Best GT of the year

[skippo12]

I agree with a lot of points mentioned here.
In my opinion a Grand Tour:
Should at least have one real leg breaker stage with multiple climbs and a distance of 200km+.
Should have at least 2 stages with high chances for crosswind and echalons. In France a cobbled stage is a good alternative.
Should have a real hilly stage (Ardennes, Toscana) with 10+ small climbs.
Should have between 50-100km individual time trial. I don`t like team time trials.
Should have 1-2 muritos.
Should have at least 3 real mountain finishes and a finish after a technical downhill.
Should have 3-5 pure sprint stages.

But in the end the riders make the race and even the best designed stage/ race won`t help when a team like Sky dominates the way they currently do. Even more a lot of riders/ teams aren`t willing to take risks and rarely animate the race before the last 5-10 kms (Contador will be missed) because they are satisfied with a 5-10 place.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

According to Froome:

"An up-and-down race, literally on occasions. It was a hell of a finale after three weeks of full gas racing and a fitting finale for this edition. Coming into the stage everything was still up in the air.This was a short stage, with lots of climbing, some tricky and wet descents, and that all made for very aggressive racing. I was counting down the kilometres until we got onto the final climb. The Tour is the biggest prize for a pro cyclist, it’s the biggest event we have on the calendar. But, for me, the Vuelta represents a different kind of bike Racing. It’s more of a physical challenge than the Tour, given the number of finishes on mountains, the aggression and the conditions. Over the three weeks we’ve had days of over 40 degrees, days like today when it’s 10 degrees and raining, extremely strong winds. It’s such a brutal race".

That agression has a name, and he's retiring today

 

[Lupi33x]

other pluses for the Vuelta,

the national guard do a better job of route security than the Tour, whoever does that

the race route was generally safer, although tougher

 

[Gerrard Slipped haha]

Even with Froome and Sky being Sky, I loved this Vuelta. Very few meaningless stages, quite few twist and turns, and in general a great route. I always enjoy Vuelta and altough the GC battle wasn't really a thing aside of one or two stages where it kinda sorta looked like Nibali could do something, this one delivered as well. It'd be so much better though if Contador didn't lose so much time in Andorra/Chaves and Valverde could've started in top form/Lopez went for the GC from the beginning. Still, with a lot of entertaining stages, Contador being Contador, Lopez shining, and Froome losing time few times, I really enjoyed this more than I thought I will.

Giro was very good, but the route really could have been better, especially I wish the 20th stage was something more spectacular. The GC battle was excellent though, Dumoulin surviving everyone's attacks and then saying *** you all and winning in Oropa was my personal favorite moment. He absolutely deserved to win this race, so happy he did.

Tour was just garbage. Not only everyone knew Froome is winning since like day 9, not only no one in peleton had balls to even act like a threat, but also the route was just the dirt f'n worst. Maybe it'd be much better had Valverde and Porte not abandoned, but with the way the things went down, I hated it, I would say just slightly better than 2012 edition, which is possibly the worst GT of all time, at least since I started watching cycling, because of that stage 9, where all the crazy stuff happened.

Probably because of a recency bias, I will say Vuelta was slightly better overall than Giro, both were great, not epic, and Tour was just so boring.

 

[DBotero]

It wasn't a good year for GT's .
Vuelta was the best as the Giro was rather mediocre.Lucky for Giro the Dumoulin toilet break made the GC battle a bit more tense.
Le Tour was the worst i ever seen.Horrible route,weak challengers for Froome,those *** descents,Porte crashing out etc.
Btw those Guardia Civil were doing an amazing job.Way too many retards closing on the riders these days.

 

[vedrafjord]

Re:

One thing I must say about the Tour route is that there was no need to get rid of most of the summit finishes. The Tour is the most conservatively raced race there is and it absolutely relies on MTFs. At least on an MTF you kinda have to attack but a descent finish just neutralizes. Either the route makes the race or the riders make the race, and when the riders aren't making it then maybe you need a better route. If they used a route similar to 2015 then you would see more action, but there's not much you can do about the Sky train.

I think they put in the descent finishes to encourage Bardet, but yeah the combination of descent finishes and low TT km means the same group of favourites finishing together over and over. They need more medium mountain stages, more TT km, a couple more MTFs and some steeper climbs.

 

[perico]

Re:

Sky killed this Vuelta.

If we could had Froome without this level of team strength, we could be in for the greatest grand tour of the last years, I think.

Giro was the best for me. After that Vuelta and then the borefest of the Tour.

Which is why my favorite all time race was probably the 2014 Vuelta. It's the one time in their overlapping careers that we saw Froome and Contador go head to head without a strong team and both coming back from injury at the TdF.

 

[ontheroad]

Vuelta hands down even if the GC contest was decided a long way out. The route was fantastic although the sprinters might not agree. The tour was a terrible route, too many long mundane sprint stages and I hope it's a long time before we see as many in the tour again. Giro was probably the most competitive and was decent. I'd love to see a true mountain TT in next years tour to help level the playing field somewhat against the dominance of Froome. A long flat TT stage just allows him to take 1.30-2.00 minutes on all his GC rivals and kill the race with defensive riding.

