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Dauphine (The time bonus)

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Re:

Katabatic said:
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.

But random peloton dynamics and team strength is a part of cycling.

hrotha said:
Volderke said:
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.

Maybe he called it a "climbing criterium" because it's got "criterium" in its name...

Why does it have "criterium" in its name anyway?
 
The dauphine is a mountainous region. So yes, it's always gonna be a climbing race.

Katabatic said:
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.

That silly thing is called bike racing, the most exciting sport invented by human beings.

hrotha said:
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.

I'm just charging with my comment. You may find this myopic (because honestly, it is), just like I find the opening poster's reasoning myopic.
 
King Boonen said:
Blanco said:
DBChas said:
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. :mad: :mad:

What a load of crap!
What an incredibly constructive and insightful comment...

Well I couldn't help myself :eek:
 
Blanco said:
King Boonen said:
Blanco said:
DBChas said:
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. :mad: :mad:

What a load of crap!
What an incredibly constructive and insightful comment...
Well I couldn't help myself :eek:

A friendly suggestion, maybe you should find a way in future...
 
You wont hear the teams or riders complain as most have gained a benefit from time bonuses at one time or another.

The TDU has been won on Bonuses a few times, Gerrans twice from memory (and over Porte in 2016), Greipel a few years ago as well.

I think the TDF have fooled with the Bonuses over the past decade, IIRC, Bonuses from Intermediate sprints were taken out for a while, no stage bonuses after the first week and so on.

I suppose that if any changes were to be made it should be uniform for all WT events, and possibly coupled with the last 3km rule.
 
Apr 9, 2017
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Re:

Volderke said:
That silly thing is called bike racing, the most exciting sport invented by human beings.
Sure, but completely irrelevant to the point.

People should follow the logical consequences of their own statements. Why is the best climber very consistently at the top of the GC and regularly considered the strongest rider in the field? Because climbing, particularly steep gradients, is when peloton drafting starts to break down and it becomes a purer and purer contest of individual fitness.

The TT is the same way. And smashing someone in a TT does not, by any means, make you less deserving.
 
Re: Re:

Katabatic said:
Why is the best climber very consistently at the top of the GC and regularly considered the strongest rider in the field? Because climbing, particularly steep gradients, is when peloton drafting starts to break down and it becomes a purer and purer contest of individual fitness.

The TT is the same way. And smashing someone in a TT does not, by any means, make you less deserving.

Dauphine wasn't decided by gradients but by race tactics. And TT is not by definition needed in grand tours. They only started in 1934 and first prologue wasn't until 1967 in the Tour...
You would get the same level of excitement in a big tour by actually getting rid of TT and increase time bonuses in flat stages. Racing will become much, much more exciting.

I say this only to illustrate that time bonuses are maybe not liked, but you could argue ad nauseam about every aspect of what makes a grand tour or 1-week tour exciting. For me, all is relative except some good racing with sound team tactics and a parcours that enables several kinds of riders to go for the win (remember Ben Swift on Alpe). This Dauphine delivered.
 
Re: Re:

Volderke said:
Katabatic said:
Why is the best climber very consistently at the top of the GC and regularly considered the strongest rider in the field? Because climbing, particularly steep gradients, is when peloton drafting starts to break down and it becomes a purer and purer contest of individual fitness.

The TT is the same way. And smashing someone in a TT does not, by any means, make you less deserving.

Dauphine wasn't decided by gradients but by race tactics. And TT is not by definition needed in grand tours. They only started in 1934 and first prologue wasn't until 1967 in the Tour...
You would get the same level of excitement in a big tour by actually getting rid of TT and increase time bonuses in flat stages. Racing will become much, much more exciting.

I say this only to illustrate that time bonuses are maybe not liked, but you could argue ad nauseam about every aspect of what makes a grand tour or 1-week tour exciting. For me, all is relative except some good racing with sound team tactics and a parcours that enables several kinds of riders to go for the win (remember Ben Swift on Alpe). This Dauphine delivered.

By that logic someone could argue they should return to single geared bikes with wooden rims.
 
Re:

Katabatic said:
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.

I agree. Though ITT will introduce random weather into the equation.

I would like one flat ITT and one Mountain ITT.
 
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Considering the sprinters end up being about 5 hours down in the GC standings of a grand tour, you would need a LOT of bonus seconds to make the race more exciting with that method.

ITT is a great way of creating separation based on individual rider strength (and almost nothing else), particularly among the GC contenders. Not to mention, it prevents races from being won/lost completely via who can go the fastest uphill, and introduces another kind of rider that can contend for the overall.
 
Re: Re:

RedheadDane said:
Maybe he called it a "climbing criterium" because it's got "criterium" in its name...

Why does it have "criterium" in its name anyway?
The Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, like some other races (most notably the Critérium International), maintained the name from an earlier time when the word was just used to define that the race was open or invitational. Although many of the races that were open or invitational were in the format we now call criteriums, the term didn't explicitly refer to that type of racing at first. I'm not sure at what point the term became to refer exclusively to the short circuit racing that we associate the term with today, whether competitive à la a kermesse or fixed à la post-Tour crits, but it may well have something to do with the all-Star Critérium des As, a season-ending invitational race for the top stars that began as a partially paced short-circuit race on a 3-4km circuit in Longchamp.
 
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I like time bonuses because it gives the GC riders a reason to care about the finish. Watching Contador outkick Aru in the Giro two years ago for a mere 4 second time bonus was infinitely more exciting than watching Contador gift a stage to Schleck on the Tourmalet after they'd battled for nearly an hour.

