Petulant whining is one of the forum's biggest assets, so nothing to complain about.
That said, while I agree some posters are almost impossible to please, this route is bad by Giro standards. There's really no way around it.
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That said, while I agree some posters are almost impossible to please, this route is bad by Giro standards. There's really no way around it.
Stage 7 looks nice, and stage 9 is great. We'll see a genuine sorting out by the end of the first week.
Stage 14 could be okay, but it's poorly positioned, as is stage 19. Stages 15-17 should work well. Mortirolo will still do damage imo.
And I like having Fedaia (FEDAIAAAA!!!!!) as the big crescendo, even if in a pure stage design sense it works better as a pass.
Mountain stages are not long, but at least they are not particularly short.
SMH at ITT kms, but only a little bit. By now I am not surprised.
Stage 14 could be okay, but it's poorly positioned, as is stage 19. Stages 15-17 should work well. Mortirolo will still do damage imo.
And I like having Fedaia (FEDAIAAAA!!!!!) as the big crescendo, even if in a pure stage design sense it works better as a pass.
Mountain stages are not long, but at least they are not particularly short.
SMH at ITT kms, but only a little bit. By now I am not surprised.
In my opinion that is nonsense. I don't know where you heard that from gen Z, but all I've heard are old(er) people on the top of some associations and companies who claim that this is what the younger people want: everything needs to be shorter, faster, more spectacular. In my eyes that is because younger people do indeed watch less pro sport and the old men responsible realize they need to do something to keep an audience - then they look at the media and think that young people can only follow a tiktok video and think "ah, that's why, so that's what our sport needs to be like". If they had a bit more empathy, would be able to look closer and had more creativity they would maybe see that one reason why many young people are not interested in pro sports anymore is because they are sick of corruption, doping, of shiny stuff without substance or authenticity, of lies and state sponsoring, of climate sins, racism, standardized interviews and so on... Well, a good part of them. Like every generation gen z consists of very many different people. But I know why people like my sister and her friends, my son and his friends are not interested in watching pro sports even if some of them are avid sportspeople themselves and that's not because they lack the concentration interval.
62-year-old Vegni, gen Z
It's completely false that we always complain regardless of what the route is like. Many Giro routes have been praised in recent years.
What, did you expect people with coherent, long-held opinions on what a good route is to suddenly abandon those opinions because of reasons? It's a bad route. You can't judge a route on criteria that have nothing to do with route design.
It's completely false that we always complain regardless of what the route is like. Many Giro routes have been praised in recent years.
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I even remember Tour routes being praised very recently. Like 2013ish. And I was really positive about the 2019 Vuelta route as well.
Think you are underestimating how the week 2 medium mountain stages, along with stage nine could impact on the GC - It's a more balanced route than back-loading some ridiculously hard stages in week three which are soft-pedalled by the peleton.
I notice it in my children (which of course is meaningless, as it could be down to bad parenting : p ), but have also heard this from older high school teachers, though. That Gen Z-ers do have extremely short attention spans, on average.
As I'm getting older my attention span has shortened also. Everything is on demand these days. I'm also looking for cheap thrills - instant gratification.
In RCS's case I think it's less about that and more that they have an unhealthy fixation on the Tour de France. The Giro would be a better race if they focused on what they used to do best.
Another main issue is its place on the calendar and the bad weather protocol / potential rider strikes. I mean, we only get 2 ascents over 2000m in altitude, one of which is almost a highway climb (although very scenic) and the other one is barely above 2000m altitude ...and an MTF to boot. Both in one stage.
Well, it is probably true that on average the attention span has suffered over time. But I don't think that's a reason to assume shorter events or stages or whatever is the solution, after all I don't think the amount of people who are interested in 100m sprints has risen...
Yeah, I agree that the reason for this route is probably to be looked for elsewhere, anyway.
You could easily had one less mountain stage in the last week, as long as you made the a couple of the other harder and/or better designed to attack further from the stage finish. It could have better designed stages the last week without being back-loaded.
In my eyes the impact that power meters (and race radios and modern media like mobile phones and also GPS tracking) have on racing and therefor race route design does not get talked about enough.
My thinking: Going on a long range attack during a GT makes less sense when you know pretty well where you are at at the moment, what is possible, what the others can likely do, what you will be spending. The others have better chances to measure correctly whether they should follow you or let you go. So riders will less likely try long range attacks anyway. Anybody will likely wait for the final anyway. And then it might make sense for the route designers to make sure the riders are at least still fresh in the final and we will get to see something there, instead of everyone just fading out at the end.
