2023 Tour de France route rumors

[Ricco']

Yeah, the game changer for Lance and US Postal was the 70km TTT where they gained substantial time over their rivals (with only ONCE giving some challenge).

I'd say that in 2003 the 2 TTs even made the racing more interesting.

 

[Skijumper Roglic fan]

Today‘s cycling IMHO has not enough time trials. They should organize many more time trials. For the GTs, I think this would be perfect: one time trial of 20 kilometers for stage one, two long time trials a ca 40 kms, and one mountain time trial of ca 15 kms (completely uphill).

A team time trial is actually not a necessary thing.

Every rider of the World Tour should ride 15 competition days a season on his time trial bike.

 

[Netserk]

By the nature of these arguments, there shouldn't be any hard MTFs either. They just decide the race and then it's over. Hautacam 2000, Alpe d'Huez 2001 etc.

 

[Red Rick]

By the nature of these arguments, there shouldn't be any hard MTFs either. They just decide the race and then it's over. Hautacam 2000, Alpe d'Huez 2001 etc.

Yes because that would totally make a race uncompetitive that could have been competitive with a different route.

 

[Netserk]

Yes because that would totally make a race uncompetitive that could have been competitive with a different route.

Any race can be competitive with a different route.

So TTs are bad when the main contenders are all good at it, as it doesn't add anything. And TTs are bad when the contenders are not equally good at it, as it then could decide the race. Better not have any, ever.

 

[Skijumper Roglic fan]

What I wanted to add: I would love to see a long ITT, Tourmalet plus MTF, or Galibier plus Les Deux Alpes.

Or, since organizers are always looking for something new, something exciting: why not have a 180 kms ITT, with 4500 vertical meters? This would create a hard mountain stage with GC action from km 0. With today‘s technical possibilities, they then could permanently show the time gaps of the stage and in GC live on screen. The GC riders would have to control their pacing from km 0. This would be exciting!

 

[tobydawq]

By the nature of these arguments, there shouldn't be any hard MTFs either. They just decide the race and then it's over. Hautacam 2000, Alpe d'Huez 2001 etc.

Of course there is the added implication that MTFs are much more exciting to watch and hence more justified as the deciders of races.

 

[Red Rick]

Any race can be competitive with a different route.

So TTs are bad when the main contenders are all good at it, as it doesn't add anything. And TTs are bad when the contenders are not equally good at it, as it then could decide the race. Better not have any, ever.

Just make up something I never said so you can be right.

 

[YavorD]

Comee on, extra or longer TTs won't bring anything extra to the race with the current crop of favorites. Vingo and Pog would be minute away early, but you'd have the same without a TT anyway. Remco COULD (and only could, as I perfectly see how Pog or V can match him on a mid race TT).. And potentially Bernal could drop some time and attack like crazy, but he is/was not good enough against P and V.
What we need really is good classics like stages.
I like TTs but they'd be more of a use in the Giro or Vuelta and save longer TTs in TdF for when we have better crop of favorites pre-race to benefit the whole race.

 

[Ricco']

Of course there is the added implication that MTFs are much more exciting to watch and hence more justified as the deciders of races.

An ITT is not less exciting than some mountain or hilly stages we had this year like Morgins, Megève or Mende.

I would take a ITT (preferably hilly with something like 40km) anytime instead of those stages. And on the penultimate stage, take out the ITT, and put an hard hilly stage or a high mountain stage with multiple climbs without extreme gradients who would finish in a short hill, a easy grinding climb or after a descent.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Of course there is the added implication that MTFs are much more exciting to watch and hence more justified as the deciders of races.

You sound dismissive of this, but at the same time TV viewing figures would appear to back this implication up, however.

Nevertheless, without the time trials and other things that force riders to have deficits to overcome, MTFs end up boring too.

Just look at the recent Tour. One of the least competitive in ages in terms of close competition, but simultaneously one of the most exciting, because there was less to lose by attacking and so we saw plenty of it - a limited number of genuine GC threats, but those that there were fought tooth and nail rather than staring each other down for most of the race as has too frequently been the case when the race is too close to dare blink. When everybody is within 3 minutes of each other, a failed attack could cost you several places on GC and if you only need to gain a small amount of time, there's no need in doing something super risky, that's why the attacks from deep from major contenders tended to only happen right near the end of the race when they were running out of opportunities - Schleck 2011, Contador 2012, Quintana 2013 - whereas if there are big gaps in the field, a failed attack might only drop you from 2nd to 3rd, or not even at all if you get rid of the rider behind, so there's less to lose by doing so - and given you need to make up more time, you have to attack from further out to make up that time.

