Can we start a ****storm so the TdF starts changing their stupid routes?

[Gigs_98]

The design of the mountain stages for this years tour has pissed me off ever since the route was announced but seeing the stages in action brings my anger to new levels. We are watching an era dominated by two riders who will take the slightest hint of an opportunity to attack from long range and yet all the ASO is serving them is one HC mtf after another with the penultimate climb either being mid as hell or 80km from the finish.

Since 2022 when Jonas and Tadej properly set themselves apart from the humans I count 26 TdF mountain stages. Of course it's hard to quantify how many of them were well suited for long range attacks but for simplicity let's see how many of them have a penultimate climb that is harder than the final one and peaks with less than 50km to go. It's a whopping...6. For clarity the ones that I'm counting here are Granon 2022, Peyresourde 2022, Cautarets 2023, Le Markstein 2023, Le Lioran 2024, Superdevoluy 2024, with Peyresourde and Le Markstein honestly being borderline cases and some other stages barely deserving the name mountain stage. This list includes 2025 btw so you've read that correctly, there is not a single stage fitting the bill this year. You might also note that the last stage on this list that included a HC climb came in 2023.

So now let's look at how those stages went.
-Granon 2022: All time classic
-Peyresourde 2022: Pogacar attacks on penultimate climb
-Cautarets 2023: All time classic
-Le Markstein 2023: Only stage on this list without gc action on the penulimate climb
-Le Lioran 2024: All time classic
-Superdevoluy 2024: Pogacar attacks on penultimate climb

So it turns out there is an almost 100% success rate when the ASO has actually given Pogacar or Vingegaard the chance to attack from far out. Of course this doesn't even include the stage to Hautacam in 2022 which really wasn't that well suited to attacks from afar, but as I said, you really only need to give those two guys the hint of a chance. Looking at this, it's impossible to miss the correlation between good racing and stage designs actually inviting attacks from far out. So how comes the ASO is completely ignoring this and instead of producing more such stages, it goes the other way around and drops them entirely?

The ASO either doesn't care or is incapable to connect dots with lines. Of course their priority for route designs will always be money. I hate this fact but I've come to accept it. But you cannot tell me the ASO is incapable of telling the authorities in Courchevel, "hey guys we really want to finish at your place, but let's maybe climb the Col de la Loze from the side that is actually interesting, and if you want to we can even climb up to your town again and have a mtf there". I genuinely don't know why this kind of stuff doesn't happen. I don't know if the ASO actually thinks it doesn't make a difference, or if Courchevel offers 5 bucks more if the finish is on the Col de la Loze so you gotta go for that money. In either case I find it highly absurd that in todays day and age, where every sport has to fight against the thousands of other ways in which people can entertain themselves, cycling is still living in the stone age and completely ignores the entertainment of their fans. Maybe people need to publicly shame them for sabotaging their own product and maybe if enough people sh*t on them for their complete lack of interest in their own event things are gonna change. If that's the case then I'm happy for doing my part. Otherwise at least writing this has let my rage come down ever so slightly. Cheers.

 

[Red Rick]

Petulant Whiners of the Cyclingnews forum.

You are here by summoned.

I call upon thee

To Unite Once More

 

[zlev11]

um, excuse me. didn't you see the Giro? the riders make the race, bro

 

[YavorD]

Petulant Whiners of the Cyclingnews forum.

You are here by summoned.

I call upon thee

To Unite Once More

Okay, William.

I'm with ya, mate.

 

[Red Rick]

To be perfectly honest, with Pogacar and Vingegaard in the state they are currently in, I don't think route matters much. If the Ventoux doesn't get Vingegaard a gap, if the Madeleine isn't hard enough, then it's either all down not being good enough or maybe a bit of wind. Fact is he simply got himself clapped losing 4 minutes by the 3rd mountain stage.

Now I am more and more convinced that more fatigue isn't always better, and that more fatigue is in fact usually worse if you're not using fatiguing stages the right way. And they are never using them the right way.

 

[Ulle97]

Ah look, it's down to the riders and the current dynamics of the race. Riders make the route.
Unfortunately, we have a rider who is untouchable and nobody can drop him.

