Isn't it criminal what they are doing with GTs?

[pink_jersey]

Re: Re:

Yeah...Put 100km of TT and Froome will win the triple every year. When a rider like him is so much better than the rest, and has such a strong team, at least the parcours should favour his rivals.

What's wrong with Froome winning (more realistically) the double every year? You don't handicap the best grand tour cyclist just so the other lesser riders have a chance of winning. It's ridiculous.

Nothing it's wrong, but with Froome I have the impression that he will win even if that's no TT at all but he will win with much more work than with 100km of time trials. That will be only a walk in the park for him and we(the viewers) will be dissapointed over and over again by how crap the TdF is.

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

It ruins offensive cycling. Give Froome 100km of ITTs and he gets 4 minutes in the bank. Look at Froome's TDF history from 2012 onwards and tell me how many riders were able to take 4 minutes out of him in the mountains?

I think you have it backwards.

Have everyone within a minute of the yellow jersey, and no one will move before the last few km of the last climb. Make every climber choose between lighting up the race from afar or becoming an irrelevant top 15-20 guy, and you'll see fireworks. Sure, you need to have the other contenders within striking distance so that they don't give up completely, but you seriously underestimate what that distance can be. No one can put 4 minutes on Froome or any other serious contender the way most people have ridden the Tour the last few years, I'll grant that.

 

[slosada]

Put short medium mountain stages right after long hard stages
Put muritos early in these stages, make the domestiques play catch up game.
Minimal TT, just to see Kenyan fans agonize and open threads like this

 

[Scarponi]

What's the history on deciding on 21-22 days for a GT? Struggling to find information on the net. Is four weeks too cruel? 100km of time trial with two or three extra hilly / mountain stages?

 

[RedheadDane]

For me the most important thing is that two consecutive versions of a GT shouldn't be too similar.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

For me the most important thing is that two consecutive versions of a GT shouldn't be too similar.

If the racing is good, I can't see why you wouldn't try to replicate it since it obviously works, take Giro 2015 as an example. 3-4 well designed medium mountain stages, a long ITT and mountain stages which has a much greater chance of providing action from afar. I don't think its a stretch to say that the Giro-starts have been FAR more exciting when starting in Italy compared to Ireland, DK, NL etc either. Who cares about something new and different if it sucks? Just start the thing in Italy, spare of all from a useless rest day and some crappy flat stages in shitty weather.

Repetitiveness in terms of overall GT-design is probably the least I could care about if the design which is good. And I wouldn't be sad to see Mortirolo at least every second year either. Talk about a climb which always delivers.

 

[RedheadDane]

Nothing wrong with being inspired by earlier versions of a race. My point is that organisers shouldn't go This route was great. We should use it every year! Because even the most exciting route gets boring if it's the same year after year. For me the most complet rider is not the rider who can win multiple GTs with similar routes, but the rider who can win multiple GTs with different routes.
Besides, especially the Tour has certain iconic features which should be used every now and then, but I'd say you'd be hard pressed to make a route that includes Mount Ventoux, Alpe d'Huez, Gallibier, Tourmalet, Massiff Central, Cobbles + all the other things I've forgotten.
(Of course talking about using the exact same route is exagarrating.)

I also think it's important that routes - at least to a certain degree - is made with the current riders in mind. Not in the sense of The rider who won on this route is popular, we should make similar routes as long as he's active!, but in the sense of What kind of route would make it most likely that the current riders would attack?

 

[hrotha]

The thing is, a good route will have enough variety that we'll see a little bit of everything during the race. "A little bit of everything" can't really get repetitive, can it.

 

[Durden93]

Re: Re:

It ruins offensive cycling. Give Froome 100km of ITTs and he gets 4 minutes in the bank. Look at Froome's TDF history from 2012 onwards and tell me how many riders were able to take 4 minutes out of him in the mountains?

I think you have it backwards.

Have everyone within a minute of the yellow jersey, and no one will move before the last few km of the last climb. Make every climber choose between lighting up the race from afar or becoming an irrelevant top 15-20 guy, and you'll see fireworks. Sure, you need to have the other contenders within striking distance so that they don't give up completely, but you seriously underestimate what that distance can be. No one can put 4 minutes on Froome or any other serious contender the way most people have ridden the Tour the last few years, I'll grant that.

