2026 Vuelta a España stage 2 preview | Mads Pedersen knows this Manosque finish better than anyone

On day two of the Vuelta a España, the riders immediately face the longest stage of the entire race. The stage starts in Monaco, but unsurprisingly the peloton will leave the tiny principality fairly quickly in this first road stage. From there, the route follows the Côte d’Azur, passing through Nice before heading toward Provence. IDL Procycling takes you through everything you need to know!

After the evening time trial on day one, when the final riders did not reach the finish until 7:30 p.m., Sunday brings a relatively early start. That is because the longest stage of the 2026 Vuelta a España already comes on day two, with around 215 kilometres to cover between Monaco and Manosque.

The riders therefore start once again in the principality on the Côte d’Azur, but with Monaco covering an area of only around two square kilometres, it will hardly take long before they cross the border. And so, on only the second day of the race, the Vuelta reaches its second country: France. The route enters France near Nice before turning inland just south of the city.

That is also where the first categorised climb of the race awaits. The Châteauneuf-Grasse comes after 29 kilometres and is 12.7 kilometres long at an average gradient of 3.0 percent. A little farther down the road comes the Col de Saint-Andrieu, also a third-category climb. The smaller teams are likely to battle over those ascents for the first points in the mountains classification.

At first glance at the profile, you might think: only two climbs, so how hard can it be? But roads in the south of France are rarely truly flat, something reflected by the roughly 2,600 metres of elevation gain. Part of that comes from a hill leading into the finale, which at 2.8 kilometres and 6.2 percent is certainly demanding enough to have an impact.

From Esparron-de-Verdon — around 50 kilometres from the finish — to Valensole, 25 kilometres from the line, there is hardly any genuinely flat road. A long, gently descending section then takes the riders toward the final five kilometres into Manosque. Those closing kilometres rise gradually again, averaging approximately 2.2 percent over the final five kilometres, something we know from previous finishes in the Tour de la Provence.

The Tour de la Provence finished in Manosque in 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2025, each time with the road rising gently toward the line. It is therefore worth looking back at those editions. In 2021, Davide Ballerini beat Giulio Ciccone and Alex Aranburu, while Bryan Coquard held off Julian Alaphilippe and Filippo Ganna in 2022.

In 2024 and 2025, current Vuelta participant Mads Pedersen took victory in Manosque, beating Axel Zingle and Clément Champoussin on one occasion and Matej Mohorič and Fred Wright after a tougher stage on the other. That should give you a pretty good idea of the type of rider this finish suits.

Times
Start: 12:16 p.m.
Finish: 5:15 p.m.

Warm conditions are expected, with temperatures around 31 degrees Celsius, little wind and little to no chance of rain. Compared with some of the extreme heat seen during the Tour de France, though, conditions could certainly be worse.

Mads Pedersen won in Manosque in both 2024 and 2025, and he has made no secret of his ambitions ahead of the Vuelta a España. The Lidl-Trek Dane says he is going “all in” for this stage. It is difficult to design a finish that suits the immensely powerful Pedersen any better: a long stretch of false flat followed by a sprint where raw strength becomes increasingly important. Pedersen has separately confirmed ahead of the Vuelta that Manosque is a specific target after his previous success there.

His biggest competition appears likely to come from Visma | Lease a Bike, who have three potential cards to play in Wout van Aert, Matthew Brennan and Christophe Laporte. Van Aert has said on several occasions that he is making the opening weekend a major objective — and after the time trial, there is still this opportunity — while Brennan and Laporte should both be well suited to this stage as well.

The big question is how Visma | Lease a Bike will approach it. Do they commit to a lead-out for one rider, or allow each of their three options to use his individual strengths and turn their collective depth into a tactical weapon? That will undoubtedly be discussed on the Lidl-Trek bus on Sunday morning as well. And then there is another major question: what does Tadej Pogačar do? Will the UAE Emirates-XRG leader get involved, or will he simply focus on arriving safely in the red jersey? The tactics of other GC riders such as Richard Carapaz and Oscar Onley could depend on that answer too. Pogačar entered the race as the overwhelming overall favourite.

A Kaden Groves in top form should also be able to handle this finish extremely well, although the Alpecin-Premier Tech Australian himself pointed toward stage 5 as his first potential opportunity. His preparation has also been far from straightforward after an injury-disrupted season. Jordi Meeus of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe counted five possible opportunities in total, but whether this is one of them remains to be seen. The powerful Meeus can handle demanding finishes such as Le Samyn, although this may be another level altogether. We are also including his teammate Finn Fisher-Black among the possibilities.

Netcompany INEOS have two riders in Axel Laurance and Ben Turner who should also handle this terrain well. Turner won a comparable Vuelta stage finishing in Voiron last year. Orluis Aular, meanwhile, showed during the 2025 Giro d’Italia that behind riders such as Pedersen and Van Aert, he can be a serious threat on this type of finish.

Bryan Coquard of Cofidis has already won in Manosque, taking victory here in 2022, and he cannot be ignored alongside fellow Frenchmen Jordan Labrosse of Decathlon CMA CGM, Hugo Hofstetter of NSN and Bastien Tronchon of Groupama-FDJ. The same applies to Magnus Cort or Rasmus Tiller of Uno-X and an in-form Pau Miquel of Bahrain Victorious, although Sunday should tell us more about where all of them stand. Pure sprinters such as Alberto Dainese of Quick-Step and Steffen De Schuyteneer of Lotto will probably have to wait a little longer for their opportunity.

Top Favorites: Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Wout van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike)
Outsiders: Matthew Brennan (Visma | Lease a Bike), Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates-XRG), and Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Premier Tech)
Long shots: Ben Turner, Axel Larance (Netcompany INEOS), Orluis Aular (Movistar), Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), Christophe Laporte (Visma | Lease a Bike), Magnus Cort (Uno-X), Pau Miquel (Bahrain Victorious), Jordan Labrosse (Decathlon CMA CGM), Bastien Tronchon (Groupama-FDJ), and Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe)