2x Alpe d'Huez?

[scullster46]

maybe something like this

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/857117

I may be dreaming on this a bit, but where would we be without dreamers

 

[boeroj]

Unsafe last day in the mountains

I think it would be unsafe to encourage thousands to attend the last day of the Tour up on the mountains. How are they going to keep everything organized? Given the numbers it is simply not practical and would carry too many liabilities for the organizers and the teams, not to mention the riders and spectators. I would however welcome a Saturday stage in the mountains and to celebrate at Le Champs next day!

 

[luckyboy]

I like the idea of not always finishing on the Champs Elysées, but frankly this whole "do the same legendary climb twice" shtick is getting old, especially considering there are huge numbers of climbs as good as if not better than anything they ever use, going completely unused - Mont du Chat, Larrau, Burdincurutcheta, Orgambidesca, Errozate, Arnostegi and so on.

The Tour is incredibly repetitive, always uses the same climbs. Sure, moving the finish away from Champs d'Elysées is novel, but using Alpe d'Huez just reeks of predictability. "We want to do something special in the mountains!" "OK, Alpe d'Huez again then. All OK with that?" It all reeks of being a bit "safe". "We're moving away from Paris!" "OK, but we don't want to do anything too crazy. Make sure we use somewhere that people who don't know anything about cycling have heard of" "OK, that means Alpe d'Huez or Ventoux I guess".

After the waste of an opportunity that the Corsica stages are, a TTT when they get back onto the mainland and now this idea, this route looks like being absolutely awful. I bet next they'll come up with the revolutionary idea of ignoring the western and eastern Pyrénées entirely and instead making a big deal out of the incredibly unexpected announcement that they'll be climbing the Tourmalet.

Yeah this is pretty much my thinking. Fresh new idea but also some 'same old same old' thrown in.

Put it on Bastille day.

Sprint stage on Bastille day?

 

[jens_attacks]

loved the "the experts" part from the cyclingnews story _o_

 

[Richeypen]

They had the chace to do something purely epic witout resorting to going up and down the same climb. Maybe a big loop starting and finishing in Paris. In the first week they could roughly cover the courses of P-R, RVV and LBL Before heading down south for the mountains.

 

[Susan Westemeyer]

Thanks folks. As you can see, the story is up.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/for...-dhuez-as-possible-tour-de-france-2013-finale

Thanks again.

Do you like this idea, of getting your comments on the site?

Susan

 

[Maxiton]

But you missed the best comments - mine!

 

[RedheadDane]

Riding the Alpe twice (however they'll do it with the roads not being all super): Yeah... why not? Of course they'd need a longer time-cut than last year. Heard they were going to alter the rules for them anyway. But... I think it can be done.

Finishing The Tour on the Alpe: Not so sure. First of all; there is a certain tradition about the Champs. But also can it be done practically? I know they have smaller podium ceremonies up there when there's a stage finish, but the finale of a GT sorta deserves a bigger podium-ceremony than what can be made space for on the top of a mountain.


And I think this getting your opinions on the front page stuff is great.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Why do they need a longer time cut? It's just two HC mountains. The time cut is done as a % of the winner's time anyway.

In the Alpe stage this year they climbed two HC mountains, why is it any different if, instead of Galibier+Alpe d'Huez, it's Alpe d'Huez+Alpe d'Huez? Even if they add another one, they climbed 3 in the Galibier stage...

 

[cineteq]

Do you like this idea, of getting your comments on the site?

Susan

This is huge. Cyclists, Team Managers, Organizers, etc. can read our comments just like that.

After seeing some posts, I have my doubts on this idea. Security issues with the fans, resulting in an unfair final last day for some GC riders...hmmm...still I want to see a decisive stage on the last day though.

 

[RedheadDane]

Why do they need a longer time cut? It's just two HC mountains. The time cut is done as a % of the winner's time anyway.

Because we saw what happened this year on both Galibier and the Alpe. As Brian Holm said during the Tour "If they want a cleaner sport they need to make it a little more humane." Apparently the current system is from the mid 90es. If I recall correctly it wasn't exactly the cleanest period...
And what I meant wasn't time cut for that particular stage should be longer but time cuts should in general be made longer. But that's probably a discussion for somewhere else. After all; the riders are only humans. Crazy humans, yes! But... humans...

 

[killswitch]

Because we saw what happened this year on both Galibier and the Alpe. As Brian Holm said during the Tour "If they want a cleaner sport they need to make it a little more humane."...

