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.