It's a horses for courses situation. In a close race, almost every attack means something more significant, but it's less likely to come until very late on. In a less closely-contested race, there will be more action from far out, but a lot of it is only of minor importance. With proper balance, gaps can be overcome. Organisers in recent years have seemed to be too scared of settling a GC super early and this has rubbed off on the fans, especially given the one time they've given us a course with a more traditional amount of TT mileage recently was 2012, the culmination of about a year of TT-heavy ASO races with mountains well suited to tight controlled tempo, which were perfect for Sky and Wiggins, so wasn't especially well received from a spectacle point of view, and they've shied away from trying that kind of TT mileage again - but with a couple of mountain stages like a 2009 Le Grand Bornand or perhaps a Peyragudes one more like the 2013 Vuelta, and a stage like this year's epic Granon stage in there, it would have been absolutely fine.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Its basically the classic discussion of whether you rather would want a 1) tight and open race, where actual racing is close to nonexistent (I think TdF 2017 are best examples) or 2) a dominant rider/two dominant riders fighting it out (2022 is probably the best example, 2010 also comes to mind, but that was weak IMO).

With the riders available as of right now, I wouldn't be against two long time trials at all. Pogacar is better at an early ITT, Vingegaard slightly better in the late ones. But theres one thing we're forgetting, and that is Remco Evenepoel. Obviously, we don't know what might happen, but lets say Remco crack the podium in this year's Vuelta. Lefevre is on record stating 2024 is the goal, but if you throw in 100 km of ITT, Remco lines uå next year, and if he can take a few minutes of Pogacar and Vingegaard, we have an even better races. In terms of all the climbers in the 3-8 range of the GC, this year clearly showed that time gaps actually made them race, and the fight was one of the more overlooked thing of this years Tour. Not only did it impact the race on many occasions where we saw som fringe top-10 riders up the road, forcing other teams to react and race, and in the Pyrenees that was especially obvious where the multiple attack form the riders in the top 5-10 range actually helped the race get better as a result of going against each other from a far, forcing other teams to chase etc etc.

 

[houtdffan]

Why?

The races were much better balanced, instead of only allowing the flyweight climbers a chance to win

A rider like Pantani would be nearly unbeatable on today's routes (except maybe to Lance himself and only if Lance was in top form), even though he was not even close to being the best all around rider

 

[tobydawq]

The races were much better balanced, instead of only allowing the flyweight climbers a chance to win

A rider like Pantani would be nearly unbeatable on today's routes (except maybe to Lance himself and only if Lance was in top form), even though he was not even close to being the best all around rider

Oh, okay, which riders today are like Pantani, and which are like Armstrong?

 

[Red Rick]

The races were much better balanced, instead of only allowing the flyweight climbers a chance to win

A rider like Pantani would be nearly unbeatable on today's routes (except maybe to Lance himself and only if Lance was in top form), even though he was not even close to being the best all around rider

Silly things happen when you take one element of the past and nothign else changes. Pantani could win unipuerto stages by minutes just flying away because he wanted to.

 

[houtdffan]

Oh, okay, which riders today are like Pantani, and which are like Armstrong?

closest to an Armstrong in recent years was Froome. Basically a poor man's Armstrong

 

[houtdffan]

Silly things happen when you take one element of the past and nothign else changes. Pantani could win unipuerto stages by minutes just flying away because he wanted to.

of course, we should return to real mountain stages. However, the riders of today seem to be able to make large gaps with Pescheux Specials. The issue with the last decade was the overall timidity of anyone not named Contador to actually race

 

[Netserk]

closest to an Armstrong in recent years was Froome. Basically a poor man's Armstrong

And Quintana was a poor man's Pantani?

 

[houtdffan]

And Quintana was a poor man's Pantani?

something similar

 

[Gigs_98]

What is happening? Where are the times when the average opinion of this forum was that a GT without a bazillion TT kilometers can't even really be called a GT anymore?

On a more serious note though, I don't really understand how the gt's of the last few years have changed some peoples opinion about TT's to the worse. Let's go through the GT's of the last few years and look at how the TT's affacted them.

2022 Tour: Barely affected by TT's, hence not negatively affected either.
2022 Giro: Hardly any TT km's, race sucked.
2021 Vuelta: Roglic gained a lot in TT's, but the racing wasn't really negatively affected.
2021 Tour: Pogacar was dominating anyway, again racing wasn't negatively affected by TT's.
2021 Giro: Same but with Bernal. At least at the beginning climbers were afraid of Remco.
2020 Vuelta: The TT decided the race, yet the race was still very close.
2020 Giro: Strongly affected by the TT's which made the race much better.
2020 Tour: Both contenders great TT'ers yet the TT is what made the entire race memorable.
2019 Vuelta: TT's caused big gaps which made the race great.
2019 Tour: Alaphilippe gaining and Bernal losing time in the TT made the race much better.
2019 Giro: Again the big time gaps from the TT's completely made this race.

