It's part of the anatomy of the cycling calendar that every grand tour is preceded by a short warm-up stage race in a mountainous part of the country that hosts the three-week race. The Giro contenders use the extremely mountainous Giro del Trentino to prepare for the biggest Italian race while the Tour favourites head to the Alps and the Dauphiné to finish off their build-up for the world's biggest bike race. The Vuelta counterpart to those two races is the Vuelta a Burgos which starts today and offers the riders for the Spanish grand tour a perfect opportunity to test themselves out in high mountains, on short, explosive finishing climbs and in fierce crosswinds - three challenges that often play a crucial role in determining the overall winner of the three-week Spanish race. Starting at 15.20 you can follow the first stage of the Spanish race on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

Among the Vuelta contenders, it is mainly the riders who also raced the Tour de France that have decided to skip the possibility to build up their form in Burgos during the coming week. Among the riders that weren't present in the French grand tour, most will be present on the start line later today. Vincenzo Nibali and Ivan Basso continue the preparation that was kicked off in Poland last week while Samuel Sanchez kicks off his autumn season on his Spanish home soil. Among these riders, only Basso can be expected to fight for the win while Nibali and Sanchez will mainly use the race to prepare for later objectives. Instead, the big favourite is Nairo Quintana who won't race the Vuelta and so can allow himself to go all out for the win on a course that suits him perfectly.

The race kicks off today with  short 139km stage from Burgos to Mirador del Castillo which has the first of those characteristic short, sharp uphill finishes that characterize the race. The stage starts in the centre of the eponymous capital of the Burgos province and sends the riders on a small loop around the city. The race is mostly flat but contains a number of shorter climbs along the way of which only one, Alto de los Buitres, is categorized in the third category. As usual, the real danger is the risk of crosswinds more than the terrain itself and the route should offer some opportunities to blow the race apart. The race finishes in the Northern outskirts of Burgos where the riders will climb the category 3 Alto del Castillo. That ascent has a length of just 1km and an average gradient of 5% but offers a 200m cobbled section with a 10,6% gradient at its bottom. The finish line is located on the top and after the first passage, the riders will do a short 8km circuit to climb the ascent for the second and final time. We should see an interesting uphill sprint kick off the race and there is a possibility that we could see some small time gaps open up already on the first day of racing.

Starting at 15.20 you can follow the stage here and you can read our race preview here.