Grand Depart 2017 in Germany?

[Libertine Seguros]

Lolzers, that penultimate weekend yet again...

 

[Axis]

14th july' stage

 

[portugal11]

Re:

14th july' stage

Nothing will happen

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

14th july' stage

You cannot be serious

 

[railxmig]

Re:

to sum up

S 01/07 : Düsseldorf (CLM)
S 02/07 : Düsseldorf > Liège
M 03/07 : Verviers > Longwy
T 04/07 : Mondorf-les-Bains > Vittel
W 05/07 : Vittel > Planche-des-Belles-Filles
T 06/07 : Vesoul > Troyes
F 07/07 : Troyes > Nuits-St-Georges
S 08/07 : Dôle > Les Rousses
S 09/07 : Nantua > Chambéry (Biche/Grand Colombier/Mont du Chat)
M 10/07 : ----------
T 11/07 : Périgueux > Bergerac
W 12/07 : Eymet > Pau
T 13/07 : Pau > Peyragudes (Comminges/Ares/Menté/Balès/Peyresourde)
F 14/07 : Saint-Girons > Foix (Latrape/Agnes/Mur de Péguère)
S 15/07 : Blagnac > Rodez
S 16/07 : Laissac > Puy-en-Velay
M 17/07 : ----------
T 18/07 : Brioude/Puy-en-Velay > Romans-sur-Isère
W 19/07 : La Mûre > Serre-Chevalier (Ornon/Croix de Fer/Télégraphe/Galibier)
T 20/07 : Briançon > Col d'Izoard (Vars/Izoard)
F 21/07 : Embrun > Salon-de-Provence
S 22/07 : La Ciotat > Marseille (CLM)
S 23/07 : Montgeron > Paris

The whole race is IMO just badly designed, it just looks awkward and clunky. It's like watching Gravity Falls - great backgrounds and interesting story but the characters are awfully (lazy) drawn and just imo badly designed - it hurts eyes. Why bother with Alps last if they're much closer to the grand depart? Money & fame i guess. Pyrenees should be last - it would look better on the map and the transfers would be much shorter, smoother and natural.

As for the stages:
1. I doubt ASO will have enough balls to put Mont du Chat... Bardet... okay!?!
2. Are they really putting Izoard (interesting attempt on the MTF nontheless) after Galibier? I guess these are the times when even Galibier is reduced to a transitional stage. Maybe the 3rd week and Contadors manage to create something but i can only see a meaningless french climber/Nibali push and Quintana glued to Froome's wheel.
3. This Serre-Chevalier seems to be more indicating into La Salle-les-Alpes than Briançon (roughly 10km closer to Galibier) which is good news. Maybe in the future, on a better placed stage, Galibier will be more selective as Briançon has just too much of the false-descent on the valley.
4. Foix stage maybe may work only if it would be the last significant stage of the whole Tour and the profile would look more like this:

5. Transfer from Marseille to Paris will be very interesting.
6. Vosges have much more to offer than Planche-des-Belles-Filles and the same with Pyrenees and Peyragudes (i guess it's because of the Bond filming anniversary?).

14th july' stage

You cannot be serious

No worry, they'll add a meaningless 50km flat loop around Saint-Girons and a 100km flat loop aroun Foix and call it a mountain stage a la Tour from the 60's

 

[Ferminal]

Do it twice and it's OK.

Agreed the whole route has a bad taste about it, no method to it at all, even 2012 was more coherent.

 

[Axis]

Re: Re:

The whole race is IMO just badly designed

Strange, but not really bad... If there is the climbs announced, it's already a real improvement. (Chat, GC hard way, Biche, Péguère)
So okay, Izoard (with flat and just Vars before) after Galibier, it's stupid...

 

[dacooley]

leave it out romantic routes for race design thread. the tour will always follow its commercial script.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

leave it out romantic routes for race design thread. the tour will always follow its commercial script.

What could possibly be commercial about doing boring racing, and doing a terrible job in general

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

You forgot the Portillon

 

[railxmig]

Re:

leave it out romantic routes for race design thread. the tour will always follow its commercial script.

