Stage 15 of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a may have been shortened nearly two hours of racing due to forecasts of extreme heat, but that still left the riders very exposed for several hours.<\/p>\n
Visma Lease a Bike rider Matthew Brennan made clear just how uncomfortable the conditions were in his post-race interview, and even made predictions of health consequences for riders in such circumstances.<\/p>\n
It was, he indicated, a savage day in the saddle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I wouldn\u2019t do it again,\u201d Brennan said. \u201cI mean, on here we have 41\u00b0C average,\u201d he said, consulting his power meter. \u201cAnd you know, that\u2019s the average. When I was on the climb at the start, it was 44\u00b0C. At that point you start thinking, \u2018What are we doing?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
On Thursday Tudor Pro Cycling\u2019s Arthur Kluckers was transported to a hospital in an ambulance after struggling in temperatures that reached 38\u00b0C (100\u00b0F).<\/p>\n
Brennan suggested that more would follow, and questioned the logic of holding races in such conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cA normal office person has to have their temperature 20\u00b0C or whatever. And I\u2019m sure the people in the UCI office will have theirs at 20\u00b0C as well, so I think when we\u2019re out here slugging away for their sake\u2026\u201d he stated, leaving the rest of the sentence unfinished.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it\u2019s not great, but we do it. That\u2019s the show we put on. But I think it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if there\u2019s a few bodies going home in an ambulance tonight with a heat stroke.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fortunately every rider who started the stage made it to the finish, and all within the time limit.<\/p>\n But others have been expressing concern for days. One of those giving a public warning was the Decathlon CMA CGM rider Sander de Pestel.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, we\u2019re battling the heat more than the competition or the course. A shame it came to this,\u201d he said after Friday\u2019s stage, according to Sporza.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the start, it wasn\u2019t too bad. It was humid, but we\u2019re used to that. The last two hours, though\u2026 Every descent felt like stepping into a brand-new sauna. It was absolutely crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n Monday is fortunately a rest day at the race, giving the riders some respite from the brutal temperatures. The Vuelta restarts on Tuesday with a 181km stage to La R\u00e1bida Palos de la Frontera, with much of the final week located in the south of Spain and therefore at risk of very hot conditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/vuelta-a-espana\/heat-stroke-warnings-from-treble-vuelta-espana-stage-winner\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2293679913.jpg”] Shane Stokes Published September 6, 2026 04:45PM Stage 15 of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a may have been shortened nearly two hours of racing due to forecasts of extreme heat, but that still left the riders very exposed for several hours. Visma Lease a Bike rider Matthew Brennan made clear just how uncomfortable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2131310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2131310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2131310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2131310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2131310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2293665763.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")