Recent content by rghysens

Are mountain stages that more entertaining? The thing for me is that a whole bunch of riders are denied a chance of victory or at least a telling result. It's not only in gt's that tt's have almost disappeared. Many stage races traditionally had a tt, some even two, now the only thing that...

One 45 minute long itt doesn't balance out 2h45' (or thereabouts) of mtf's. And it's also not a proper long tt.

And also maybe a strade bianche stage and some proper pacing. This just feels... I don't know, lazy? 3.

In my opinion: for all of the main week long stage races minus Dauphiné and Switzerland: 20-25km, for Dauphiné and Switzerland: 40-45km For GT's: around 100km

And exactly how many bigger WT stage races have a decent amount of itt?

In the current peloton, palmares-wise (is that even a word?): Vingegaard. Regarding current abilities: Evenepoel

No, only the last three. Laffrey would be around km50.

Saddest thing is that it´s not that difficult to make Orcières-Merlettes a very difficult medium mountainstage. Use Laffrey (6.5km @ 9%) instead of Monteynard and throw in Chaillol 1600 (7km @7.5%) and Serre Eyraud (5km @ 9%) in in the last 40 km (similar to the 1982 stage). Time differences...

Yeah, the Tour will be decided the day before at the latest.

I really like the buildup of the first 7 stages. Bergerac-Perigueux should have been a long flat itt. I like the layout of the course from Aurillac to Orcières-Merlettes. The first AdH stage is too much, but the second one is superb, albeit a bit late in the course.

Would you have said the same about Wiggins? Amount of itt can matter.

On current routes (at least 4 hc or 1c mtf´s, barely any flat itt), the tour is nothing for him, no. By extension, that also counts for stage racing in general. Long gone are the times where races like Paris-Nice, Dauphiné and Switzerland had both a flat prologue and a long flat itt.

To become 2nd? Btw, stage 8 will be a stage in line.

Next thursday, around 11.30 am local time.

If he goes to the Giro, he probably won´t do a classic heavy spring season. Like in 2023 or Pogačar in 2024.