 

[deValtos]

Re:

Vuelta hands down even if the GC contest was decided a long way out. The route was fantastic although the sprinters might not agree. The tour was a terrible route, too many long mundane sprint stages and I hope it's a long time before we see as many in the tour again. Giro was probably the most competitive and was decent. I'd love to see a true mountain TT in next years tour to help level the playing field somewhat against the dominance of Froome. A long flat TT stage just allows him to take 1.30-2.00 minutes on all his GC rivals and kill the race with defensive riding.

Well that's what they've been trying to do in the last few TDF's and that worked out .... I think they're going to go the other way and put TT's in for Dumo so Froome has to attack.

 

[Old&slow]

Re:

Vuelta was great if you only like climbing. It offered nothing to sprinters.

I agree this was the most boring grand tour I can recall. It really was not a grand tour just a tour for climbers. Sprinters, classic riders and ITT specialists were all left out for arguably the least skilled and most boring riders the climbers. Although I will give Froome credit unlike most GC riders he can do it all climb, sprint, descend and TT. It is so sad the grand tours are moving away from requiring all arounder skilled riders like Froome in favor of pure climbers and making routes for ADHD viewers who lack the patience to actually watch, understand and enjoy cycling. Instead these grand tours are being made soley for the short attention span low information viewers.

 

[jaylew]

The Vuelta as usual, though it wasn't the greatest edition overall. Seeing the Sky train rolling at the Vuelta made me kinda sad even if it wasn't as effective as at the Tour.

Giro next. Not a good year for GTs overall.

 

[Jspear]

The Vuelta by far. AC's last pro race made it special. His attacking spirit, his stage win. That alone makes it for me. I didn't care for much else.

 

[Mozart92]

Giro. Couldn't see a clear favourite until the last stage. And clearly Vuelta for second place due to Contador being a hero.

 

[portugal11]

How can anyone say that the giro was good?? If we took blockhaus and oropa (and maybe the time trial), the first two weeks were terrible... even the last week was not that good, no one attacked on stelvio, quintana was conservative,etc
This vuelta was miles better (the vuelta wasn't great too)

 

[railxmig]

I've seen some guys writing, that Vuelta was well designed. It was probably one of the worst Vuelta designs in recent years. I don't really like this murito craze going down there. It's similar to a regular sprint stage, but with GC guys sprinting for couple of seconds, unless you're Nibali, then you can lose 30s.

Giro. There were some okay stages. Blockhaus was a good MTF. There was some minor stuff in the Alps. Dumoulin's crab-gate was quite entertaning and the last stage to Asiago was okay, but it wasn't anything special. I think the worst 3rd week design in history is at least partly for blame. Overall, it's okay in therms of other GC's but as a Giro, a bit underwhelming.

Tour. I've seen a lot of sheet thrown around for this one. 10 sprint stages is 4-5 too many. Killing Biche-Colombiere-Chat combo wit han useless 10km run-in to the finish is a failure of biblical proportions. Placing Izoard MTF after Galibier is maybe even bigger failure. But there were some okay stages, like the one to Puy-en-Velay or Foix, which did thrilled me to some extent. I wouldn't call it the worst thing ever. Compared to 2016 it's a step up in my eyes.

Vuelta. If not "Superman" Lopez and Albert the Great it would be as "thrilling", as the Tour was with Sky absolutely killing it to 2012 heights and Nibali being himself, but this time without the artificial revival in the 3rd week. Both Lopez's and Contador's attacks were rather pointless, but it did generate good racing even on normally transitional stages, like the one to Sagunt (which had the same problem Chambéry stage had). For me the best GT of the year, but this year didn't really thrill me. The classics were good though. Wonder, what Lombardia will generate.

 

[barmaher]

I really disagree that the Vuelta was badly designed compared to previous Vueltas. Although there were a fair few muritos, there was climbing before them in many cases. There were also decent medium mountain stages.

 

[Tonton]

Re:

He can anyone say that the giro was good?? If we took blockhaus and oropa (and maybe the time trial), the first two weeks were terrible... even the last week was not that good, no one attacked on stelvio, quintana was conservative,etc
This vuelta was miles better (the vuelta wasn't great too)

...the last week of the Giro was quite good for me, thank you very much .

Reading the last two pages, it's a lot like "what have you done for me lately". The Contador quest and happy ending are doing their trick. Ask the same question a monyh from now, and I would bet that opinions are much more favorable for Il Giro.

The Giro had the only (kinda) serious amount of ITT. That, in itself, means better design. Muritos are sexy, and they work. One thing that Le Tour could do. Artificial, but effective, and at least we don'y get a Cavendish competing with Eddy for the 34. Cav could win 40, he's no Eddy Merckx. No ITT, downhill finishes, that was a Tour for Bardet. With a HUGE blunder: the flat run-in on stage 9.

Sky pretty much killed both the Tour and the Vuelta. In Italy, it was man against man. The issue wasn't so much that Dumoulin was by far the best in ITT, but the fact that the other guys didn't try to whack him for good from the get-go, turn him into a stage hunter like in the '16 TdF. They played with fire. He was to be eliminated.

Riders make the race (yes hrotha ). Contador made the Vuelta and the votes pour in.