Dauphine (The time bonus)

[DBChas]

While I can't begrudge Fuglsang's great win, when oh when will these top world pro races ever dispense with these silly time bonuses, which this time cost Richie Porte a well-deserved win?

I will never understand awarding arbitrary time to stage winners. To me it's like cheating. There was Porte giving it his absolute all and with no help from BMC (where were they?) and then Fuglsang wins by a time bonus. There's just something profoundly unfair about that. Yes, the difference was 10 seconds, but I believe Porte would have won on a count back, or by dint of the fact that tying him at that point would not have been enough to beat him after so many days in yellow.

Furthermore, and as I recall, hasn't the Tour dispensed with this silliness? Why don't other important events just do the same? So that we see the real winners, based only on the actual time it took for them to complete the course.

Or, perhaps they should start awarding one minute to the guy who finishes first on each stage, or perhaps two minutes. Why not half an hour, if they really want to mix things up and that seems to be the sole point of doing this? None of it makes the slightest sense, and thankfully they don't do such things at the Olympic Games, or, far as I know, at any other sporting event of world class.

This time bonus stuff is bush league, and it's time for it to be dropped for the rest of time.

 

[Leinster]

You don't think it's appropriate to reward riders for trying to win stages?

 

[Irondan]

While I can't begrudge Fuglsang's great win, when oh when will these top world pro races ever dispense with these silly time bonuses, which this time cost Richie Porte a well-deserved win?

I will never understand awarding arbitrary time to stage winners. To me it's like cheating. There was Porte giving it his absolute all and with no help from BMC (where were they?) and then Fuglsang wins by a time bonus. There's just something profoundly unfair about that. Yes, the difference was 10 seconds, but I believe Porte would have won on a count back, or by dint of the fact that tying him at that point would not have been enough to beat him after so many days in yellow.

Furthermore, and as I recall, hasn't the Tour dispensed with this silliness? Why don't other important events just do the same? So that we see the real winners, based only on the actual time it took for them to complete the course.

Or, perhaps they should start awarding one minute to the guy who finishes first on each stage, or perhaps two minutes. Why not half an hour, if they really want to mix things up and that seems to be the sole point of doing this? None of it makes the slightest sense, and thankfully they don't do such things at the Olympic Games, or, far as I know, at any other sporting event of world class.

This time bonus stuff is bush league, and it's time for it to be dropped for the rest of time.

I'm with you on this one, I dislike time bonuses in anything except for sprint stages and the only reason that I don't mind the small bonus in a sprint stage is to make it easy to award the race leaders jersey. After the sprint stages nobody can expect a sprinter to keep the jersey in the mountains so the sprint bonus becomes a moot point. Awarding time bonuses in mountain stages is another thing altogether and I agree that the strongest should be fighting it out mano a mano without artificial help from the organizers.

The funny thing is the Dauphine is organized by the Tour and we haven't seen time bonuses like the ones in this Dauphine in years, not that I can recall anyway. Hopefully this isn't the organizers testing out a bonus system to implement in the Tour de France.

 

[The Barb]

I'd go the other way ... if anything time bonuses should be greater. They provide reward for those who attack and disincentivise following wheels - hence, more exciting racing.

 

[hrotha]

I don't mind time bonuses in principle - they're just another tool to try to get the riders to race the way you want as an organizer (although the results are certainly mixed). I absolutely understand why some people don't like them. But it is important to note they aren't unfair - they're the same for everybody, and Porte knew it was a factor he needed to take into account.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I think it's more of a problem to arbitrarily apply time bonuses for some stages and not for others, to be honest. Consistency is the point.

There are positive and negative points to time bonuses. In flatter races, they often are our main source of entertainment, although on various occasions when a break survives but somebody who wins a few sprints overcomes them on the GC it can be frustrating. For example, if it was scored solely on elapsed time, Kai Reus won the 2009 Tour of Britain, and Rossella Ratto won the 2014 Women's Tour. The same factor is what created the difference between Contador and Leipheimer in the 2008 Vuelta (in time on the road, they were even), and was the decisive factor between Cobo and Froome in the 2011 Vuelta too.

