Cyclingnews Poll Results? WTF?

[auscyclefan94]

I just want to highlight some odd results in my opinion

2010 Best one-day race

Paris-Roubaix, 8361 votes

Ronde van Vlaanderen, 2733

Men's Road World Championship, 1873

Liege-Bastogne-Liege, 1056

Fleche Wallonne, 781

Giro di Lombardia, 768

Milan-San Remo, 671

Cross-Country Mountain Bike World Championship, 280

Clasica San Sebastian, 106

Paris-Tours, 82

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, 76


Cyclingnews Reader Poll Results – Best Stage Race of the Year

Giro d'Italia, 7071 votes (42.1%)
Tour de France, 7028 (41.9%)
Amgen Tour of California, 1151 (6.9%)
Vuelta a Espana,798 (4.8%)
Tour de Suisse, 245 (1.5%)
TransRockies, 123 (0.7%)
Cape Epic, 114 (0.7%)
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco, 100 (0.6%)
Tirreno-Adriatico, 73 (0.4%)
Three Days of De Panne, 54 (0.3%)
Tour of Oman, 30 (0.2%)

The bold parts really amazed me. Firstly, I thought that Paris Roubaix was a very boring edition this year. Secondly, RvV was a good race but personally I thought the Men's World RR & Liege were far better & more exciting races.

Then I really found it amazing how the Tour de France could nearly knock off the Giro for best stage race of the year. How does tour of California come in 3rd?

So who did you vote for and what do you think about the results?

 

[The Hitch]

I just want to highlight some odd results in my opinion

2010 Best one-day race

Paris-Roubaix, 8361 votes

Ronde van Vlaanderen, 2733

Men's Road World Championship, 1873

Liege-Bastogne-Liege, 1056

Fleche Wallonne, 781

Giro di Lombardia, 768

Milan-San Remo, 671

Cross-Country Mountain Bike World Championship, 280

Clasica San Sebastian, 106

Paris-Tours, 82

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, 76


Cyclingnews Reader Poll Results – Best Stage Race of the Year

Giro d'Italia, 7071 votes (42.1%)
Tour de France, 7028 (41.9%)
Amgen Tour of California, 1151 (6.9%)
Vuelta a Espana,798 (4.8%)
Tour de Suisse, 245 (1.5%)
TransRockies, 123 (0.7%)
Cape Epic, 114 (0.7%)
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco, 100 (0.6%)
Tirreno-Adriatico, 73 (0.4%)
Three Days of De Panne, 54 (0.3%)
Tour of Oman, 30 (0.2%)

The bold parts really amazed me. Firstly, I thought that Paris Roubaix was a very boring edition this year. Secondly, RvV was a good race but personally I thought the Men's World RR & Liege were far better & more exciting races.

Then I really found it amazing how the Tour de France could nearly knock off the Giro for best stage race of the year. How does tour of California come in 3rd?

So who did you vote for and what do you think about the results?

For the first one, obviously rigged.

Second one, im not surprised about TDF as the TDF only crowd claimed it was an epic race what with Schleck losing his chain and some celebrities at the top of the Tourmalet - awesome

But california, disgusting. By far the most boring race of the year. At first i liked it because it was 10 oclock gmt so i could watch it around that time. But now people are praising it so much im starting to really despise it.

To be honest its cycling news fault for putting the TOC in the poll in the first place. There were so many bigger and better races - Paris Nice, Romandi, Dauphine, and of course Pais Vasco.