What does it mean more humane? A fit amateur cyclist could ride every stage in the Tour and the only difference with the Pros will be the average speed (and the stage time). The amateurs will suffer the same as the Pros. And this speed is dictated by the best cyclists (Conta, Andy, etc.). So to be more humane (IMO) the gap between the best and the weakest cyclist has to be reduced, be it less doping, better nutrition and preparation...

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Because we saw what happened this year on both Galibier and the Alpe. As Brian Holm said during the Tour "If they want a cleaner sport they need to make it a little more humane." Apparently the current system is from the mid 90es. If I recall correctly it wasn't exactly the cleanest period...
And what I meant wasn't time cut for that particular stage should be longer but time cuts should in general be made longer. But that's probably a discussion for somewhere else. After all; the riders are only humans. Crazy humans, yes! But... humans...

They brought in that points penalty to try to discourage the autobus from ignoring the time cut, on the basis that if there were enough of them, they wouldn't be thrown out of the race, so they weren't trying to beat the time cut. The points penalty is obviously not strong enough, as is evidenced from Farrar and Greipel commenting on putting their guys to drive the bus to beat the time limit only to be met with criticism from other riders that don't want the pace going up, and don't care if they get docked points (while the sprinters obviously do). Making the time limits looser only encourages that lack of caring, and I'm sure sometimes groups would still miss the cut and not be thrown out, depending on the race situation, only they got an even easier ride than before.

The time cut is designed as a % of the winner's time. If the winner is doping less (and in general they are, even if riders are still doping, the quantities have gone down considerably since the mid-90s), then it stands to reason that they complete the course in more time, ergo the time limit will increase to match.

 

[Papparrazzi]

If this proposal is true, it's so wrong.
I can't help thinking money is at the root of it.

 

[Gaul 58]

You printed my letter suggesting this years ago... so I've got to be in favour.

In recent years, the Giro has progressively swamped the Tour in terms of suspense thanks to the uncertainty of the winner right through to the end.

The Tour's magic has also drifted thanks to ear-pieces making for boring races as sprinters teams keep the gap to the break under control (bring back Ghirotto) there's a danger of switching off totally or just recording the last 200m.

Next eliminate the TT and give us a racing finish to 21 days of racing.

 

[RedheadDane]

What does it mean more humane? A fit amateur cyclist could ride every stage in the Tour and the only difference with the Pros will be the average speed (and the stage time). The amateurs will suffer the same as the Pros. And this speed is dictated by the best cyclists (Conta, Andy, etc.). So to be more humane (IMO) the gap between the best and the weakest cyclist has to be reduced, be it less doping, better nutrition and preparation...

I'm lost! I'm seriously lost! How would a cleaner race mean lesser time between the fastest and the slowest. Cleaner means winners haven't doped but also sprinters don't dope to survive. The beauty about cycling is the fact that we have people like Contador, the Schlecks, Rodriquez, etc who are crazy enough to actually race up the mountains, as well as guys like Cavendish who sees a mountain and (probably) think ****!

And yes a fit amateur probably could ride every stage in the Tour, but they wouldn't have to worry about time-cuts. Or anything! And they could do it over a longer period.

They brought in that points penalty to try to discourage the autobus from ignoring the time cut, on the basis that if there were enough of them, they wouldn't be thrown out of the race, so they weren't trying to beat the time cut. The points penalty is obviously not strong enough, as is evidenced from Farrar and Greipel commenting on putting their guys to drive the bus to beat the time limit only to be met with criticism from other riders that don't want the pace going up, and don't care if they get docked points (while the sprinters obviously do). Making the time limits looser only encourages that lack of caring, and I'm sure sometimes groups would still miss the cut and not be thrown out, depending on the race situation, only they got an even easier ride than before.

Okay. You do have a point there. But I remember an interview from the Alpe-stage this year. One of the gruppetto-guys said that they pretty much gave up because they thought they were long past the time-cut. Implying at least the way I understood it that if they'd known they had more time they would have worked more. After all; there's a difference between "Whatever, we've already missed the time cut by 15 minutes. Let's just survive..." and "We still got 15 minutes back of the time-cut. Come on guys! We can do this!" It might be a purely psychological thing but... it's a thing...
And now you'll probably say that they wouldn't even have thought they'd missed the cut if they'd just raced the best they could. But do we know if they didn't? No. We don't know what happened out there. They might've been giving it all they got. Remember those were the stages (Galibier and Alpe) when someone decided to go on an 'all-in' attack from far out. I'm... not and expert but I think it might've made the winning time rather shorter than if the GC-guys had just behaved as they did in the Pyrenees...