However, the reason for the time bonuses was to incentivize attacking and make the big names want to contest stages; without them you got a period at the Tour where the breakaway was allowed to contest almost all of the mountain stages because the GC men were happy to do battle behind them because there was nothing to be gained from catching them - the fact that at the time there were few French GC candidates but some very good mountain stagehunters may have played a role in that. Although the same issue was seen in the 2009 Vuelta which DID have time bonuses; Caisse d'Epargne were happy to let unthreatening breaks go, and because Valverde was the best sprinter of the GC candidates, nobody wanted to pull breaks back only to lose more time to Valverde in bonuses. And hey, back in the day people used to get a minute's advantage for a stage win, so pulling it back to 10" is an improvement. Back in the days when the toughest climbs were Escudo, Fito and Urkiola, Rik van Looy was trying to win the Vuelta based entirely on the time he gained in bonuses (unsuccessfully, by the way). Very recently, because a GT was bigger than a one week race where 10", 6" and 4" were the bonuses, the GTs had 20", 12" and 8". This was a key part of the intrigue in the 2009 Giro, for example, with di Luca trying to break Menchov.

Ultimately, I always find this debate only tends to come about when it happens in a major race (nobody seemed to care that poor Kai Reus got screwed, just as all those who were up in arms about the Porte/Clarke wheel change being penalized hadn't been rushing to the defence of people like Metlushenko when it happened in minor races). Teams knew the rules going in, and there's a lot of calculated gambling going along. It's just one more factor you have to manage. Stefano Garzelli won Tirreno-Adriatico in 2010 by picking up two seconds in bonuses in what was expected to be a parade of a circuit race on the last day. Likewise, yesterday, Hannah Barnes climbed two places up to the podium of the Women's Tour by piggybacking unexpected attack moves on the closing circuits and utilizing her sprinting skills; those attacks may never have gone had there not been bonus seconds to incentivize them. And Vino's famous Champs Elysées exploits helped him move up a place on the GC, without that motivation it may never have happened.

Sometimes I feel like time bonuses really hurt a race. Other times, they really help make it.

 

[Gigs_98]

I'm not a fan of time bonuses as well, but that said I don't think Fuglsangs win was unfair. It's not unfair when something is part of the rule, otherwise you could bring up the same arguments about the 3 km rule and that riders in one group all get same time.

 

[Walkman]

Re:

I'd go the other way ... if anything time bonuses should be greater. They provide reward for those who attack and disincentivise following wheels - hence, more exciting racing.

Don't think that's what would happened. IMHO we would get more riders trying to stay fresh for a sprint and ride tempo rather than risk attacking and blowing up. Just my two cents. And also, they often kills the excitement. Imagine if Froome had gotten 30 sec on Pierre Saint-Martin, or Nairo in the Vuelta.

If action and excitement is what we want (it is) we need shorter stages packed with mountains. Just look at the Glibber stage which Andy win int the -11 Tour. Last years Vuelta when Contador blew the race apart. Dauphine is another example. I fu*king can't understand why organizers doesn't realize this. Instead they give us 180km of flat road before a 15km climb..

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

I'd go the other way ... if anything time bonuses should be greater. They provide reward for those who attack and disincentivise following wheels - hence, more exciting racing.

Don't think that's what would happened. IMHO we would get more riders trying to stay fresh for a sprint and ride tempo rather than risk attacking and blowing up. Just my two cents. And also, they often kills the excitement. Imagine if Froome had gotten 30 sec on Pierre Saint-Martin, or Nairo in the Vuelta.

If action and excitement is what we want (it is) we need shorter stages packed with mountains. Just look at the Glibber stage which Andy win int the -11 Tour. Last years Vuelta when Contador blew the race apart. Dauphine is another example. I fu*king can't understand why organizers doesn't realize this. Instead they give us 180km of flat road before a 15km climb..

