Re: Re:
Generally I have written about why I think climbers classics would work a few times and I'm not changing my mind. The fact that there is such a hard pass means that nobody except the best climbers of the race have a chance in a controlled race. Therefore way less people will be willing to wait for the finale than in other classics. For example in LBL every kind of favorite still has a chance to win if he is in the peloton 10 km from the finish, in this classic maybe 5 riders still have a chance if there is still a relatively big peloton 10 km before the top of the Timmelsjoch. Therefore everyone else will attack earlier which will make the race extremely hard to control and very chaotic, at least thats my theory. It might be proven wrong next year.
I have to say though that I'm not sure if my idea works for a small one day race, since the favorites aren't as obvious as in the racers where the big guns ride. For example, in a race with this route with Quintana, Nibali and Froome no other team would have a reason to keep the race together before the final climb. However in a 1.1 race there probably aren't 3 obvious favorites but 10-20 relatively good climbers who all have a decent chance to win.
Well, the Timmelsjoch is still 30 km's away from the finish so we would get action anyway.Red Rick said:Red Rick said:Priorities are different, and the possible group of winners would be vastly different. Classics, especially the smaller ones, often have more unpredictable racing and a bigger group of possible winners and more tactics. I think classics shouldn't just be W/Kg's slugfest. Nobody prefers FW to PR.
I do think that there should be one day races with cat 2 and maybe some cat 1 mountains far from the finish. Medium mountains would be best for this. When should they be though? I think the best place would between the Tour and the Vuelta, have a week of two with 4 classics including CSS. June would also be possible.
Meeeeeeehhhh
Generally I have written about why I think climbers classics would work a few times and I'm not changing my mind. The fact that there is such a hard pass means that nobody except the best climbers of the race have a chance in a controlled race. Therefore way less people will be willing to wait for the finale than in other classics. For example in LBL every kind of favorite still has a chance to win if he is in the peloton 10 km from the finish, in this classic maybe 5 riders still have a chance if there is still a relatively big peloton 10 km before the top of the Timmelsjoch. Therefore everyone else will attack earlier which will make the race extremely hard to control and very chaotic, at least thats my theory. It might be proven wrong next year.
I have to say though that I'm not sure if my idea works for a small one day race, since the favorites aren't as obvious as in the racers where the big guns ride. For example, in a race with this route with Quintana, Nibali and Froome no other team would have a reason to keep the race together before the final climb. However in a 1.1 race there probably aren't 3 obvious favorites but 10-20 relatively good climbers who all have a decent chance to win.