The time cut is designed as a % of the winner's time. If the winner is doping less (and in general they are, even if riders are still doping, the quantities have gone down considerably since the mid-90s), then it stands to reason that they complete the course in more time, ergo the time limit will increase to match.

Maybe... maybe the system just never really worked...

 

[greenedge]

I would not mind this climb in the route but i do not think it should be the last day. There are other climbs that ASO could choose as well. It will however be an epic stage ( in magnitude/ proportions/ setting up ). However you then take away from the fan base that comes to Paris to be on the CE every year. There shall have to also be all kinds of security concerns.

Instead of a mountain or sprint stage on the last day i would prefer an ITT around Paris ( 1989 ) which was an epic TDF ( or so i am told ). The stage would be poignant and still attract big crowds.

 

[craig1985]

They brought in that points penalty to try to discourage the autobus from ignoring the time cut, on the basis that if there were enough of them, they wouldn't be thrown out of the race, so they weren't trying to beat the time cut. The points penalty is obviously not strong enough, as is evidenced from Farrar and Greipel commenting on putting their guys to drive the bus to beat the time limit only to be met with criticism from other riders that don't want the pace going up, and don't care if they get docked points (while the sprinters obviously do). Making the time limits looser only encourages that lack of caring, and I'm sure sometimes groups would still miss the cut and not be thrown out, depending on the race situation, only they got an even easier ride than before.

The time cut is designed as a % of the winner's time. If the winner is doping less (and in general they are, even if riders are still doping, the quantities have gone down considerably since the mid-90s), then it stands to reason that they complete the course in more time, ergo the time limit will increase to match.

I don't know how you're going to get a perfect situation.

As for the stage itself, it would be cool if they had a MTF finish but went up the back road instead.

 

[pedaling squares]

I would like to see this tour end with a real stage, instead of observing a foregone conclusion with a sprint thrown in for bad measure. The staged shots with the champagne and the team cars are old and tired. This proposal may have many flaws, but at least it gets us off the champs for a year and at least it is a sign that they are thinking outside their tiny little box.

 

[phanatic]

it is a sign that they are thinking outside their tiny little box.

why not finish in Belgium, then? Maybe for 2015.

 

[craig1985]

The last three years the Giro has finished in Rome, Verona, and Milan, maybe the finish in a different part of France, say Lyon.

 

[RedheadDane]

RE Time-cut:

Another problem is that fact that The quicker the winner-time, the lesser the time-cut.
On one end of the scale we have the climbers, GC-guys and people going for a stage-win. If they take it "easy" they might finish the stage in 5h'30, if they start going into far-out just-want-to-have-fun attacks the finish-time might be 5h'00.
On the other end of the scale we have the gruppetto-guys. Sprinters, TTers, domestiques, the slightly wounded. They might, if they all give it their all eat their own **** as Lars Bak would say..., finish the stage in 6h'00.
Let's imagine a case when the climbers took it easy and finished the stage in 5h'30, the time-cut was then set to 35 minutes. The gruppetto would make it, finishing 5 minutes inside the time-cut. But if the climbers are in a hurry and finish the stage in 5h'00 the time-cut might be only 20 minutes... remember; the gruppetto-guys still need 6 hours...

 

[CobbleStoner]

the top dog doesn't have to do/change anything, it is up to the wannabe's to try new things, tougher routes, to try and take over the top dog's number 1 position.
good luck Giro & Vuelta

 

[scullster46]

the top dog doesn't have to do/change anything, it is up to the wannabe's to try new things, tougher routes, to try and take over the top dog's number 1 position.
good luck Giro & Vuelta

You don't know too much about business then, do you? The giro is the top GT for much of the forum(possibly even the majority).

Here are a couple of companies who rested on their laurels. Blackberry and Palm Pilot. You can't just keep doing the same thing and always expect it to work

 

[Ferminal]

the top dog doesn't have to do/change anything, it is up to the wannabe's to try new things, tougher routes, to try and take over the top dog's number 1 position.
good luck Giro & Vuelta

The ASO are always trying new things... Aubisque, Tourmalet and Galibier MTFs; Ventoux on the penultimate day.