A short stage packed with mountains? The Andy stage was 200km long.

You're probably thinking of the Modane-L'Alpe stage the following day, just 110km.

Anyway as was discussed on the Dauphiné live thread, it's not *just* short mountain stages that we need, it's a good combination of mountain stages, because without the right combination of those stages, the short mountain stages won't work. Just look at the 130km Oropa stage in the Giro - a bad Unipuerto design, taking place before the toughest stages, hence not having anything like the same effect as when the short mountain stage is either placed before a flat stage which will enable the combatants to recover with a relatively light day (e.g. Andalo) or *after* a really tough challenge with few other opportunities to follow (e.g. Formigal after Aubisque, the 2011 Alpe stage after the Galibier stage above). That Alpe stage worked so well because the Galibier stage was raced so hard (mainly because Andy missed the boat during the Pyrenees so had to gamble), so everybody was exhausted when Contador lit the blue touchpaper on the Télégraphe. If the Alpe stage was before the Galibier stage, it wouldn't be half as good, because a) riders wouldn't have a 200km multi-HC climb odyssey that has been raced hard in their legs, and b) riders would be afraid that tomorrow they'd have a 200km multi-HC climb odyssey so don't want to waste their legs on a shorter stage.

Just saying "the short mountain stages were exciting, let's make more of them" is too simplistic, it needs an understanding of why they worked in those circumstances, so that they continue to deliver rather than just making them the norm and expecting them to deliver regardless. For the same reason as Unipublic saying "mountaintop finishes are exciting, let's make more of them" has been too simplistic.

 

[Walkman]

Re: Re:

I'd go the other way ... if anything time bonuses should be greater. They provide reward for those who attack and disincentivise following wheels - hence, more exciting racing.

Don't think that's what would happened. IMHO we would get more riders trying to stay fresh for a sprint and ride tempo rather than risk attacking and blowing up. Just my two cents. And also, they often kills the excitement. Imagine if Froome had gotten 30 sec on Pierre Saint-Martin, or Nairo in the Vuelta.

If action and excitement is what we want (it is) we need shorter stages packed with mountains. Just look at the Glibber stage which Andy win int the -11 Tour. Last years Vuelta when Contador blew the race apart. Dauphine is another example. I fu*king can't understand why organizers doesn't realize this. Instead they give us 180km of flat road before a 15km climb..

A short stage packed with mountains? The Andy stage was 200km long.

You're probably thinking of the Modane-L'Alpe stage the following day, just 110km.

Anyway as was discussed on the Dauphiné live thread, it's not *just* short mountain stages that we need, it's a good combination of mountain stages, because without the right combination of those stages, the short mountain stages won't work. Just look at the 130km Oropa stage in the Giro - a bad Unipuerto design, taking place before the toughest stages, hence not having anything like the same effect as when the short mountain stage is either placed before a flat stage which will enable the combatants to recover with a relatively light day (e.g. Andalo) or *after* a really tough challenge with few other opportunities to follow (e.g. Formigal after Aubisque, the 2011 Alpe stage after the Galibier stage above). That Alpe stage worked so well because the Galibier stage was raced so hard (mainly because Andy missed the boat during the Pyrenees so had to gamble), so everybody was exhausted when Contador lit the blue touchpaper on the Télégraphe. If the Alpe stage was before the Galibier stage, it wouldn't be half as good, because a) riders wouldn't have a 200km multi-HC climb odyssey that has been raced hard in their legs, and b) riders would be afraid that tomorrow they'd have a 200km multi-HC climb odyssey so don't want to waste their legs on a shorter stage.

Just saying "the short mountain stages were exciting, let's make more of them" is too simplistic, it needs an understanding of why they worked in those circumstances, so that they continue to deliver rather than just making them the norm and expecting them to deliver regardless. For the same reason as Unipublic saying "mountaintop finishes are exciting, let's make more of them" has been too simplistic.

Of course, I was thinking of the stage the day after Andy's epic long range attack.