I don't really want to go back any further but I think you understand what I'm trying to say. Maybe you could argue one of these races could have been better without TT's but even then not by a lot. Meanwhile I'd argue every GT between the 2019 Giro and the 2020 Giro (hence 5 gt's in a row) were made siginficantly better by TT's and the race with the fewest TT kilometres on this entire list, the 2022 Giro, was by far the worst of these gt's

 

[fbjim]

How many of those races had an amount of TTs that we saw in the "real GT" era? People were slamming the 2019 and 2020 Tours de France for a lack of TTs.

I think the real problem is that they're still scared of the Sky era. Say what you want about positive or negative racing but "GT guy sticks with the climbers and then beats them all by two minutes on the TT" was not compelling viewing for anyone. Ideally you'd like a situation where the "old school GT" guys lose time to the climbers to make up for it but that hasn't been happening lately.

 

[ashhutch1997]

Could you imagine how much better the 2020 Tour would have been if there was a 30km flat ITT after the first rest day? It would have meant that stages 15 and 18 would have been properly raced rather than reduced bunch sprints.

 

[Red Rick]

What is happening? Where are the times when the average opinion of this forum was that a GT without a bazillion TT kilometers can't even really be called a GT anymore?

On a more serious note though, I don't really understand how the gt's of the last few years have changed some peoples opinion about TT's to the worse. Let's go through the GT's of the last few years and look at how the TT's affacted them.

2022 Tour: Barely affected by TT's, hence not negatively affected either.
2022 Giro: Hardly any TT km's, race sucked.
2021 Vuelta: Roglic gained a lot in TT's, but the racing wasn't really negatively affected.
2021 Tour: Pogacar was dominating anyway, again racing wasn't negatively affected by TT's.
2021 Giro: Same but with Bernal. At least at the beginning climbers were afraid of Remco.
2020 Vuelta: The TT decided the race, yet the race was still very close.
2020 Giro: Strongly affected by the TT's which made the race much better.
2020 Tour: Both contenders great TT'ers yet the TT is what made the entire race memorable.
2019 Vuelta: TT's caused big gaps which made the race great.
2019 Tour: Alaphilippe gaining and Bernal losing time in the TT made the race much better.
2019 Giro: Again the big time gaps from the TT's completely made this race.

I don't really want to go back any further but I think you understand what I'm trying to say. Maybe you could argue one of these races could have been better without TT's but even then not by a lot. Meanwhile I'd argue every GT between the 2019 Giro and the 2020 Giro (hence 5 gt's in a row) were made siginficantly better by TT's and the race with the fewest TT kilometres on this entire list, the 2022 Giro, was by far the worst of these gt's

2022 Giro and 2020 Tour are the same case, namely that 3 weeks of racing was bad because of the final ITT. I'm mainly arguing against the 2 long ITT idea, like you take GTs with already one decent sized TT and then adding another one. I think you need one long one that's like stage 10 at the latest. Especially in the Tour it needs to before the first block of Pyrenees/Alps.

I think just about every GT with a stage 20 TT becomes way better if you put it on stage 8-10 instead. Like why do people look back fondly at Schleck and Contador holding hands on the Tourmalet because they both think they'll be fine in the ITT. Hell I think if the Tour this year had it's ITT in the first week it would've been a decent improvement.

Finally I think you can also distinguish between the 3 GTs, and which one can have the most TT for the mountains and field they get. In that regard it would probably be Giro>Tour>Vuelta.

 

[Netserk]

2022 Giro and 2020 Tour are the same case, namely that 3 weeks of racing was bad because of the final ITT.

Do you honestly think the Giro this year was negatively affected by too much TTing?! That it would have been raced differently, to the better, if the last ITT was a flat road stage instead?

 

[Ricco']

Do you honestly think the Giro this year was negatively affected by too much TTing?! That it would have been raced differently, to the better, if the last ITT was a flat road stage instead?

Well, since Almeida's Covid happened way late in the race, if the ITT was during the 2nd week there was a big chance that Almeida would have a good lead over Carapaz, Hindley and Landa going into the third week, forcing them to attack from far to gain back time and forcing UAE to control the race.

The way it was they still needed to put time into him for the final stage but psicologically I think being already distanced forces the riders to react more than the need of gaining time to build a buffer for future stages.