Sure, that's a completely fair argument. But I think for that to work you would need cohesion between rivals. Tinkoff, Astana and Movistar would need to send a rider on the attack early in one of the early mountain stages for example to make sky do all of the chasing and then counter attack when that group is pulled in. With that being said, I think there are too few stages with multiple tough climbs to isolate Froome before the final climb. Most importantly, I've yet to see any indication that on the classic 10-15km 7-8% tour climb that there is a better rider than Froome. He has attacked and ridden alone from 7km+ before and gained huge time.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

It ruins offensive cycling. Give Froome 100km of ITTs and he gets 4 minutes in the bank. Look at Froome's TDF history from 2012 onwards and tell me how many riders were able to take 4 minutes out of him in the mountains?

I think you have it backwards.

Have everyone within a minute of the yellow jersey, and no one will move before the last few km of the last climb. Make every climber choose between lighting up the race from afar or becoming an irrelevant top 15-20 guy, and you'll see fireworks. Sure, you need to have the other contenders within striking distance so that they don't give up completely, but you seriously underestimate what that distance can be. No one can put 4 minutes on Froome or any other serious contender the way most people have ridden the Tour the last few years, I'll grant that.

I'm not so certain. It never worked against Armstrong, or Indurain before him (unless you count the '94 Giro where Pantani just wanted to mix it up in his first GT and created chaos) why would it suddenly work on a full strength Froome and Sky? Everyone bar Contador and possibly Chaves is too conservative to risk a high placing by putting everything on the line to win the GC.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

No more flat long, windy itt please. Way too boring. There should be more tt like Sestri Levante or St. Etienne.

Please bring back more exciting race variants like Elimination Races, Pursuits or Relays.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re:

The thing is, a good route will have enough variety that we'll see a little bit of everything during the race. "A little bit of everything" can't really get repetitive, can it.

If it's the same little bit of everything every year...
Isn't it a sign of conservatism if organisers go "This worked, so we should do it every year!" rather than going "Let's see what happens if we do this!"? But as I said; there's nothing wrong with returning to similar routes every now and then, it just shouldn't be consecutive years.
As I - also - said; each GT has it's iconic features which would be rather impractical, and perhaps even boring, to include every year. The Tour should have cobbles every now and then, just as the Giro should have gravel roads (can't think of any iconic Vuelta road surface). Each GT should finish on it's iconic climbs every now and then, but the novelty of finishing those places would - in my opinion - go away if it basically became a matter of "Oh... there's a stage to Mount Ventoux. Again!" Each GT should visit it's 'lesser known' mountain ranges every now and then. Sometimes organisers should do something completely crazy such as making the riders climb Alpe d'Huez twice in a stage, finishing a stage on Tourmalet despite the slight lack of room, or sending riders up an erupting vulcano. (Though I guess the the erupting vulcano bit wasn't actually part of the plans, otherwise I really wouldn't wanna get on RCS' bad side...)

Then there's the simple question of how to start the race. Prologue? Slighter longer ITT? TTT? Sprint stage? Road stage with a muur-type finish (like TdF 2011)? Pedal boats? I guess the reason we'll never see longer ITTs, MTTs or MTFs on the first stage is because it makes sense to give the non-GC riders a reason to go out and fight for the jersey in the first few stages.

 

[hrotha]

Re: Re:

I'm not so certain. It never worked against Armstrong, or Indurain before him (unless you count the '94 Giro where Pantani just wanted to mix it up in his first GT and created chaos) why would it suddenly work on a full strength Froome and Sky? Everyone bar Contador and possibly Chaves is too conservative to risk a high placing by putting everything on the line to win the GC.

Depends on what you mean by "working". Were Armstrong or Indurain defeated? No. Did we get a better show than what we're getting nowadays? In general, and barring perhaps one or two of Armstrong's Tours, yes. Did the climbers attack earlier? Also yes.

 

[42x16ss]

Re: Re:

I'm not so certain. It never worked against Armstrong, or Indurain before him (unless you count the '94 Giro where Pantani just wanted to mix it up in his first GT and created chaos) why would it suddenly work on a full strength Froome and Sky? Everyone bar Contador and possibly Chaves is too conservative to risk a high placing by putting everything on the line to win the GC.

Depends on what you mean by "working". Were Armstrong or Indurain defeated? No. Did we get a better show than what we're getting nowadays? In general, and barring perhaps one or two of Armstrong's Tours, yes. Did the climbers attack earlier? Also yes.

2000 was ok because Pantani got under Armstrong's skin and stopped caring about the next day. 2003 was good because Vino, Mayo, Hamilton and Ulle thought they could smell blood. 2004 was alright for a while because Basso and Sastre were ganging up and almost found a weak spot (then Alpe d'Huez happened).

The rest were whitewashes, almost as bland as Indurain domination.

 

[hrotha]

I suggest you rewatch all those Tours and note whether anyone moved before the 1 km banner day in day out.