I agree, simply making stages shorter won't cut it, as you say, it is about placement and overall mixture but I still think that shorter stages invites more action in general. Shorter stages also mean the riders will recuperate faster and this might increase risk taking. Obviously, that depends on how they race the stage, but I am taking in a general sense. Although I think you make some good points, which shows that making a route for exciting racing isn't all too easy.

Another thing I think would invite more aggressive riding is to have a climb right at the start of the stage. That way, the rouleurs would be eliminated pretty quick and teams can send key domestiques up the road and explore a bunch of opportunities that otherwise may be difficult to utilize.

 

[jmdirt]

As I have stated in a few other threads, I don't like time bonuses either. IMO, it should be based on accumulated time only. I don't think its cheating because the riders know in advance, but it is an artificial part of the race.

The reward for riding hard and/or winning stages is having less accumulated time. Once the race within a race takes shape in a GT though, time bonuses don't change GC strategy IMO.

 

[el_angliru]

I'm not a fan of time bonuses but it's pathethic to claim that time bonuses "cost Richie Porte a well-deserved win". Every rider knows exactly what they have to do to accomplish whatever task they are targeting. They know there's a 10 sec bonus if they can win the stage, and Porte knew he had a gap of 1:15 to Fuglsang before stage 8. Porte also knew that he had to finish within 1:05 to Fuglsang if Fuglsang would win the stage and Porte would finish outside of top 3. At the 10 km to go the gap between Fuglsang and Porte was exactly 1:00 but Porte lost 15 seconds more during the last 10 k of the climb.. So he failed to do what was needed to win.

Besides: During the descent from Col de la Colombiére on stage 8, Porte was passed by Kwiatkowski and Simon Clarke who both bridged to the front group with Fuglsang, Martin, Froome and others. If Porte had been able to follow Kwiatkowski and Clarke on that descent, then he would have bridged too, and it would have been a completely different race. But he couldn't follow Clarke and Kwiatkowski on the descent.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Definitely for time bonuses, everything for giving the bunch incentives to not letting pretty uninteresting breaks up the road day after day.

 

[swuzzlebubble]

I'd like to see 3-2-1 seconds for all KOM (in addition to the points.)

 

[Leinster]

Re:

I think it's more of a problem to arbitrarily apply time bonuses for some stages and not for others, to be honest. Consistency is the point.

Yup. I have to say I think it's unfair that time trial stage winners never get time bonuses. Ok, winning a TT normally confers some time gap advantage automatically, often in multiple minutes, but if as a GC rider you also managed to beat all the TT specialists into the bargain, I think that's worthy of a little extra. So if anything, Porte should have had his 10 seconds for winning the TT.

I'm also not a huge fan of time bonuses, and would much rather races be won on the road than on artificial constructs like time bonuses, but at the same time I would much rather see yellow jerseys going all out for stage wins rather than just sitting on and rolling in at the back of the group.

Froome got a 6" bonus for coming second to Sagan on stage 11 last year. It was an awesome bit of heads up, on-the-front racing that deserved more than just the 6 seconds he gained over the peloton for doing it. He also got a very justified 10 seconds for his sneak away down the Peyresourde. That's 16 seconds gained for good racing, not just waiting for the TT or summit finishes, when he was already in yellow. I'm not a Froome fan either, but damn if you don't have to respect what he did there.

 

[Blanco]

While I can't begrudge Fuglsang's great win, when oh when will these top world pro races ever dispense with these silly time bonuses, which this time cost Richie Porte a well-deserved win?

I will never understand awarding arbitrary time to stage winners. To me it's like cheating. There was Porte giving it his absolute all and with no help from BMC (where were they?) and then Fuglsang wins by a time bonus. There's just something profoundly unfair about that. Yes, the difference was 10 seconds, but I believe Porte would have won on a count back, or by dint of the fact that tying him at that point would not have been enough to beat him after so many days in yellow.

Furthermore, and as I recall, hasn't the Tour dispensed with this silliness? Why don't other important events just do the same? So that we see the real winners, based only on the actual time it took for them to complete the course.