Sorry, but it's not about romantic routes here, it's about how clunky and uncomfortable for the riders this race looks. Why Pyrenees are first? Why the first and third (Paris stage is basically a rest day) rest day transfers are so long and unintuitive? Besides, You can do a much more interesting job with the 3rd week using places you already have, not even changing most of the profiles. Maybe something like this would be more interesing:
1. La Ciotat > Marseille (CLM)
2. Salon-de-Provence > Embrun
3. Embrun > Col d'Izoard (Vars/Izoard)
4. Briançon > Serre-Chevalier (Mont Cenis?/Télégraphe/Galibier) (If the Lautaret tunnels are ready then Lautaret)
5. La Mûre > Romans-sur-Isère (through Vercors)
6. Montgeron > Paris

 

[McLovin]

Re: Re:

14th july' stage

Nothing will happen

Col des Marrous after Peguere. The second half anyway I suppose.

 

[Valv.Piti]

What, I just realised there is only 2 days to go. Woah

The Alps looks so bad. I still have hope for at least one really good Pyreneen stage. Hoping Planche will be similar to the stage in 2014 and the Chat/Colombier-stage will be hardcore, but they can still mess it up grandiose. I don't know what to expect of the transition stages at all, lets see.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

What, I just realised there is only 2 days to go. Woah

The Alps looks so bad. I still have hope for at least one really good Pyreneen stage. Hoping Planche will be similar to the stage in 2014 and the Chat/Colombier-stage will be hardcore, but they can still mess it up grandiose. I don't know what to expect of the transition stages at all, lets see.

Don't the profiles of everything but the mountain stages usually come out a lot later? Or is that just me being lazy too look anywhere besides steephill

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

What, I just realised there is only 2 days to go. Woah

The Alps looks so bad. I still have hope for at least one really good Pyreneen stage. Hoping Planche will be similar to the stage in 2014 and the Chat/Colombier-stage will be hardcore, but they can still mess it up grandiose. I don't know what to expect of the transition stages at all, lets see.

Don't the profiles of everything but the mountain stages usually come out a lot later? Or is that just me being lazy too look anywhere besides steephill

You are right, but at least get an idea to how those are going to look like.

 

[Gigs_98]

I just read this on the velowire website:
A stage profile of about one hundred kilometers which promisses a race which is difficult to control by the teams. Punch and courage rather than long and boring transitions with attacks in the last kilometers. It promises to be breath taking. And it migh well be possible that other stages with similar profiles come up to make this edition 2017 interesting.
(It's a translation of this article)

Am I the only one who feels as if the ASO wants to needle me on purpose. Such nonsense.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Essentially, Formigal was the worst thing which could happen for cycling.

Its like those that are pro ultra-short stages just cling on to those few times it works and forgets about all the other times it didn't. Stages like this definitely have a place in cycling, we have seen 2 great example on that this season with action from the gun, but I very much fear they are overdoing it (well, ASO has done for a few years, especially in the mountains).

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

Essentially, Formigal was the worst thing which could happen for cycling.

Its like those that are pro ultra-short stages just cling on to those few times it works and forgets about all the other times it didn't. Stages like this definitely have a place in cycling, we have seen 2 great example on that this season with action from the gun, but I very much fear they are overdoing it (well, ASO has done for a few years, especially in the mountains).

Formigal will have the same effect like Alp d'Huez in 2011. the last time the last tdf mountain stage was longer than 150 k was in 2010, then in 2011 the short stage worked great so the aso thought every last mountain stage has to be short.

A short mountain stage can be great but it's about having different kind of stages in a gt and while we see more and more short stages we haven't seen a real 200 k long tdf queenstage with numerous HC climbs since 2011

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah, a stage like that shouldn't be a legit mountain stage, but rather an intermediate stage.

But seriously, 104km. For a moment I considered the possibility of it being a huge ITT.

 

[Valv.Piti]

The worst part of it is everybody is buying it. Commentators, expert, journalists etc. At least in Denmark and the Anglo-news I read.
If just we would have some super masochistic Zomegnan-esque type to force the riders through 7 hours of intensive climbing and show how thats infinitely better to those farcical 100k stages.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

The worst part of it is everybody is buying it. Commentators, expert, journalists etc. At least in Denmark and the Anglo-news I read.
If just we would have some super masochistic Zomegnan-esque type to force the riders through 7 hours of intensive climbing and show how thats infinitely better to those farcical 100k stages.