 

[Gigs_98]

To be perfectly honest, with Pogacar and Vingegaard in the state they are currently in, I don't think route matters much. If the Ventoux doesn't get Vingegaard a gap, if the Madeleine isn't hard enough, then it's either all down not being good enough or maybe a bit of wind. Fact is he simply got himself clapped losing 4 minutes by the 3rd mountain stage.

Now I am more and more convinced that more fatigue isn't always better, and that more fatigue is in fact usually worse if you're not using fatiguing stages the right way. And they are never using them the right way.

I don't think the outcome would have been too different either way but I think Vingegaard clearly wanted to properly attack Pogacar today. But after that didn't work on the Madeleine you are in a situation where the next good point to attack is like 70km away and by the time they got there Vingegaard had accepted his fate. Col de la Loze was simply the worst possible climb to end this stage with.

 

[Red Rick]

Ah look, it's down to the riders and the current dynamics of the race. Riders make the route.
Unfortunately, we have a rider who is untouchable and nobody can drop him.

Yes and no.

Madeleine is from La Chambre is a great climb.

Col de La Loze from it's eastern most side. Is a complete ass climb. No queen stage should ever finish there. It's just gonna be a drag.

 

[ice&fire]

The more aggressive and chaotic the racing the harder is the TV director's work. And that's all they care for.

 

[Red Rick]

I don't think the outcome would have been too different either way but I think Vingegaard clearly wanted to properly attack Pogacar today. But after that didn't work on the Madeleine you are in a situation where the next good point to attack is like 70km away and by the time they got there Vingegaard had accepted his fate. Col de la Loze was simply the worst possible climb to end this stage with.

I guess obviously the way to get to Loze from the starting location is Glandon, Rosael and then the bike path to Loze. Fixes every problem with Loze really.

But it's a generic issue that happens with these attritional mountain stages that domestiques are much worse at the end so you're attacking off 5.5 W/kg and you can't get a gap at all and all the gaps are falling from behind.

Superbagneres has that problem Loze has that problem. La Plagnes has that problem. It's the same thing with Champoglug in the Giro. It takes any team tactic out of it anyway.


Mountain stages should often be easier rather than harder, but with better pacing of climbs. It should also make descent attacks more viable

 

[Ulle97]

Yes and no.

Madeleine is from La Chambre is a great climb.

Col de La Loze from it's eastern most side. Is a complete ass climb. No queen stage should ever finish there. It's just gonna be a drag.

How could they make the stage look better using Madeleine and Loze? What climb in the Alps could immediately come after Madeleine so that the valley is left out?

 

[ice&fire]

I guess obviously the way to get to Loze from the starting location is Glandon, Rosael and then the bike path to Loze. Fixes every problem with Loze really.

You really meant Rosael-Tougnete-Loze, right?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The biggest problem with today's stage was a different strain of, but still fundamentally the same problem, as the one that 2014 Giro Zoncolan had, and 2009 Mont Ventoux had. The best climber already has a safe margin in yellow, the only people who are close enough to him to be deemed relevant have accepted their fate, and everybody else is either happy to follow the "fall backwards as slowly as possible" strategy, or even if they did make moves, it was difficult to become invested in them when it was made abundantly clear earlier that Pog could pull them back any time he pleased should he so please.

This has been a tough Tour for that; it took forever to get to the first GC-relevant mountain, and then that one mountain rendered the business end of the GC over and done with.

 

[Red Rick]

Oi would you look at this beauty that would get you directly from the base of Col du Pré and descend straight into the base of La Plagne

 

[Red Rick]

You really meant Rosael-Tougnete-Loze, right?

Forgot but might as well.

Mostly I had not mentioned Rosael for like a year and i was feeling a strange itch.

 

[Gigs_98]

Ah look, it's down to the riders and the current dynamics of the race. Riders make the route.
Unfortunately, we have a rider who is untouchable and nobody can drop him.

So I made a whole point about about how in 5 out of the 6 stages since 2022 which invited long range attacks, long range attacks happened. In what world are you looking at those numbers and come to the conclusion that the route doesn't make a difference? For completeness sake, I looked at the remaining 20 mountain stages since 2022 and if I didn't forget anything, 2 of those had attacks by podium contenders on the penultimate climb or earlier (those stages being Hautacam 2022 and today). I'm not counting random top 10 riders going into the breakaway btw.

So in one set of stages you have a hit rate of 5/6, in the other set of stages a hit rate of 2/20. And you are really sure you want to make the argument it's all down to the riders?