I'm not sure that's the way it goes, but I think it's worth thinking about this, and at least realize that the racing happens under different circumstances than it used to in the 80s.
Some routes are better for long-rang attacks and some are worse:
If there is a steep MTF 10+ km long everybody will wait until the end (i.e. last 5 km).
If there is a very difficult climb (i.e. Finestre/Stelvio/Mortifolo) followed by a descent + an easier climb to the line (i.e. Sestriere/Aprica) and riders are near the business end of a GT nobody will wait until that easy MTF (cause it won't produce gaps). Instead the race will explode on that brutal penultimate climb, GC action will last at least 30 km and gaps will be big (that easy MTF and false flats will be very difficult to overcome for weaker isolated riders). We've seen that before: a monster climb (not far from the finish) plus an easier finish climb is a recipe for epic stages.
Not to mention that Gen Z spends hours watching boring stuff like Twitch streams and is known for binge-watching stuff, if anything it's a lame excuse that race organizers often use.
I think the watering down of mountain stages started with the Vuelta, they went quantity over quality because mountain stages get better ratings than flat stages, so more mountain stages where everything comes down to the final climb instead of a few big ones equals overall better ratings, if you follow that logic. Of course the fact that Purito, Valverde and Contador were all great on short, steep climbs was also a big factor.
If the mountain stages don't create big gaps you need less kms of ITT and if you have less kms of ITT there's less of an incentive for the pure climbers to attack before the last few kms, it's a vicious cycle...
So much I know by now about routes.
I still wanted to bring in the other factors that don't get (much) talked about.
My opinion: race organisers rarely design them thinking about one specific rider, but I'm sure that they usually think about the profile of riders they want/can attract from the current peloton. For example, at the moment we have 2+1 riders clearly above everyone else, Poga-Roglic+Bernal, and they are also the top climbers out there. Climbing wise and beyond these 3, there are not a lot of outstanding climbers in the current peloton. There's Quintana and Nibali of course, but they are far from their career best. S. Yates is not a consistent outstanding climber, Dan Martin just retired and we are left with MAL - an outstanding climber with no TT ability, that has not found a way of translating his skills into consistent GC results.
What we have is a bunch of pretty good climbers, like Woods, Carapaz, Gaudu, Mas, Bardet, Haig, G. Martin, Bilbao, Caruso, O'Connor, Hindley and a few others. Of these, not all are all-rounded or have found the consistency needed to ride for the top of a GT GC; and few have time-trialing skills above the average - in fact, only Almeida, Vingegaard and Evenopoel, perhaps Foss, and these are all youngsters that had not a chance to consistently prove their skills in GT battles - and/or might not even have them.
Imho, routes like Giro'22 are designed to target this group of pretty good climbers, Woods, Carapaz, etc. It's like telling them come, there aren't many TT kms and HC climbs, where you will lose time for the all-rounders or the climbers in better shape that day. Come and you'll have a chance of winning a GT in the era of Roglic and Pogacar. I don't dislike the route for 22, and there are some pretty good stages, but I agree with most of you: way too little ITT, no off-road/gravel, no proper Queen stage, too many fully flat stages.
What we have is a bunch of pretty good climbers, like Woods, Carapaz, Gaudu, Mas, Bardet, Haig, G. Martin, Bilbao, Caruso, O'Connor, Hindley and a few others. Of these, not all are all-rounded or have found the consistency needed to ride for the top of a GT GC; and few have time-trialing skills above the average - in fact, only Almeida, Vingegaard and Evenopoel, perhaps Foss, and these are all youngsters that had not a chance to consistently prove their skills in GT battles - and/or might not even have them.
Imho, routes like Giro'22 are designed to target this group of pretty good climbers, Woods, Carapaz, etc. It's like telling them come, there aren't many TT kms and HC climbs, where you will lose time for the all-rounders or the climbers in better shape that day. Come and you'll have a chance of winning a GT in the era of Roglic and Pogacar. I don't dislike the route for 22, and there are some pretty good stages, but I agree with most of you: way too little ITT, no off-road/gravel, no proper Queen stage, too many fully flat stages.