Or, perhaps they should start awarding one minute to the guy who finishes first on each stage, or perhaps two minutes. Why not half an hour, if they really want to mix things up and that seems to be the sole point of doing this? None of it makes the slightest sense, and thankfully they don't do such things at the Olympic Games, or, far as I know, at any other sporting event of world class.

This time bonus stuff is bush league, and it's time for it to be dropped for the rest of time.

What a load of crap!

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

I don't mind time bonuses in principle - they're just another tool to try to get the riders to race the way you want as an organizer (although the results are certainly mixed). I absolutely understand why some people don't like them. But it is important to note they aren't unfair - they're the same for everybody, and Porte knew it was a factor he needed to take into account.

And I'm pretty sure he did. He definitely tried his very best to win stage 6. Without time-bonuses he might have been content with knowing that his main rivals hadn't finished too far ahead of him.

Another thing about time-bonuses is that they possibly make the you help me gain as much time as possible on my rivals, I'll let you win the stage deals between a GC rider and a stagehunter deals less likely; sometimes the GC rider might need those bonus seconds.

 

[Nirvana]

Re:

I'd like to see 3-2-1 seconds for all KOM (in addition to the points.)

In the past there were time bonus on the mountains.
And the winner of the stage got one minute.

 

[Volderke]

which this time cost Richie Porte a well-deserved win?

Was there anything less-deserved about Fuglsang's win?
Analyse the stages:
TT: Porte takes 1:19 on Fuglsang
Stage 6: Fuglsang takes the win, Porte 2nd
Stage 7: Porte and Fuglsang same time
Stage 8: Fuglsang takes 1:15 on Porte

So Porte only took time in a TT.
This is the Dauphine, a climbing criterium. Fuglsang took time in the mountains. Fuglsang is the better climber. Fuglsang fully deserved the win, he ended on a high. Porte ended 7th in the last stage. He choose not to follow on the penultimate climb. That means that Fuglsang spent more energy on that climb. And he kept that momentum. Everybody saying Porte did the best ride that day, forgets that he choose to go slower, and later in the race he couldn't catch that time back. Yes he did it solo, but no, he was not necessarily the best climber. Fuglsang never lost time in the mountains on Porte.

Maybe we should get rid of those stupid boring TT in 1-week and 3-week races?

 

[Katabatic]

The TT is the furthest thing from boring. And saying someone "just" won the TT is a bit silly. It's the purest test of an individual racer's ability and isn't influenced by silly things like random peloton dynamics and team strength. If anything, TTs need to have more varied parcours to test different skills.

There's nothing wrong with bonus seconds in theory. In theory, it encourages people to go for the win. But in practice it just encourages people to sit on wheels and sprint against cooked competitors.

 

[Ramon Koran]

While I can't begrudge Fuglsang's great win, when oh when will these top world pro races ever dispense with these silly time bonuses, which this time cost Richie Porte a well-deserved win?

I will never understand awarding arbitrary time to stage winners. To me it's like cheating. There was Porte giving it his absolute all and with no help from BMC (where were they?) and then Fuglsang wins by a time bonus. There's just something profoundly unfair about that. Yes, the difference was 10 seconds, but I believe Porte would have won on a count back, or by dint of the fact that tying him at that point would not have been enough to beat him after so many days in yellow.

Furthermore, and as I recall, hasn't the Tour dispensed with this silliness? Why don't other important events just do the same? So that we see the real winners, based only on the actual time it took for them to complete the course.

Or, perhaps they should start awarding one minute to the guy who finishes first on each stage, or perhaps two minutes. Why not half an hour, if they really want to mix things up and that seems to be the sole point of doing this? None of it makes the slightest sense, and thankfully they don't do such things at the Olympic Games, or, far as I know, at any other sporting event of world class.

This time bonus stuff is bush league, and it's time for it to be dropped for the rest of time.

