Has the Tour Become Too Big?

[LoveThePain]

While I absolutely love the TdF and look forward to it every year I wonder at times if it has become to important for the good of the sport? Here we are in late June and how many races has Quintana participated in? How about Froome? Not many and unless they ride the Tour of Spain they won't have raced in that many meaningful races this season. Some hardly race in the first half of the season in order to arrive as fresh as possible for the Tour. We don't get to see too many battles between the all-arounders of the sport. Though now proven to be a cheat, Lance Armstrong barely raced outside the TdF. His season was over my September.

The sprinters and specialists (TT, classics, etc) at least race a lot of races each season. The Giro is a brilliant race but still suffers from being too close to the start of the TdF. Yes Contador is riding both this year and in years by-gone some of the old greats rode the Giro as preparation for the TdF. Maybe not to win always but gave respectable performances. Now most would rather train on some mountainous island and scout Tour routes.

I can't say I blame them as winning the TdF can make your career and little else will be expected of you but as a fan I wish I could see those guys race against each other more. Come to the Tour of California or any of a number of other shorter races. I guess it's a sign of how specialized the sport has become...

 

[SeriousSam]

I like it as it is. The Tour de France is the pinnacle of cycling and sacrificing results in lesser races to be the best possible rider you can be at the Tour is a plan I welcome.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The specializing was a bit of a new thing from the Armstrong era. Even as recently as 20 years ago Miguel Indurain was warming up for his Tour by racing the Giro to win it. With the end of the pure EPO era it seemed that that kind of peaking was out of vogue (apart from Andy Schleck, few recent winners have been that kind of all-in-for-the-Tour athlete. Contador will be competitive in nearly anything he enters; Wiggins in 2012 and Froome in 2013 were laying waste to the calendar from February to July; Evans did fewer race days but was competitive when he did race; even Nibali who was comparatively quiet was top 10 in Romandie and the Dauphiné). Perhaps it's coming back in, but it's worth remembering that Contador, Quintana and Froome have all won the GC of World Tour races this season.

The other issue on the Tour becoming too big is that many potential hosts can be priced out of the market, resulting in a lot of very repetitive parcours. The Pyrenées have long been complained about, because of how predictable the route is around there (all the main climbs are in a small area, and in order to get from start to finish places without repeating themselves stage after stage, they end up using the same climbs every year) and the Alps seem to be going the same way (every year the Maurienne valley and Alpe d'Huez every other year). East-Central Pyrenées seem to be off the agenda, except Bonascre and Beille. The need to be able to house the massive economic and logistical burden that is the Tour's caravan means that some locations that smaller races can use simply isn't possible for the Tour, which also hurts it.

 

[yaco]

The TDF is the most prestigious of the GT's and from a riders perspective the easiest in terms of difficulty. The Giro is a far more challenging race and I'd argue that the Vuelta is more difficult than the TDF.

Riders and teams will target the GT which earns the most prestige.

 

[Miburo]

vuelta isn't harder than the tour lol

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Vuelta has harder final ramps a lot of the time, but the average speed is way higher in the Tour, plus mid-stage climbs tend to be harder, especially in recent years since Unipublic went HTF/MTF crazy and elected to go primarily for 150km stages with one climb at the end.

Also this year, the Tour has the Mur de Huy and Montée Laurent Jalabert, so two of the best-known garage ramp climbs that the Vuelta is making into its speciality.

I wonder if the 2017 Nîmes start in the Vuelta means that we'll get Mende on stage 2 or so? A bit like the 2010 Tour, have Nîmes prologue, then go to Mende, Rodez-Revel, then stage 4 into Spain through the Pyrenées (If I can get a Port de Balès-Portillón-Mirador d'Arres stage with a downhill finish into Vielha I will completely mark out).

 

[doperhopper]

Meh, ASO mafia... all the profits go to the organizers (poor cyclist exactly in the position of pre-STRIKE NHL players), so they are able to swallow more and more races... there should be some antimonopoly pressure, otherwise it ends up badly, as they already exercise their power towards the sport... well, for them, their show has absolutely nothing with sport, they just want to make sure their big $$$ keep coming (so no reforms towards teams getting a share of profit). They have also Vuelta, so guess whether it can become bigger than TdF, not even theoretically. And they can repeat the same boring route every year with the damn Alpe as the last MTF, still they would remain "the biggest" (until the teams/riders go on strike and boycott TdF, and probably UCI as well, creating their own league).

 

[Gigs_98]

The question is what the spectators want.
Do they want a fight between the big four several times per year or do they want one gigantic fight of the big four with all of them in top shape? I really don't know which version I would prefer

 

[LoveThePain]

The question is what the spectators want.
Do they want a fight between the big four several times per year or do they want one gigantic fight of the big four with all of them in top shape? I really don't know which version I would prefer

More than one for me as you never know when a rider will get injured. Look at last year's Tour. The showdown between Nibali, Froome, and Contador never happened. Nibali was impressive but of course things might have been different had the other two been able to stay in the race.

The Tour is special in that all the contenders will arrive relatively fresh (we'll see how Contador fares), have their best team around them, and are there to win.