Everybody knows the rules, they apply to all.
 
Re:

Durden93 said:
I like time bonuses because it gives the GC riders a reason to care about the finish. Watching Contador outkick Aru in the Giro two years ago for a mere 4 second time bonus was infinitely more exciting than watching Contador gift a stage to Schleck on the Tourmalet after they'd battled for nearly an hour.

Everybody knows the rules, they apply to all.

I do agree, but at the same time, I like when a race leader, or the guy with the higher GC placing, can gift a stage win to someone whose efforts deserve it. Unlike when, say, Contador needed to take every second going on the final stage of Paris Nice this year.
 
I don't mind time bonuses. I can see the arguments for and against. On balance I like the intrigue both in the early stages for leader's jerseys and when GC lads reach the finish together.

What does bug me is the illogical structure. Why 10-6-4? Second and third reach the finish line together, they're sprinting for a relative 2 seconds. If third and fourth reach the finish line together it is for a relative 4 seconds.

It should be 10-6-3 or 10-5-2.

Yours sincerely,

Rain Man.
 
Re:

barmaher said:
I don't mind time bonuses. I can see the arguments for and against. On balance I like the intrigue both in the early stages for leader's jerseys and when GC lads reach the finish together.

What does bug me is the illogical structure. Why 10-6-4? Second and third reach the finish line together, they're sprinting for a relative 2 seconds. If third and fourth reach the finish line together it is for a relative 4 seconds.

It should be 10-6-3 or 10-5-2.

Yours sincerely,

Rain Man.

Yes, that is my only issue with the bonifications as well. It was even worse a few years ago, when the bonus wa the double in Grand Tours (20, 12, 8). That was just ridiculous.

Another issue I have, which is worse, however, is how they incorporate hundreths of seconds into GCs.

To illustrate the problem, I have to be quite technical, so I apologise in advance for that.

The 100ths only become important in the event of equality on time and are only obtained from time trials (and, apparently, only individual time trials as I recently learned).

That is all fine, until one realises the following:

Suppose that two riders, let's say Ran Margaliot and Lance Armstrong, are fighting for a significant placing in a race with two individual time trials (it is necessary to have more than one for the problem to arise).

In the opening 6.9 km prologue, Margaliot blitzes the course in a time of 7:43.99 and wins the stage. Armstrong comes in 4th in a time of 7:53.00. This gives Margaliot an official lead of 10 seconds to Armstrong, even though he was just 9.01 seconds faster.

Throughout the following stages gruelling battles take place, and Armstrong successfully gains 9 seconds on his great Israelian rival, so they go into the final day time trial separated by just 1 second (officially), while everybody else has been obliterated GC wise.

That time trial keeps everybody on the edge of their seat, and Armstrong barely manages to win the stage, riding in a time of 44:41.00, while Margaliot slots in at second place, having covered the route in a time of 44:41.99. The official time difference from this stage is 0 seconds, because time is only evaluated by the seconds, and the milliseconds (or centiseconds, rightly) are not taken into account. This means that Margaliot defends his jersey and wins the race by a margin of 1 second. However, Armstrong had actually been 98 hundreths of a second faster, considering everything (hypothetical bonifications notwithstanding and largely irrelevant).

If both riders had been just one hundreth of a second faster on the opening stage, they would have gotten a difference of 9 seconds from that stage, and Armstrong would rightfully have ended up winning the race, because he covered the course fastest.

That is just absurd, and it would be really easy to avoid such a problem by making the 100ths of a second open to the public and count in all events, not just when tied on seconds. If they were publicised, it would in addition help viewers and commentators knowing what would happen, if riders were equal on time after a final time trial (as it is now, we really have now clue what would happen in that event if there had been another time trial earlier in the race).

So, yeah, it is probably not a problem that in reality has presented itself particularly often, but apparently it bothers me enough to complain in depth about it.
 
Ran Margaliot and Lance Armstrong. I think you just put the "random" in random example. :p


What I like about bonus-seconds is that they add a whole bunch of aspects to racing.

There might be GC riders who wants to compete for the stage win, and know they can win a sprint, because they want the bonus-seconds.

There might be GC riders who would like the bonus-seconds for a stage win, but know they aren't gonna beat their rivals in a sprint, so still has to actually get away.

There might be GC riders who are confident in their abilities to win a sprint - and thus get bonus-seconds - but still prefers to actually rider away from the others.

There might be GC riders who would prefer if the breakaway stays away, taking the bonus-seconds out of contention.
 
Volderke said:
DBChas said:
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?

Porte was the best climber though Fuglsang was not far behind, Porte rode with his nose in the wind most of the second part of the stage, Fuglsang did not.
 
Some good points here. Sometimes what you gain on the swings, you lose on the roundabouts. There are negative aspects to the bonuses, but overall I think the balance is positive.

As RedHeadDane states, some riders might play a finish conservatively, since they think they can outsprint their opponents. On the other hand, this means that others in the group will try to outdistance the better sprinters. The bonuses also ensure that if there are just a couple of GC riders are at the head of the race at the end of a stage, there will be a proper sprint.

As has been said, when bonuses are available, some teams are keener to chase breakaways, especially when their leader needs to gain time on GC. The final week of the Cobo/Alien Vuelta would have been duller without bonuses (OK part of the problem was the parcours after the Angry Lou).

However, since my speciality is mathematical economics, I've always had major problems with the fact that the marginal gain available from sprinting for 3rd or 4th is greater than the marginal gain available from sprinting for 2nd or 3rd, as a couple of posters have previously stated.
 

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