The tour has had bonus seconds back since 2015, and they haven't changed the racing whatsoever I agree they need to go but I disagree about them costing Richie a victory he knew the rules before the race and lost so tough.

 

[King Boonen]

While I can't begrudge Fuglsang's great win, when oh when will these top world pro races ever dispense with these silly time bonuses, which this time cost Richie Porte a well-deserved win?

I will never understand awarding arbitrary time to stage winners. To me it's like cheating. There was Porte giving it his absolute all and with no help from BMC (where were they?) and then Fuglsang wins by a time bonus. There's just something profoundly unfair about that. Yes, the difference was 10 seconds, but I believe Porte would have won on a count back, or by dint of the fact that tying him at that point would not have been enough to beat him after so many days in yellow.

Furthermore, and as I recall, hasn't the Tour dispensed with this silliness? Why don't other important events just do the same? So that we see the real winners, based only on the actual time it took for them to complete the course.

Or, perhaps they should start awarding one minute to the guy who finishes first on each stage, or perhaps two minutes. Why not half an hour, if they really want to mix things up and that seems to be the sole point of doing this? None of it makes the slightest sense, and thankfully they don't do such things at the Olympic Games, or, far as I know, at any other sporting event of world class.

This time bonus stuff is bush league, and it's time for it to be dropped for the rest of time.

What a load of crap!

What an incredibly constructive and insightful comment...

[quote="Libertine Seguros":10tfu0ux]I think it's more of a problem to arbitrarily apply time bonuses for some stages and not for others, to be honest. Consistency is the point.

Yup. I have to say I think it's unfair that time trial stage winners never get time bonuses. Ok, winning a TT normally confers some time gap advantage automatically, often in multiple minutes, but if as a GC rider you also managed to beat all the TT specialists into the bargain, I think that's worthy of a little extra. So if anything, Porte should have had his 10 seconds for winning the TT.

I'm also not a huge fan of time bonuses, and would much rather races be won on the road than on artificial constructs like time bonuses, but at the same time I would much rather see yellow jerseys going all out for stage wins rather than just sitting on and rolling in at the back of the group.

Froome got a 6" bonus for coming second to Sagan on stage 11 last year. It was an awesome bit of heads up, on-the-front racing that deserved more than just the 6 seconds he gained over the peloton for doing it. He also got a very justified 10 seconds for his sneak away down the Peyresourde. That's 16 seconds gained for good racing, not just waiting for the TT or summit finishes, when he was already in yellow. I'm not a Froome fan either, but damn if you don't have to respect what he did there.[/quote]

I can understand why they don't do it in TTs. In other stages time is taken on the bunch so you incentivise racing by awarding extra time to the guys who lead the bunch over the line. In a TT you don't need the incentive, there's no bunch and you finish when you finish.

 

[hrotha]

So Porte only took time in a TT.
This is the Dauphine, a climbing criterium. Fuglsang took time in the mountains. Fuglsang is the better climber. Fuglsang fully deserved the win
[...]
Maybe we should get rid of those stupid boring TT in 1-week and 3-week races?

I find this very myopic. First of all, no, it's not a climbing criterium, it's a serious one-week race. It's the Dauphiné, not the Urkiola Igoera. Time-trialing is just as legitimate a way to win a stage race as climbing.

Secondly, you praise Fuglsang for trying relentlessly in the mountains, where the "real show" took place according to you, but you fail to understand that only happened because Fuglsang had lost time in the ITT and was forced to take risks.

 

[jyhjyh]

which this time cost Richie Porte a well-deserved win?

Was there anything less-deserved about Fuglsang's win?
Analyse the stages:
TT: Porte takes 1:19 on Fuglsang
Stage 6: Fuglsang takes the win, Porte 2nd
Stage 7: Porte and Fuglsang same time
Stage 8: Fuglsang takes 1:15 on Porte

Precisely, there wasn't anything less deserved about Fuglsang's win.
You don't win an 8-days stage race by winning only one stage.

 

[MatParker117]

Find time bonuses to be completely artificial.