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2020 Tour de France route rumors

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Not a bad route at all but a bad route for the Tour because basically is a Vuelta and IMHO every GT should respect his own identity. No sprinters/classics riders/rouleurs friendly first week that could hamper the climbers, no real TTs, only one stage above 200 kms, no big mountain stages and thats are all things that enlight the Tour identity.

I think that they thought "what we could do to have more possibility for Pinot to survive for three weeks without killing his body in some way?", for sure it's not a route for Alaphilippe as was largely said because Col de Loze will be enough to kill him but probably also Grand Colombiere or Loudenville if properly raced, unless he'll take another step up.
 
In the 3 first mountain stages Pinot got away from Bernal.
In the 3 first mountain stages Pinot got away from Bernal.

Yeah I meant in the final week. No doubt he was climbing as well as anyone but his problem has always been finishing off the race. He often does well in the first two weeks but until this year he was often having problems with the TT and being consistent in the mountains. I was reacting to fans who said he will never win it and I guess they have a point so far even though I see some hope for a victory.
 
Given he was leading the rest of the GC group on the Galibier while already affected by the injury, I think Pinot at the very least would have been the best of the rest if he didnt break down

Bernals level in the Alps is simply hard to gauge given the circumstances
 
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I still see some complaints even if it seems ASO checks in various race design threads. You have Orcieres and Lousette-Agouial in the 1st week, Issarbe. I would even say that the pacing of the overall race is getting better. I still have one complaint and that's the placement of this TT as it may tamper some's attacks. Otherwise i'm actually fine with TdF turning into next Vuelta as i wasn't a fan of Tour's identity to begin with and i'm perfectly fine with post-2015 Vuelta. You see new or forgotten climbs, a better placement of some crucial climbs, better pacing in general etc.

What i like:
  • everybody will be dropping dodo on the Turini descent so i expect a lot of crashes the stage before,
  • Orcieres-Merlette and Lusette-Agouial very early in the race,
  • mountain stages have actual mountains in them,
  • good pacing in the Alps, the Glieres stage may see a lot of action,
  • interesting ITT,
  • transitional stages have a lot of quite serious climbs in them,
  • no sprint stages abuse.

What i dislike:
  • Ichere is unnecesary, maybe elongate the stage to cover Bagargi and drop Issarbe?
  • placing of the ITT,
  • potential abuse of transitional stages, there's a lot of them,
  • i myself used plenty of times the steep variants of Neronne and Peyrol but i'm not sure it's good for a stage finish.

That's a very quick opinion and i guess i've missed a lot of things so it may be edited in the future. For now i give it 8/10 - like the route.
 
Not a bad route at all but a bad route for the Tour because basically is a Vuelta and IMHO every GT should respect his own identity. No sprinters/classics riders/rouleurs friendly first week that could hamper the climbers, no real TTs, only one stage above 200 kms, no big mountain stages and thats are all things that enlight the Tour identity.

I think that they thought "what we could do to have more possibility for Pinot to survive for three weeks without killing his body in some way?", for sure it's not a route for Alaphilippe as was largely said because Col de Loze will be enough to kill him but probably also Grand Colombiere or Loudenville if properly raced, unless he'll take another step up.

That is a good thing imo. The only thing a sprinter friendly first week does to hinder the climbers is to cause a heightened risk of crashes due to the less selective group thinning course that therefore creates a heightened sense of nervousness.

I would hope for another stage with high crosswinds potential and a 45km flattish ITT on Day 5-8 range would open things out nicely.

Love that many teams will likely not even bring their sprinter giving greater opportunities for the breakaway artists.

Sagan still looks nailed on for the Green Jersey except if Alaphillipe was to target it at the expense of a quest for the Maillot Jaune.

Looks a really nice course for Roglic but would have been better for him had the time trial been early in the race.

Long range favourite based on the route is still Bernal for me but plenty of others can contend here.
 
Whem.

All I ever see is hate for TTTs while some also argue 120km of ITT in a GT is a thing of the past

I think the old style GT TT was far too much and gave the big engines a bigger advantage than deserved and ensured all the likes of Big Mig had to do in the mountains was grind their way up and limit losses to a minute or so per mountain stage.

I prefer the current way where to win normally a GC contender has to be at least competent in the TT and able to attack in the mountains as opposed to just clinging on.
 
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I think the old style GT TT was far too much and gave the big engines a bigger advantage than deserved and ensured all the likes of Big Mig had to do in the mountains was grind their way up and limit losses to a minute or so per mountain stage.

I prefer the current way where to win normally a GC contender has to be at least competent in the TT and able to attack in the mountains as opposed to just clinging on.
Precisely. I think between 40-80km is more ideal for the mountains of most GTs, with Vuelta probably being more balanced at the lower end of this and the Giro can probably get away with 80km if they simply go crazy with the mountain stages and also put good stages in the first two weeks.

And I definitely prefer the long ITT in the middle of the race rather than towards the end.

Since the 2015 Giro ITT we've only had 2 ITTs of 40km or more, and they were 40 and 40.5km.
 
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I have seen that some posters have expectations for the Glieres stage. I would be skeptical about this stage because Glieres is 32km from finish which is too far to encourage attacks. Possibly riders will keep in mind that ITT is expected in two days.

I think this is an unnecessarily pessimistic way to look at things. It's the last chance saloon in the mountains, it has plenty of tough terrain, and the ITT isn't even the day after.
 
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I think this is an unnecessarily pessimistic way to look at things. It's the last chance saloon in the mountains, it has plenty of tough terrain, and the ITT isn't even the day after.
32km are too much nowadays. Since 2010 they have not had an action on HC climb 30km+ before finish (stage to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne stage with Madelaine).
 
32km are too much nowadays. Since 2010 they have not had an action on HC climb 30km+ before finish (stage to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne stage with Madelaine).
The absolute record in this forum for the stage thread with most posts belongs to this for a reason:
The stage the day after was even better regarding action on an HC climb far from the finish.
But yes, things started going worse in 2012. I'm wondering why... :rolleyes:
 
The absolute record in this forum for the stage thread with most posts belongs to this for a reason:
The stage the day after was even better regarding action on an HC climb far from the finish.
But yes, things started going worse in 2012. I'm wondering why... :rolleyes:
  • Schleck crashing out of Dauphine
  • Cuddles decline
  • Contador ban
  • Leecheimer never leeched like Suisse again
  • I started posting
 

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