Fully agreed. It's the Tour de France. Let them at least ride stages I wouldn't be able to ride.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

When these short stages have worked so well, it's been off the back of a big, long queen stage.

The 2011 Alpe d'Huez stage worked because the day before it was this:

Hey look, it's a 200km stage with three legit HC mountains. Not only that, it was raced from far out, so lots of riders had some very tired legs which made putting pressure on in a stage that was barely half the length possible.

Likewise, before the Formigal stage, what did we have?

Well look at that, it's a near-200km stage with three cat.1 climbs and an ESP (also Soudet is debatably ESP itself). Which finishes on the tough climb, so there will be tired legs and because it finishes on such a tough climb you can expect there will be some gaps, but then guarantees riders have tired legs the following day!

Ah, but what about those great Giro stages this year, I hear you say?

Well, the Andalo stage came after a rest day and had a flat stage after it, so nobody feared the day to come; the Sant'Anna di Vinadio stage came the day after the Cima Coppi and was the last GC relevant stage so riders had to make it count (plus crashes the previous day had rendered some riders vulnerable to attack or left teams headless, such as Катюша who went stagehunting after Zakarin's crash the day before).

Just putting a short mountain stage in and expecting action isn't sufficient, it has to be placed within the rest of the race well. The short mountain stage in and of itself is not what has worked, it's the short mountain stage in the context of the races it has been in.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Re:

Likewise, before the Formigal stage, what did we have?

The stage before the Foix stage won't be that much easier with Menté, Balès and Peyresourde-Peyragudes (around 12 kms of actual climbing - a proper 1st cat.) and the equivalence of at least one 2nd category climb before those climbs.

The Foix stage is, of course, intended as the Bastille Day breakaway stage, but it's easily hard enough for GC action. Col d'Agnes (probably the hardest "1st category" TDF climb), and the wall climb are proper hard and it looks like there's no flat loop around Foix this time. The stage is short, but fine.


The problems, as per usual, are that a) that the teams and GC riders have to want to race and b) no matter what the stage design at this point in the race, Sky will likely be in full control.

 

[Ferminal]

Nothing wrong with short stages in themselves, they are part of what should be a decent mix of much longer and harder stages, MTFs, descent finishes, single climb stages (yes), and so on. Not sure we can say that about this route but I guess I should give it 24 hours.

A 100km and 240km monster always over two 170km cut outs. Actually with 100km you may even get a GC rider winning a stage.

Ah, but what about those great Giro stages this year, I hear you say?

Giro stages are fine (this year and Gavia - Val Martello) regardless as they use the hardest climbs in the race, with altitude and potentially poor conditions.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Do I read it correctly that after stage 12 to Peyragudes the next meaningful mountain stage for GC will be stage 17 to Serre Chevalier?

Stage 13 may be mountainous, including Mur de Peugere, and end in Foix, after the descent. Thing is, if they do the loop around town, like in 2012, nothing will happen. After that, the next mountain stage will probably be 17 (stage 16 could be medium-mountain)

Mur de Peugere will make sence as MTF only. Even without loop it will be too far from finish to create gaps. Second week looks weak.
I don't have much expectations from Serre Chevalier because stages to Briancon in 2005 and 2007 did not provide much of action.

What you said here is making me realise that the Izoard after the Galibier stage might not be so bad. Why? When did those Briancon stages occur in those previous editions? Much earlier in the race. Next year the Telegraphe-Galibier beast will be well into week three, when riders are tiring and bigger time gaps are naturally more likely. In 2007 there certainly wasn't a lack of action on the Galibier itself, though it mostly came back together by the end. Deeper into the race it might not be so easy to bring back a strong attack.

Also, if the course is going to be designed to see minimal time gaps at the top of the GC for the first two weeks, then it will be setup for Quintana to attack Froome on Galibier. If they are neck and neck on GC at this point, then Nairo cannot wait for the Izoard if there is still a 50 km ITT to follow. The possible time gains on Galibier are greater, even if this is still a risky long range attack. It also must be noted that this stage isn't the first of a three high mountain set, but only one of two. I don't think that just Izoard is really a huge incentive to not attack on the Galibier. If the Izoard stage was harder (or if there was a third Alpine stage) then the design (for the Galibier stage) would actually be worse.