Veteran Canadian climber Michael Woods has more than his fair share of experience in brutally tough mountain racing, but he warns that Saturday's stage 6 of the Volta a Catalunya, which includes the unprecedented ascent of the ultra-difficult Coll de Pradell, "could potentially be one of the toughest stages I’ve ever seen."
Featuring some unremittingly steep ascents in its final 5km, the Coll de Pradell is 60km from the first-category summit finish in Queralt, with another first-category climb, the Collada de Sant Isidre, coming between the two.
As the Israel-Premier Tech racer sees it, it's as much the combination of those three climbs as the difficulty of Pradell itself that will make stage 6 of the Volta a Catalunya such a daunting challenge for Volta a Catalunya leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and the remainder of the peloton – including Woods himself.
Chocolate Sepp Kuss greets Volta a Catalunya on long-awaited return to cycling-mad Bergà
Under-23 World Champion Axel Laurance makes breakthrough with WorldTour win at Volta a Catalunya
Volta a Catalunya: Axel Laurance wins stage 5 sprint with bike throw
Pogacar reveals career goal of conquering cycling's seven prominent week-long stage races
Woods himself is not having the greatest of Voltas, he told Cyclingnews at the stage 5 start on Friday. But his big goals remain deeper into the season with a stage win at the Giro d’Italia one key objective for 2024.
As for the here and now, and the Coll de Pradell, after doing the recon of the stage 10 days ago with his teammates, Woods – who lives in nearby Andorra and trains regularly in the region – says "The climb with 60km to go is certainly one of the top three hardest climbs in Catalunya, if not the hardest and it’s also significant that you have two very hard climbs afterwards.
"If they were in isolation they'd be challenging enough, but with that massive climb coming before, it's a heck of a lot of elevation in a single day.
"I've done races when there's more elevation over a shorter period of time, but there are no straight roads on this stage, so there are no opportunities to recover at any moment in this race. When you do a recon it always feels tougher than it's going to be. But this one's hard."
After a solid but unspectacular start to the year, Woods himself says if he's not going as well as he'd like to in Catalunya, he's more than aware that the crunch moments for him this year are still a little way off.
"I feel good, but I'm disappointed with my race so far in the sense of not being up there. Last year I was sixth in this race and I wanted to be contending for a podium here," Woods told Cyclingnews.
"But I also haven't had a WorldTour race in my legs before coming here and every year, especially when I've been successful here, that's been the case.
"So, I don't think I was ready to suffer as much in the WorldTour as you have to, but that's by design. I've got some bigger goals and objectives further on down the road and a pretty heavy schedule mid-season so" – he concluded with a wry smile – "I just have to get my arse kicked here."
Where he aims to be on top of his game, he says, will be in the Ardennes at races including Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but then even more so in the Giro d'Italia.
"I haven't been to the Giro since 2018 and I want to win a stage there," he told Cyclingnews. "It's a big target because that way" – after taking stages in the Vuelta a España in 2018 and 2020 and the Tour de France in 2023 – "I'll have stages in all three Grand Tours.
"I finished second in a stage in 2018 but I haven't yet won that one," he added.
Whether that happens yet we'll find out in May. But first, in any case, there's one of the most daunting stages in Volta a Catalunya history to get through.
