Route
Xining
Start and finish
Distance and type
121km
+440 m
Flat
Schedule
Profile
Key points
Stage replay
CanalDeporte.com
Stage info AI translated from Spanish, might contain errors
Once again, the European teams travel to the vast Tibetan Plateau and the high altitude of central China in pursuit of some highly coveted UCI points that, on occasion, even reshuffle the season's top-30 hierarchy and open the door to the Grand Tours. Spanish squads such as Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, Euskaltel-Euskadi or Burgos Burpellet BH will be right in the thick of it over the next eight days.
Xining, the usual start of what used to be called the Tour of Qinghai Lake, hosts a very fast, completely flat opener for the sprinters, with eight laps around Xining, the provincial capital. Good acclimatisation to the altitude, since it sits at 2300m above sea level... which is just about the lowest they will see all week.