 

[ingsve]

I just want to highlight some odd results in my opinion

2010 Best one-day race

Paris-Roubaix, 8361 votes

Ronde van Vlaanderen, 2733

Men's Road World Championship, 1873

Liege-Bastogne-Liege, 1056

Fleche Wallonne, 781

Giro di Lombardia, 768

Milan-San Remo, 671

Cross-Country Mountain Bike World Championship, 280

Clasica San Sebastian, 106

Paris-Tours, 82

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, 76


Cyclingnews Reader Poll Results – Best Stage Race of the Year

Giro d'Italia, 7071 votes (42.1%)
Tour de France, 7028 (41.9%)
Amgen Tour of California, 1151 (6.9%)
Vuelta a Espana,798 (4.8%)
Tour de Suisse, 245 (1.5%)
TransRockies, 123 (0.7%)
Cape Epic, 114 (0.7%)
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco, 100 (0.6%)
Tirreno-Adriatico, 73 (0.4%)
Three Days of De Panne, 54 (0.3%)
Tour of Oman, 30 (0.2%)

The bold parts really amazed me. Firstly, I thought that Paris Roubaix was a very boring edition this year. Secondly, RvV was a good race but personally I thought the Men's World RR & Liege were far better & more exciting races.

Then I really found it amazing how the Tour de France could nearly knock off the Giro for best stage race of the year. How does tour of California come in 3rd?

So who did you vote for and what do you think about the results?

Perhaps the Giro was on during times when alot of people are at work so that many missed how great it was. I know I was only able to watch it by plugging in my netbook while doing experiments in the lab.

I also think there might still be a big Lance crowd out there who only follow racing during the Tour and what else are they going to vote for. Also the Tour wasn't as bad as some people here make it out to be.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

A serious drawback of this poll is that one cannot vote in some sections only: to be able to vote for my favourite stage race, I would also have had to cast a vote in areas I am entirely unqualified to do so: female track cyclists or young XC riders or whatever.

This leads to two responses: one alternative was to not take part at all (my choice), thus removing knowledge and opinion that might be fairly specialised to one sphere (not that I'm claiming highly specialised knowledge for myself); the other was to vote knowledgably in one sphere, and for whoever/whatever you might have heard of in other branches of the sport. So the average mountain biker/trackie/cross-country fan with little interest asks him/herself what is the most important stage race, and answers with either the most hyped world-wide or domestically.

CN: let us choose which questions we have a genuine opinion on, and allow us to abstain on the others.

 

[Wraith Rider]

I went with Tour of Flanders in the first one, but I have to agree with the Giro. It was an outstanding course and exciting. The Tour will always be the Tour, no matter what, but the Giro is racing pageantry.

 

[Sneekes]

A serious drawback of this poll is that one cannot vote in some sections only: to be able to vote for my favourite stage race, I would also have had to cast a vote in areas I am entirely unqualified to do so: female track cyclists or young XC riders or whatever.

This leads to two responses: one alternative was to not take part at all (my choice), thus removing knowledge and opinion that might be fairly specialised to one sphere (not that I'm claiming highly specialised knowledge for myself); the other was to vote knowledgably in one sphere, and for whoever/whatever you might have heard of in other branches of the sport. So the average mountain biker/trackie/cross-country fan with little interest asks him/herself what is the most important stage race, and answers with either the most hyped world-wide or domestically.

CN: let us choose which questions we have a genuine opinion on, and allow us to abstain on the others.

I agree entirely: I did vote, and in the sections where I felt unable to make a judgement I voted randomly. CN could really do with amending this next year though.

It's very very difficult to build a proper voted set of awards for something like this. There are two key issues - writing in English leads to an unrepresentative level of responses from people in anglophone countries, and there is no 'cycling intelligence' licence needed to respond. I've no idea how this can be countered - just got to live with it I guess.

 

[Anonymous]

The whole poll was stupidity.

Paris Roubaix won because KBK and Eroica werent even on the list (which was stupid). It was a fairly dull race all things taken into account.

How on earth tour of california came third I dont know. One can only assume the americans have voted on masse.

I still dont understand the rider nominations. Andy Schleck on the list who did nothing all year except follow contador around france, Yet contador, and Basso who both won GT's didnt make the list. Stupidity.

And the fact you are forced to vote in catagories you know nothing about is also rather silly. I think Nys probably won because more people have heard of him

 

[El Pistolero]

Einstein is right once again about his infinity theory.

 

[Martin318is]

Neither result is actually surprising. You are making the assumption that everybody that answered the poll actually watched the races rather than just clicked the name of their favourite race.

