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Best Grand Tour of the year

Page 2 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

Best Grand Tour of the year

  • Tour

    Votes: 9 8.3%
  • Giro

    Votes: 56 51.4%
  • Vuelta

    Votes: 44 40.4%

  • Total voters
    109
  • Poll closed .
Aug 15, 2016
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Vuelta 9
Giro 6
Tour 4

i don't quite get the Giro fascination, it's like some myth that people want to keep alive at all costs

"short crank length" Nibali barely beating Kruiswijk with no team and tumbling in the snow vs.
Quintana vs Froome and Contador deciding the winner with a 100km attack

why is even a discussion about this lol

p.s. i personally found the Giro boring mostly due the lack of quality in the field.
 
Jun 30, 2014
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Re:

PremierAndrew said:
The Giro really wasn't that good until the final week, because of Kruijswijk's dominance, which resembled Froome's dominance in the Tour, and dominance is never fun to watch.

The Vuelta otoh was always pretty open
The Corvara stage was awesome, we had a great MTT the Arezzo stage that was won by Brambilla when Dumoulin cracked was also great and the stages won by Ulissi were also fun to watch but yeah, the final week was even better.
 
Hard one. I think the Giro lacked GC caliber . Not in the names, but the coathanger crashed, Uran and even Nibali had an-off week in there and Chaves faded a bit at the end.

On the flip side the fastest guy in the Vuelta couldn't even get a WordlTour contract. Two guys who won sprints were basically carrying water bottles for Simon Yates inside 20km. The lack of anything even vaguely resembling a true sprinter does hurt the Vuelta.

But, overall, even outside Formigal, I have to go with the Vuelta.
 
Re:

Amnes2015 said:
Vuelta 9
Giro 6
Tour 4

i don't quite get the Giro fascination, it's like some myth that people want to keep alive at all costs

"short crank length" Nibali barely beating Kruiswijk with no team and tumbling in the snow vs.
Quintana vs Froome and Contador deciding the winner with a 100km attack

why is even a discussion about this lol

p.s. i personally found the Giro boring mostly due the lack of quality in the field.
There was no lack of quality. It was a high quaility race. Nibali, Kruisjwijk in form that would've podiumed the Tour and Chaves. Rewatch it. Stage 4, 6, 8, 11, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20 especially. Even 9 and 13 too, and 18 for some awesome breakaway action. It had more good stages than the Vuelta.
 
I started typing Vuelta

then thought actually the Giro ended amazingly

then thought harder and remember distinctly thinking the Giro's GC was looking like being a bit of a damp squib until Kruijswijk stacked into the snowbank so I think I am in fact safe saying that the Vuelta was the most enjoyable GT of the year when considered as a 3 week spectacle.
 
Mar 13, 2015
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Giro for me. Magnificent racing! Two old school "grande corredores", another two great racers, younger and not so well known, fighting all the way, attacking from the first bump on the road, on the climbs, descents, on the flat. From Corvara until the very end it was breathtaking action, full of twists and turns. Amazing race.
Vuelta, just slightly below Giro. Bigger names, but little less action and quality racing
Tour...well :(
 
Jul 4, 2015
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I voted for the tour because the best rider won (whereas nibali at giro and nairo at vuelta is debatable not debate about Chris), what's more the winner attacked descent, flat, ascent he did 1-2 with Sagan. Sagan of course great highlight of the rise then the rise from the ashes by Mark cavendish, and the aggressive riders by the French especially harder who was brilliant. Only downside was nairo passiveness as well as Yates.
Secondly I put vuelta interesting race with good summit finishes but no great attacks by the leader, OBE were fantastic with long range attacks froome also entertained, Alberto was disappointing but expecting too much from him.
Finally the giro, boring until the final weekend kruisjweich had it in the bag until he stupidly crashed and then the great chaves vs Nibali thing but that was it.
 
Re: Re:

Brullnux said:
Escarabajo said:
hrotha said:
It's impossible to take this poll seriously if you don't even make an effort to avoid the bias that comes with the Vuelta being fresh in our memories.
Everyone should take their rating immediately after the race and check it again and vote here after that. That would clear the bias!
The Giro wins then.

Probably, rightfully so you could argue, but I don't think the gap is that big at all. Very close in my estimation. I don't think we should underrated the star power of Contador and especially the battle between the two best GT-riders Quintana and Froome.
 
