In Spanish, 'estar en Babia' roughly means to be distracted or oblivious to what is at hand. The curious expression derives from the craggy green dreamscape of the Babia area, a stone's throw east of Cuitu Negru, where the men vying to win the Vuelta a España were riding to within an inch of oblivion on Sunday afternoon.
On the wickedly steep upper reaches of Cuitu Negru, each rider was condemned to his own private nightmare, and the solitary nature of the effort was heightened by the thick, pea-soup fog that swathed the mountaintop. They could scarcely see the reading on their power meters, far less keep track of all their rivals.
At the summit, riders spilled across the line in ones and twos, emerging from the gloom-like characters being introduced to the pages of a Dickensian novel. Primož Roglič reached the finish in the company of Enric Mas, 1:04 down on stage winner Pablo Castrillo, and – more pertinently – 38 seconds clear of red jersey Ben O'Connor.
Between his exertions and the mist, however, Roglič had only the vaguest grasp on the day's narrative. It was hard to tell friend from foe in conditions like this, far less keep track of all the moving parts of a bike race. On wheeling to a halt beyond the finish, Roglič seemed to be under the impression that he had been distanced by O'Connor.
"I don't know how much we lose compared to the red jersey," Roglič said when a microphone was thrust before him. "He was in front?"
'Estar en Babia' is one thing, but 'estar en Cuitu Negru' is clearly something else altogether. The general confusion about the state of play wasn't limited only to the final ramps of the climb. It would linger until the commissaires published the official results bulletin a couple of hours after the finish.
When Roglič was apprised of the situation at the summit of Cuitu Negru, he was initially told that he had cut his overall deficit on O'Connor to 43 seconds. It later emerged, however, that Roglič had been docked 20 seconds by the race jury for drafting behind his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team car after switching bikes ahead of the final climb. The penalty means that he reaches the final rest day in second overall, 1:03 behind O'Connor.
That sanction compounded a day that yielded less for Roglič than he would have anticipated beforehand. After delivering such a dominant display at Puerto de Ancares on Friday, Roglič was widely expected to make similar hay on the even more vertiginous slopes of Cuitu Negru, but he looked altogether more laboured here.
Roglič was teed up by teammate Florian Lipowitz as the gradient began to bite inside the final 3km, but although he managed to punch his way clear of O'Connor et al at the second attempt, the Slovenian wasn't able to distance his rivals as definitively as he had done at Puerto de Ancares.
Worse was to follow inside the final 1.5km, when Mas managed to claw his way back up to Roglič and then even briefly inch clear of his rival. It wasn't quite Roche and Delgado at La Plagne, but a late surge at least carried Roglič back up to Mas' wheel within sight of the line, and they emerged from the mist together and into the waiting scrum of soigneurs and reporters.
"It's still good, it's still a good performance. I mean, it was a tough week. A tough day today. It's still better to win something than lose something. I'm very happy," said Roglič, who confessed that he had been struggling on the gentler lower slopes of the climb, where Soudal-QuickStep had been setting the tempo for Mikel Landa.
"Better," Roglič said of his feelings on the steepest portion of the climb, which he tackled with a single chainring set-up after his costly bike change. "I was more suffering with the less steep gradients. So, yeah, in the end, it was quite fine."
On the Puerto de Ancares on Friday, when Roglič simply burned Mas off his wheel, he appeared to be in the process of putting the idea of winning the Vuelta beyond the imagination of the Spaniard. Mas will surely be buoyed, however, by the way he jousted with Roglič here, while the 20 seconds gained at day's end will have come as a further boost.
"It was hard, eh," Roglič said of his duel with Mas. "I mean he's in super good shape. He was really good. Like I said, sometimes you gain a bit, sometimes you lose. I shouldn't go with the head through the wall."
Roglič remains the obvious favourite to win this Vuelta and claim a record-equalling fourth overall victory in Madrid next Sunday, but his relative misstep here, like his travails at Granada a week ago, suggested that nothing should be taken for granted in this most curious edition of the race.
It seems clear, too, that the back injury that ended Roglič's ill-fated tilt at the Tour de France remains a concern in Spain. When Roglič crossed the line at Cuitu Negru, he immediately cried to his soigneur not to touch his back as he tried to guide him through the crowds beyond the finish.
It was a complicated day for Roglič and this remains a complicated Vuelta. Before he pedalled back down the mountain, however, he looked to put an upbeat slant on his afternoon when he was reminded of his – temporary – deficit on O'Connor. "For sure 45 seconds is better than 5:45," Roglič said as he turned away. "So… I'm happy."
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