 

[skidmark]

Yeah, look at the amount of responses to the poll - almost 15000. For English-speakers coming to cyclingnews.com, how many do you think follow as seriously year-round as the few hundred who tend to post here? Looking at all the results, it was confirmation that people voted for what they'd heard of - Sven Nys dominating the cyclo-cross poll being an obvious example. The Paris-Roubaix example is clearly a result of this stage-race and TdF oriented, anglo focus... seriously, reading american websites and north american newspapers that cover cycling, it seems like us north americans are told that P-R is the only one day race that matters, far superior to others, which in turn pales in comparison to the Tour. So the majority of people, who probably didn't watch all the races on the list (or, more likely, any) would vote for the one that they've heard the most hype for.

Really, this has happened every year in the past with the cyclingnews poll, so we shouldn't be too surprised. I was actually pretty shocked, coming to the site just now, that the Giro actually beat out the Tour. That, at least, is awesome, and I hope it makes the people who voted for the Tour because it's the Tour, or the ToC because it's American, I hope those people pay attention to the full calendar of awesome cycling that happens.

Still, yes I agree that as a cycling fan, I cringe that the most exciting stage race I have ever seen was almost tied by a pretty decent, but mostly mediocre race.

 

[Martin318is]

Well it was a pretty cool outcome given the *** claims that ToC was the second most important stage race. Not only is that not true but the race that it claimed to be bigger than actually turned out to be the best stage race of the year.

 

[bicing]

Good thread ACF! Good points!

It would have been a better series of articles if CN had just summarised the highlights of the forum polls. In those circumstances if I remember correctly, KBK and Giro won, TOC failed. And rightly so.

+1 to Armchair Cyclist with the idea that not all question must be compulsory.

Probably to avoid what Martin318 said about the people just naming their favourite race, they could have written a bit of highlights about the races to get people thinking in the right frame of mind. You know, to get people into the kind of frame of mind that the forum posters are usually in.

 

[Ferminal]

I'm just happy the Giro won it, when I looked at the numbers I saw what a huge miracle it must have been (when almost 50% of the voters are clueless) to get first.

Let's start a campaign for next year to get the AToC into first.

 

[Mambo95]

Paris Roubaix won because KBK and Eroica werent even on the list (which was stupid). It was a fairly dull race all things taken into account.

What was so great about KBK? The breakaway went and because the weather was so bad nobody (except Hushovd) bothered chasing, with all but a handful dropping out early.

The weather may have conned you into thinking it was an 'epic', but it was other than admiring the bloody-mindedness of some of the riders and Devolder being hit by a bin, nothing actually happened.

 

[deValtos]

I voted for the Giro and the WCRR so i'm pleased with the outcome !

It's no surprise the TDF did so well though. The fact it has the prestige and the best riders always adds that little extra bit of excitement so the other grand tours have to do more work to win. Also the TDF this year was actually a really good race, the cobbled stage was pretty incredible and there was an extremely close GC fight all the way to the end time trial in which andy even started to take back time! Oh and before I forget the first 50/60km of stage 16 of the TDF was some of the best racing I have ever seen with Armstrong,Kreuziger,Hesjdel,VanDenBroeck&Sastre attacks then the peleton whittled down to about 7 or 8 riders, SammySanchez,Gesink dropped as well as other GC men ... all in the first 50 KM ! Having said that I still think the Giro was better I just felt like sticking up for the TDF a bit since it gets bashed a lot on here.

I didn't watch the TOC so I can't really comment on that though I'm surprised the Vuelta did not get more votes.

 

[Anonymous]

What was so great about KBK? The breakaway went and because the weather was so bad nobody (except Hushovd) bothered chasing, with all but a handful dropping out early.

The weather may have conned you into thinking it was an 'epic', but it was other than admiring the bloody-mindedness of some of the riders and Devolder being hit by a bin, nothing actually happened.

