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Giro-Tour vs Tour-Vuelta: which is the hardest double?

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Is a Tour-Vuelta double still possible in today's pro cycling?

  • Yes

    Votes: 34 87.2%
  • No

    Votes: 5 12.8%

  • Total voters
    39
Also, Menchov was 5th 2008 Giro 4th 2008 Tour.

Anyway, the main reason is that the Tour péloton is significantly faster than either the Giro or Vuelta. Part of that is due to the better conditions than there often are at the Giro owing to time of year (more chance of rain, wind and other factors that slow riders down) and part of it is due to other weather factors (who the hell wants to ride 50km/h+ in 35º+ heat of a baking hot stage through Andalucía with no breeze and no shade?), but part of it is simply that the Tour is so important both to riders and, more importantly, to sponsors, that the fight to be in breakaways, the fight to keep the bunch going, the fight to be where it matters to get the exposure is more intense so it drives the speed of the péloton up. Also, the Tour's backloading tendency in recent years makes the péloton a tenser place because everybody still has something to protect.

Another factor is that with the weather as it often is at the Giro - 2000m+ altitude with the snow on the ground - the chances of getting sick are increased. It's a lot harder to win a GT and recover in a month for another one when you're sick; the Tour winner will have a media blitz and the post-Tour crits, but they're all fixed and for show, you can phone it in. The Tour and Vuelta are typically held in much better weather (also, that suits a few of the riders who've attempted it recently, such as Froome).

Realistically, staying at the business end to win a GC of a GT by the time the Vuelta rolls around in September means that freshness is a factor, and going from GT to GT obviously limits that. The people who've done good GCs at two consecutive GTs in recent years have been those who've been in a relatively comfortable position in the first GT (Froome in 2012, with Sky's 1-2 so clear and comfortable and with the team clipping his wings, and Sastre in 2008, who was able to bury himself in the pack for most of the race with Fränk Schleck up the road) or those who have always been strong all season long (Valverde, Evans). Also, both Sastre and Evans were helped by the 2007 Vuelta being one of the easiest to maintain form through; the toughest mountaintop finish was on stage 4 after few other climbs and apart from El Purche most of the other summits were grinders like Arcalis. As long as the Vuelta keeps going with the carnival gradients preserving time will be harder (plus, the skillset needed at the sharp end of the Vuelta starts to differ ever more from that needed at the Tour).
 
Mar 13, 2015
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Cannibal72 said:
Mr.White said:
Cannibal72 said:
Echoes said:
Just wondering if the day after Bore de France is over, someone would dare to start a thread "Flanders-Roubaix, Arrow-Liège, which is the hardest double?"

The day after Paris-Roubaix, my attention is all focused on the said race, I cannot imagine a cycling fan who would react differently. :eek:

Flanders-Roubaix, surely. Boonen and Cancellara may have made it look relatively easy, but it had only been done 8 times in the ninety years before they came on the scene. I don't see any riders in the future having the level of dominance that they had. Fleche-Liege is a lot easier now with the date change, and with a more specialist and thus smaller group of riders contending for victory in the Ardennes, now the GC favourites basically ignore it.

Well Flanders-Roubaix double had been done 12 times, and Fleche-Liege 9 times in their respective history. Not a convincing argument exactly...

What? You're completely ignoring the fact that Flèche's date has changed; 6 of the 9 doubles have come with Wednesday/Thursday-Sunday runnings. Changing from being the day before to being mid-week is a pretty significant step to make it easier.

I agree it's easier now then when was 2 races in 2 days. In that format Fleche/Liege double was harder to win then Ronde/Roubaix. In current format however there were 6 doubles in each combo, so that stats shows it's equally hard
 
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quote said:
Also the Giro often has the most difficult terrain and more often than not is raced harder over all three weeks, than the other two. All of which makes it harder to recover from it, even if one has had a relatively straightforward way to victory.

imo that's more of a stereotype mostly for people who for various reasons dislike the tour, love 'only july fans' rhetorics and find the role of the giro and the vuelta underrated in the hierarchy of races
 
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LaFlorecita said:
rhubroma said:
Simple, Giro-Tour. Contador has failed twice at the feat, but has bagged the Tour-Vuelta.
He hasn't..?

Oops, my bad.

I thought he had, but in any case, the fact that only he (and Nibali, if he wins the Giro this year) have tried, it tells you that in today's cycling its considered too hazardous for someone who makes the Tour the major seasonal goal.
 
In recent years, do you think that Basso in '06 was the rider who had the better chance to do the Giro-Tour double?

He was above the mortals in that Giro, and being the first year post-Armstrong it was a very open Tour, in that year I really thought that he could do it.
 
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Re: Re:

rhubroma said:
LaFlorecita said:
rhubroma said:
Simple, Giro-Tour. Contador has failed twice at the feat, but has bagged the Tour-Vuelta.
He hasn't..?

Oops, my bad.

I thought he had, but in any case, the fact that only he (and Nibali, if he wins the Giro this year) have tried, it tells you that in today's cycling its considered too hazardous for someone who makes the Tour the major seasonal goal.

When exactly Nibali tried?! I don't remember...
 
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Põhja Konn said:
Agree overall, but I think the bad luck came into play ,when the timing of the sickess is concerned. Had the sickness struck him only couple of days earlier, the possible timeloss because of it would have been lot less significant and Quintana would still have been able to fight for the win. As it happened, the sickness hit him at the time, when it could do the most damage. That's just bad luck.
indeed, and yet I'd add a factor of mental fatigue and lack of focus. Bertie crashed several times in the 2011 tour and found a bump on the descent from allos in 2015 out of clearer sky, froome hit into the barrier, injured his leg and abandoned in the last year's vuelta etc, I'm far from thinking that was pure unluck as tiredness makes you vulnerable on all levels.
 

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