Dwars Door Vlaanderen

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

Fleche will be garbage for the first 199km as long as the finish is on the Mur.

But that's how it should be isn't it? There should be one classic per year which is the definitive uphill sprint. It's only dull these days because Valverde has been so dominant so there's not much tension - but a course like that definitely should be on the calendar.

clearly one of the worst posts I've ever seen

 

[DFA123]

Re:

The Mur sprint would be better if they ditched Cherave. From the moment of its present, the Mur itself has been much less explosive.

This is true. It makes the run in to the Mur - that false flat after they cross the river - less interesting as well, because the peloton is thinned out and so the fight for position isn't so intense.

 

[Leinster]

There’s nothing wrong with a classic having a summit finish, but you just wish there could be a bit more variation in how it gets there. A solo escapee needs more than a minute advantage at the bottom of a 4-minute climb to have a chance.

At least in the road up to Siena, the preceding 180kms of Strade Bianche has thinned the field out. Does the rest of FW need to be harder? Or would we just get a slightly smaller bunch sprinting at the top.

 

[jaylew]

Re: Re:

Fleche will be garbage for the first 199km as long as the finish is on the Mur.

But that's how it should be isn't it? There should be one classic per year which is the definitive uphill sprint. It's only dull these days because Valverde has been so dominant so there's not much tension - but a course like that definitely should be on the calendar.

Agree 100%. I honestly wouldn't care as much about FW if they changed it.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re: Re:

Fleche will be garbage for the first 199km as long as the finish is on the Mur.

But that's how it should be isn't it? There should be one classic per year which is the definitive uphill sprint. It's only dull these days because Valverde has been so dominant so there's not much tension - but a course like that definitely should be on the calendar.

Why?

FW never ended in an uphill sprint until 2004.

Because it's the most entertaining four minutes of the season. Its well worth sacrificing one race for such guaranteed drama amongst the finest one day racers in the world.

We already have the Scheldeprijs for that.

 

[therhodeo]

Re:

The question is.. how do you make Liege at least half as exciting as cobbled classics? The collective strength of the teams is too great. You can't go solo. Even a handful of riders can't make it to the finish.

Not using Liege as the arriving city? :lol:

Smaller teams. More teams.

 

[EroicaStradeBianche]

Re:

The question is.. how do you make Liege at least half as exciting as cobbled classics? The collective strength of the teams is too great. You can't go solo. Even a handful of riders can't make it to the finish.

Not using Liege as the arriving city? :lol:

some points here.

The problems with Flèche and Liege are the finishes. Uphill finish means anyone will attack before because in modern cycling the group is too strong (teams are stronger and more organized) and they will catch you wherever you'll attack. Uphill finishes are against the attackers in modern cycling. Look at Lombardy, less climbs than liege but with the finish after the descent everyones attacks before = race more exiting.
The uphill finish works only in strade bianche because racing on the gravels makes impossibles for the teams to control the thing but the hill at the end is also something like 400 meters long so the attackers won't die there.

The finish of the flèche is too hard for anyone to try something before. The current route gives no alternatives to 199 km of nothing followed by 2 km of uphill sprint. Also in liege the racing is killed by that ridiculous hill in Ans and maybe even the St. Nicholas is too much at the end. Who would attack today on the Redoute only to die on the St. Nicholas or in Ans?(look what happened to Nibali in 2012) The group has just too much advantage, last year Matthews and GVA were in the top 10, there are no cobbles or gravel destroying the peloton.

Solutions?
For the Flèche: move the finish 20 km from the mur de Huy and then you could see some racing, maybe making the central part of the race harder wouldn't be bad either.
Liege: bring back the finish in Liege maybe take out the St. Nicholas and bring back rue de naniot

there are two conditions for producing an exiting classic-route:
-absence of tarmac (cobbles, gravels) and narrow roads (like in the flemish classics) are the two things destroying the peloton and nullifying its force.
-Put the hardest part of the race far from an easy finish (Like Roubaix, Flanders but also Lombardy which has no cobbles and is better than liege for this reason).

 

[Gigs_98]

Well, Lombardia simply has way harder climbs than LBL. Even the infamous La Redoute which is supposed to let the peloton explode with 35 kilometers to go isn't any more difficult than the supposedly easy final climb in the current Lombardia route, San Fermo della Battaglia. Beside that I also think a flat finish in the city of Liege would be better than the climb to Ans, even if this climb isn't very hard. Besides that LBL has the big problem of flat sections between the climbs. In the last 40 kilometers of that race you only have 3 real climbs and all are less than 2 kilometers long. Even in the cobbles there is less space for regrouping. I am a big fan of the new AGR route although the only thing they changed was scratching the Cauberg from the finale. Now the big question is whether this would also work in Liege, where you could let the route unchanged with the one exception that instead of riding to Ans the riders would head into the city again. But in Amstel you have a few climbs in quick succession where the peloton can't organize, which gives groups the chance go gain an advantage, you just don't have that in LBL. That said, I think it's worth a try, the racing in Liege can't really get worse than it already is.

But at the end of the day I really have the feeling that the major problem we have is that climbers nowadays have lost all panache. Freaking Romain Bardet counts as an aggressive climber nowadays. You know, the guy who in this stage afterwards claimed it was too risky to attack when Chris Froome was isolated and half a minute behind his group, while he still had 3 helpers with him. Meanwhile a few years ago, Andy "I'll attack on the Izoard, 60 kilometers from the finish despite a big peloton" Schleck was criticized for not being aggressive enough. I think one of the main reasons why Valverde has become dominant in the Ardennes is that nobody dares to attack anymore. Hardly any climbers peak for this race and all puncheurs are happy to come to the last climb in the peloton.

 

[Forever The Best]

Re: Re:

Fleche will be garbage for the first 199km as long as the finish is on the Mur.

But that's how it should be isn't it? There should be one classic per year which is the definitive uphill sprint. It's only dull these days because Valverde has been so dominant so there's not much tension - but a course like that definitely should be on the calendar.

Why?

FW never ended in an uphill sprint until 2004.

Because it's the most entertaining four minutes of the season. Its well worth sacrificing one race for such guaranteed drama amongst the finest one day racers in the world.

We already have the Scheldeprijs for that.

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