Re: Re:

Valv.Piti said:
Brullnux said:
Escarabajo said:
hrotha said:
It's impossible to take this poll seriously if you don't even make an effort to avoid the bias that comes with the Vuelta being fresh in our memories.
Everyone should take their rating immediately after the race and check it again and vote here after that. That would clear the bias!
The Giro wins then.

Probably, rightfully so you could argue, but I don't think the gap is that big at all. Very close in my estimation. I don't think we should underrated the star power of Contador and especially the battle between the two best GT-riders Quintana and Froome.
This wasn't like an opinion, I checked all the 'rate the GT' threads and the Giro had an average of about 8, Tour like 4 and the Vuelta so far has 7 :p
 
Re: Re:

Brullnux said:
Valv.Piti said:
Brullnux said:
Escarabajo said:
hrotha said:
It's impossible to take this poll seriously if you don't even make an effort to avoid the bias that comes with the Vuelta being fresh in our memories.
Everyone should take their rating immediately after the race and check it again and vote here after that. That would clear the bias!
The Giro wins then.

Probably, rightfully so you could argue, but I don't think the gap is that big at all. Very close in my estimation. I don't think we should underrated the star power of Contador and especially the battle between the two best GT-riders Quintana and Froome.
This wasn't like an opinion, I checked all the 'rate the GT' threads and the Giro had an average of about 8, Tour like 4 and the Vuelta so far has 7 :p

Aaah, ok. Got ya, agree with the polls.
 
Giro had drama,Vuelta had real action, Tour was a clown show (but not entirely the riders fault).

Giro - 7.5 (Needed some action on the intermediate stages)
Tour - 5 (TDF organisers need to take a good long look at their product)
Vuelta - 8 (two or three real sprinters and it would be a 9)
 
What sucks for me is the only cycling race in general I really am able to watch the whole thing on is Tour while other races I watch highlights if I can find them and read through al the pages on here to see what happens.
Highlights for me on what I was able to see
Giro: Nibali winning was good. Valverde's stage win and podium. Chaves performance. Kruijswijk performance.
Tour: Cavs stage wins and yellow jersey. I literally had to check 3 different websites to make sure he 1st won because I looked it up at work and didn't believe the first site I read. Sagan's stage wins. GVA win and yellow. Froome's descent. Stage 20.
Vuelta: Unfortunately I could not find very many videos so the only thing I am going off of is the results and how exciting it was reading you guys talk about it in the stage threads. Stage 15 sounded very good and was a great read.

From what I was able to watch Tour, Giro, Vuelta.
 
Races are judged too much on entertainment value. The Giro was the most entertaining race because of all the surprises and suspense until the last climb, but in terms of athletic quality I think the Giro was the least of the three. The Vuelta had the best combination of athletic quality and suspense. The Tour was too one-sided.
 
Same as usual:
Giro has the route, (but suffers because of rider caution about the route);
Tour has the prestige, (but suffers because of rider contentment about a prestigious 8th or 12th place);
Vuelta has the excitement (because everyone suffers from the season that leads up to it).
 
I voted Vuelta because I like to see lots of GC action, which over half the stages delivered.

Vuelta - best competition for GC victory. 

Tour - the strongest/best rider in the race won, unlike in the Giro or the Vuelta. Obviously, the depth of talent across all rider types was much deeper than the Giro or Vuelta.

Giro - epic parcours again, GC field lacking depth again though. Scores extra points for the Nibali 'miracle'.
 
Giro over the Vuelta basically because of the 'cooked' factor - the peloton has been running on fumes for the last week or so. In a lot of ways it makes the racing more interesting, but it also devalues it all somewhat.

But they were two entertaining GT's.

As for the Tour......it was basically unwatchable.
 
I voted Vuelta. Giro parcours is always great but, no offense to Chaves the competition was weak. Nibali wasn't in great form like 2013 and 2014 but he won anyway - 7/10.

The Tour was predictable. I was happy to see LRP finally prove his doubters wrong that he could ride strong for 3 weeks without imploding but with AC crashing out and Nairo sub par it was way too easy for Froome - 6/10.

Normally I don't rate the Vuelta as I considered it a consolation Grand Tour for riders who failed or didn't bother with the Tour. But this year the Vuelta had nearly everything except decent sprinters. Epic attacks, surprises and it kept me in suspense to the end 8/10.