 

[nightowl]

This side of Loze is just horrible for good racing. You really need to use the Meribel side proper - but then it’s so hard you can’t really expect action on previous climbs. Which is fine, you could honestly have a 200km unipuerto stage on the hard side of Loze and it would entertaining.

Wasn’t Tougnete meant to me finished by now? Because that combo looks incredible.

 

[nightowl]

I do also think UAE and Visma having much weaker teams than in the last few years has contributed too. On Plateau de Beille we still had lots of action even though it broke the “rules” with the hardest climb last after a long valley. There’s just no one left at the end to set things up for attacks this tour.

 

[Red Rick]

This side of Loze is just horrible for good racing. You really need to use the Meribel side proper - but then it’s so hard you can’t really expect action on previous climbs. Which is fine, you could honestly have a 200km unipuerto stage on the hard side of Loze and it would entertaining.

Wasn’t Tougnete meant to me finished by now? Because that combo looks incredible.

Tougnete + Loze would be great, although I would not really put much before it normally.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Kuss is strong enough to set up a proper attack. He did today on Madeleine, Lipowitz was effectively dropped. It was very similar or other stages like Cauteres 2022, Marie Blanque 2022 etc with only Jonas and Teddy left.

Anyways, kinda understand the point of the post and kinda dont. Jonas made an all-in attack on the Madeleine as we expected with 70 km to go. He wasn't good enough, and the rest of the stage went weird after that. Can't really complain about this stage design, it was what it was. There was enough terrain to try again on Courchevel, but he decided not to due to legs.

 

[staubsauger]

Col de la Loze simply is the modern Alpe d'Huez IMHO. Not bad, but also not as special as it's made.

Portet & Granon were the big introductions on level with Finestre!

 

[Escarabajo]

Today's stage was just too hard. Plus you already have a very dominant rider. That is recipe for disaster.

Almost always when you put 3 very hard climbs it becomes an attrition race. Majority of people hate attrition. I like it, because I was accustomed to that in the 80's. Just that riders would crack more often in the 80's than today.

 

[Red Rick]

I guess there's an open question how different this stage goes if Loze no matter how ass it is is directly after Madeleine or if it's the 15km inbetween, especially false flat uphill that also just sucks the life out.

I'm also growing confident in my belief that false flat downhills after a hard climb are much of a killer than false flat uphills that completely suck you dry. 2% downhill in the wheel you're chilling at 150W, 2% uphill you're doing 250W+ not recovering properly.

 

[Gigs_98]

Col de la Loze simply is the modern Alpe d'Huez IMHO. Not bad, but also not as special as it's made.

Portet & Granon were the big introductions on level with Finestre!

I really disagree actually. I think Alpe d'Huez is a really good mtf inviting people to attack rather early on the climb. Meanwhile Col de la Loze is a super hard climb (clearly harder than either Granon or Portet imo) which could become the Tours Finestre if they treated it like that and used it as the pentimate climb with a softer climb to finish the stage. Imo Col de la Loze followed by a second ascent just to Meribel is probably the best combination of climbs the french alps have to offer. But they keep using it as a mtf anyway.

 

[Red Rick]

I really disagree actually. I think Alpe d'Huez is a really good mtf inviting people to attack rather early on the climb. Meanwhile Col de la Loze is a super hard climb (clearly harder than either Granon or Portet imo) which could become the Tours Finestre if they treated it like that and used it as the pentimate climb with a softer climb to finish the stage. Imo Col de la Loze followed by a second ascent just to Meribel is probably the best combination of climbs the french alps have to offer. But they keep using it as a mtf anyway.

It's clearly a design philophy issue on Govenou's end. From what I understand he just gets free reign over the route with the start and finish locations he gets, so I would suspect this time he either wanted to mix it up or thought it was overkill before tomorrow to put the harder sides of Loze in there.

For me the positive of Loze is simply the implication that these bike paths are getting pathed in the first place, and that may pave the way (huehuehue) for other climbs to connect in the area. I'm not only talking about Rosael cause Rosael is batshit, but also La Saussaz which would connect the same valleys as Rosael does but still *** everythign esle out the water.

I guess the main issue is these *** ski stations always paying for everything so you have to finish there but whatever. Especially places like Superbagneres I can't find a way to polish a turd.