But thats the point. Classics or semi classics are about the hard men, they are about tough conditions. Should paris roubaix be on a lovely sunny day, or a grim day with the dust blowing. Is flanders more epic in bright sunshine or in the rain when ever cobble becomes an ice skating rink. Classics are about tough men, and in KBK the tough men prevailed.

Not saying KBK would have won, but it certainly should have been in the options. Paris Tours was on the list for crying out loud, and a relatively dull milan san remo.

Weather can most certainly help qualify a race as epic. Would the eroica giro stage have been epic in nice weather.. maybe.. was it epic in the rain, most definately.

 

[flicker]

For the first one, obviously rigged.

Second one, im not surprised about TDF as the TDF only crowd claimed it was an epic race what with Schleck losing his chain and some celebrities at the top of the Tourmalet - awesome

But california, disgusting. By far the most boring race of the year. At first i liked it because it was 10 oclock gmt so i could watch it around that time. But now people are praising it so much im starting to really despise it.

To be honest its cycling news fault for putting the TOC in the poll in the first place. There were so many bigger and better races - Paris Nice, Romandi, Dauphine, and of course Pais Vasco.

I know in Europe you do not even know that the new world exists. I snuck over to England once. Good beer!

 

[NickBVK]

So when do I get the bike I won?

 

[Ferminal]

So when do I get the bike I won?

I've already got mine!

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

...How on earth tour of california came third I dont know. One can only assume the americans have voted on masse.

Whoa! I'm from the States, and ToCali was ZZzzzz... It didn't get third by my vote! But you are probably right on the en masse part.

On the GTs, Giro got my vote. Like others said, the Tour is the Tour and so nearly overcame the Giro. But the Tour this year.... I remember thinking in the latter part of the race, Andy you don't have many days and opportunities left if you are gonna make this a match. I kept waiting for the attacking to come and it never did.

I'd agree with ACF on the World's RR.

 

[Christian]

Second one, im not surprised about TDF as the TDF only crowd claimed it was an epic race what with Schleck losing his chain and some celebrities at the top of the Tourmalet - awesome

Easy: Tour de France had Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise, Giro didn't even have Armstrong.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

P-R was the most boring edition I have seen in a while, very disappointing (most of the classics this season were). How it accumulated that many points is...

As for le tour, that is no surprise. Tdf is the 'big' one in cycling, many just watch the tour. No matter how bad (it wasn't terrible, I agree not great, but I've seen much worse), it will always be up there. I'm surprised the giro even won

Vuelta got no respect. ToC beat it

 

[theyoungest]

P-R was the most boring edition I have seen in a while, very disappointing (most of the classics this season were). How it accumulated that many points is...

As for le tour, that is no surprise. Tdf is the 'big' one in cycling, many just watch the tour. No matter how bad (it wasn't terrible, I agree not great, but I've seen much worse), it will always be up there. I'm surprised the giro even won

Vuelta got no respect. ToC beat it

'Mericans love their Paris-Roubaix. There isn't an American classic, so this is the one they chose. There is an American stage race, however. This one they also chose. Or the Tour, because Lancey-Lance was in it.

 

[L'arriviste]

Can't say I was particularly surprised by any of the results. Except maybe Sven Nys in the male 'cross category, not because he won it but because I expected that category to have been closer fought than it was.

The poll was problematic for me mainly because there were several categories about which I know nothing and/or have no interest. Would have preferred an abstain option for those.

 

[ultimobici]

What was so great about KBK? The breakaway went and because the weather was so bad nobody (except Hushovd) bothered chasing, with all but a handful dropping out early.

The weather may have conned you into thinking it was an 'epic', but it was other than admiring the bloody-mindedness of some of the riders and Devolder being hit by a bin, nothing actually happened.

So by your standards Lombardia was also a non-event due to only 34 riders finishing in rain of Biblical proportions?

Come to think of it that would mean that Hinault's 1980 LBL & Vanderaerden's 1985 Ronde were non-events too as they had miserable conditions that in the case of 1985's Ronde eliminated 149 of the 173 starters!