The 2025 women's cycling race edition will kick start in Barcelona
The female riders will set off on May 4 from Barcelona, which a year later will host the start of the 2026 men’s Tour with a time trial.
Barcelona is in fashion for universal cycling. This is clear after this year’s women’s Vuelta a España has agreed with the Barcelona Provincial Council that the start of this edition, on May 4, will be in Barcelona, as El Periódico reported . A start that joins the one already held in 2023 of the men’s Vuelta and that is added to the well-known and long-awaited one of the 2026 Tour, which makes Barcelona a city with handlebars and wheels. “Barcelona is a city that has been a bit on the sidelines of cycling in general and that has not been very assiduous for the men’s Vuelta. For cycling lovers it is appreciated and very positive that it opens its doors to open up to the world and make itself known,” explains Dori Ruano, former cyclist and now ambassador of the women’s Vuelta.
This will be the third edition of the women’s Vuelta, even though from 2015 to 2019 the race was held under the name Madrid Challenge. The first three years, from 2015 to 2017, the race was held on an urban circuit in the centre of Madrid. In 2018 and 2019, the race was held over a weekend, with a time trial taking place on the first day in Boadilla del Monte. In 2020, already under the name Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta, a third stage was added to the race, which that year was held in Toledo. The following year, the race had four stages and all of them were in Galicia, coinciding with the last stages of the men’s La Vuelta. In 2022, a fifth stage was added and, following the same layout, a route was held between Cantabria and Madrid. “Steps have been taken in women’s cycling and they are getting bigger and better,” explains Ruano; “It all started with the women’s Tour and the Vuelta has joined this total change.”
Since 2023, now under the name La Vuelta and broadcast live on Teledeporte and Eurosport, the competition has lasted a week. First it started in Torrevieja and the following year in Valencia. Now it’s Barcelona, the same city that, of course, will also embrace, as usual, the end of the Volta Catalunya – at the end of March -, one of the three stage races that are part of the World Tour circuit that are held in Spain. “Since the women’s Vuelta was born, the number of stages has increased and it has improved a lot by having the race without overlapping with the men’s race because that way we can use the same infrastructure in both races,” Ruano concludes.
The Barcelona council has excellent relations with both ASO, the owner of the French and Spanish races, and with Unipublic, the company that manages the organisation of the Vuelta from Madrid, both in its men’s section (from 23 August to 14 September) and the women’s section (from 4 to 10 May), which will have two stages in Catalonia: one entirely in the city of Barcelona; and a second that will go through several Barcelona regions and will end in Sant Boi de Llobregat. Afterwards it will continue through Spain. “We hope that this will be the edition of consolidation. It is a seed that was planted three years ago and that is growing, it is already a stem on which the leaves are beginning to be seen,” concludes Ruano, who underlines the substantial improvements in the race, the riders and even the prize money.