The background context here is that, for probably a decade or more, Bavarian has been lamenting the decrease in TT kms and pointing out how it’s changing (and for some, ruining) the nature of GTs. And he’s been obdurately consistent in pointing out how it gets worse every year, with TTTs seemingly disappearing altogether and TTs getting fewer and shorter. He’s was right pointing out back then how this trend would get worse and worse. And this Giro is like the apogee of all that.
I suspect GenZ is just the straw person here, but I don’t tend to think much in terms of “generations” (they are ridiculous constructs) so I won’t try to go there.
Nah, I think the organizers do this due to a combination of two reasons. The want as many stages as possible relevant for the GC, but can't have too many 5000 height meter stages. So they rather do 10 stages with a ramp at the end and 5 flat stages than 5 big mountain stages and 10 flat(ish) stages. Of course exxagrated a bit, but you get the point. And they also have a desire to limit time gaps in the GC. A Finestre-Sestriere combo will create much bigger gaps than for example Sega di Ala finish.
And I think the type of big climb/small climb combo (alternatively descent finish from big climb) very often delivers. The best combos like Finestre/Sestriere, Mortirolo/Aprica or Stelvio/Torre di Fraele certainly at least 8 or 9 out of 10 times. And the smaller combos also more often than not if placed suitably in the GT and not just before a big MTF or a long ITT or something like that.
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Couldn't also clinic reasons be a part of the explaination why they don't have a huge amount of ITT and enough long mountain stages and height meters to compensate for this?
Honestly, I don't see that much more TT kms in the last decade would have made things much better. In most versions it would only made Froome or Contador or Roglic or Wiggins only more dominating. In other versions there weren't really the type of GC rider who would benifit much from that. The only exceptions were perhaps a couple of versions where Dumoulin was at his peak.
For the most part, this debate is about race organisers being largely guys in suits from the (nebulous concept of the) older generation selling their event to sponsor executives who are also largely guys in suits from the older generation and trying to justify the changes in the demographics in a way that protects themselves as best as possible, which is of course completely understandable since they're after investment from these sponsors and so don't want to look bad. It's easier to blame any problems with the audience feedback as being due to the (equally nebulous concept of the) younger generation's perceived lack of attention span meaning that they no longer appreciate the fine spectacle laid on for them (at which the fellow members of the older generation can nod sagely) and we have to adapt to suit them, than it is to admit to advertisers and sponsors whose income you depend on that, in fact, the biggest problem is that you have been providing a lacklustre product.
As Mayo points out (and I have been fond of pointing out in the past), the younger generation that we are constantly told has no attention span is also the generation of binge-watching, and that watches a Twitch streamer play the same section of the same level of a videogame for eight hours in search of a world record. The same things that intrigued people and made fans of them in yesteryear still intrigue people and make fans of them today. A race like the Worlds or Paris-Roubaix still glues people to their screen for hours. The biggest problem is that not only are there far more alternative sources of entertainment now, so the first-time viewer might not stick it out so long in a boring race to get drawn in by the later parts of the stage, but also we're broadcasting ever increasing amounts, so races where there used to be only the last hour broadcast are now being shown start to finish, so it's easier for that same first-time viewer to tune in with 120km remaining in a flat stage unknowingly, see nothing happen for two hours, and dismiss the sport as boring. That's not the problem of the younger generation's attention span. That's the problem of failing to accentuate the positives and minimise the negatives.
As Mayo points out (and I have been fond of pointing out in the past), the younger generation that we are constantly told has no attention span is also the generation of binge-watching, and that watches a Twitch streamer play the same section of the same level of a videogame for eight hours in search of a world record. The same things that intrigued people and made fans of them in yesteryear still intrigue people and make fans of them today. A race like the Worlds or Paris-Roubaix still glues people to their screen for hours. The biggest problem is that not only are there far more alternative sources of entertainment now, so the first-time viewer might not stick it out so long in a boring race to get drawn in by the later parts of the stage, but also we're broadcasting ever increasing amounts, so races where there used to be only the last hour broadcast are now being shown start to finish, so it's easier for that same first-time viewer to tune in with 120km remaining in a flat stage unknowingly, see nothing happen for two hours, and dismiss the sport as boring. That's not the problem of the younger generation's attention span. That's the problem of failing to accentuate the positives and minimise the negatives.
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The most positive thing about few km of TTs is that Remco won't win this race by 10 minutes (but only by 5).
Speaking for all millennials I must say I like the route a tiny bit I hate the route a tiny bit and I 99% don't care.
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