Big Ride: Spain The Beast of Asturias

This year's Vuelta a España features one of the toughest climbs in professional racing: the Alto de l'Angliru. Cyclist discovers why it's so feared

- Words Joseph Delves Photography Patrik Lundin

In the closing years of the last millennium, Vuelta a España director Enrique Franco was searching for a spectacle to help his race compete with its more famous French and Italian rivals.

He believed the race needed a climb that was even more ferocious than the likes of the Stelvio, Mont Ventoux or the Mortirolo – something to strike fear into riders and stir excitement among fans.

How Franco came to find his climb is somewhat shrouded in mystery, but the most popular belief is that a cycling fan called Miguel Prieto Randino wrote to the race's organisers in 1997 to tell them about 'a mountain in Asturias, in the heart of the Sierra del Aramo... about 15km from Oviedo, whose road is barely marked on maps as it is a recently paved cattle trail'.

In the letter, Randino describes the climb as having 'an altitude of 1,570m. It is a pass approximately 12km long and has an ascent of just over 1,200m, giving it an average gradient of slightly more than 10%... the last 7km of the climb averages over 13% interspersed with multiple slopes of 20%, 18%, 17% and even 23.5%.'

Randino claimed the mountain was called La Gamonal, and said of it, 'I am certain that if it were ever attempted it would be memorable to television viewers. Just as it is said that the Lakes of Covadonga could be the Spanish equivalent of the French Alpe d'Huez, the Gamonal could be on par with, and even, without exaggeration, surpass the Italian Mortirolo.'

Some back and forth with the municipal functionaries, plus a spray of fresh tarmac, and the race's organisers conjured into existence a climb they hoped would be the most fearsome in professional cycling. Its name became Alto de l'Angliru and six million people tuned in to see its debut at the 1999 Vuelta, where José María Jiménez emerged from the mist to take the first win at its summit.