor because he charged with morale after the defeat of the Tour, because he already did it by winning the Liege to the world champion, nor to scare the rivals, although perhaps, but simply because he feels happy winning, and because his team is very good.

The other big names of the day before, Dumoulin, Guillaume Martin, Pinot, Vlasov, have been left behind.

The career of children and beginners

A race seems to have been fought between the teams in search of the next Pogacar, Almeida, a cyclist from the generation of 98, the brightest, who triumphs in the Vuelta, and such has been the effort that the Spanish race breaks records, with more than 33% of the peloton, 60 cyclists, under 25 years old, those who fight for the white jersey of best youngster, an all-time high in the national round, and, perhaps in world cycling.

The Giro, also rejuvenated the year of its dispute in autumn, has 50 young people (28%), and the old Tour only had 26.

And they are not only young, but also rookies, because in 2020 the Vuelta has 48 riders who compete for the first time in their lives in a three-week race, Vuelta, Giro or Tour.

A team like Sunweb takes digging for the next rough diamond so seriously that in their group of eight only Sütterlin is over 25 years old, and there are two 20-year-olds and one 21-year-old. One of them , Ilan van Wilder, Belgian, is the first rider born in 2000 in a big one.

His stay was, however, brief.

He left at kilometer 70.

Although the first white jersey is Enric Mas, already a veteran, the award for the best youngster goes to Deceuninck for now, with the Italian from 99 Andrea Bagioli, who finished tenth.