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

Page 4 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

What is your opinion about how a GT winner should be?

  • It should be a complete, cunning and strong rider, with the ocasional upset (pantani, 98)

    Votes: 43 50.6%
  • Mountain goats should be the main favorites and 9 out of 10 guys in GC should weight less than 65 Kg

    Votes: 13 15.3%
  • It should be all about the rider that can put more watts over 100km. Tony and Fabian should have won

    Votes: 3 3.5%
  • Riders like Cav don't put their faces in the wind because they are shy. Shy riders should have a cha

    Votes: 8 9.4%
  • The Northern classics are a way of life. Riders like GVA, Sagan should have the conditions to bring

    Votes: 18 21.2%

  • Total voters
    85
Re:

Dekker_Tifosi said:
I think the way it;s going now is way too much favoring climbers. 40km TT is laughable.

Should be at least 2 long flat TT's and a TTT to counter mountains

Froome in 2 long flat TT's will put over 3 minutes to everyone else(yeah, even Nibali, Contador, Porte) and over 4 minutes to the others contenders(Quintana, Bardet, Aru, Kruijswijk)...Chaves will lose more like 6 minutes. Only Dumoulin will beat him but Froome will drop him like a stone on the next mountain. Where's the fun here? He's also better than'em all on climbs bar Quintana, as well....He also has the strongest team. So, how can he lose?

50 km of TT's are enough now. A prologue and a 40km ITT are enough to get a race, probably still won by Froome.
 
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I will to some point agree, but it's hardly Froomes, Dumolains or in somewhat older times - Indurains fault they are good at TTs.

Oh, wait..

I believe the lack of TT skills now and before is a missing link amongst trainers - like TT is not "real" cycling.
But if you are good at TT, it will only help you in every other aspect in cycling. Which is why the recent flow of track riders are killing it, like they did in the older times.
 
2015 Tour de France was the most suited TDFs for Quintana in many years and he failed to win it.
2016 Vuelta's ITT was fairly flat, compared to the hilly ITTs in many of the recent Vueltas, yet Froome failed to win it.

I think usually it's not the profile or the relative strength of the rider that matters, but the actual performance at the race itself. Both the above races were won not by the stronger rider, but by the better performing rider.
 
Re:

Thepirateisgood said:
So you think the average GT stage is very fun spectacles for TV?

Which GTs are you watching, can I have a look too?

TTTs can have demolishing effects even if it's not trying to, have no place in a GT. It is an individual effort, helped by some team. (GTs I mean edit)

Yes - Audience numbers show TT's are less interesting than other GC stages - So an ITT is fine but a TTT is unsuitable - Strange logic.
 
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Re: Re:

yaco said:
Thepirateisgood said:
So you think the average GT stage is very fun spectacles for TV?

Which GTs are you watching, can I have a look too?

TTTs can have demolishing effects even if it's not trying to, have no place in a GT. It is an individual effort, helped by some team. (GTs I mean edit)

Yes - Audience numbers show TT's are less interesting than other GC stages - So an ITT is fine but a TTT is unsuitable - Strange logic.

Well, I don't take my cycling cues from tv audience numbers.

Kermesses should be the future of GTs then.

All I'm saying is TT is and should be a big part of road racing. And like the one we just had in Vuelta, a great watch (subjectively from my view of course).

Look at the last five(teen) years of GTs, could you wait until the last 5Kms to see the action for the very most of them - or do you think it was all great fun from TV started the broadcast?
 
The objection to the TTT there is not related to its audience figures. The objection is based on the classic problem with the format: the race is supposedly an individual event, but is only that in some respects. The riders who have the strongest teams already have the benefit that comes from that anyhow, and the TTT will place the strongest teams - therefore those who are best equipped to strangle the race and exert the highest amount of control over it - in a position of advantage from the word go. One of the biggest problems with modern racing is the extent to which certain templates have developed which favour conservative racing - the parallel successes of the train techniques both in flat and mountain stages - and enable the strongest teams to exert a high level of control and minimize the likelihood of something unpredictable happening. As fans, the stages that have given us the most excitement for longest have been where that control has been broken and either the leaders have been forced to fight head to head or something unpredictable has happened; the TTT is a key instrument in making the GC easier to control and reduce the likelihood of these unexpected or unpredictable outcomes, therefore its function in a GT will always create debate.
 
Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
The objection to the TTT there is not related to its audience figures. The objection is based on the classic problem with the format: the race is supposedly an individual event, but is only that in some respects. The riders who have the strongest teams already have the benefit that comes from that anyhow, and the TTT will place the strongest teams - therefore those who are best equipped to strangle the race and exert the highest amount of control over it - in a position of advantage from the word go. One of the biggest problems with modern racing is the extent to which certain templates have developed which favour conservative racing - the parallel successes of the train techniques both in flat and mountain stages - and enable the strongest teams to exert a high level of control and minimize the likelihood of something unpredictable happening. As fans, the stages that have given us the most excitement for longest have been where that control has been broken and either the leaders have been forced to fight head to head or something unpredictable has happened; the TTT is a key instrument in making the GC easier to control and reduce the likelihood of these unexpected or unpredictable outcomes, therefore its function in a GT will always create debate.
Yep that's my problem with the TTT.
 
I honestly cannot understand how people find a TT such as stage 19 boring. They assure time gaps and gives advantages to people who actually can do something else than just climb. I love to watch TT's, especially now that they are kinda rare. At least the long ones.

TTT is a different subject: as long as they are meaningful (+20 km) and aren't included every single time, I have no problem. Every third year a TTT of 40 kilometres would be great. I know it isn't super balanced (favours teams like Movistar and Sky even more), but a benefit could be you would have to replace a mountain goat with a rouleur which could translate to more unpredictable racing in the mountains.

I guess Im a sucker for time differences, thats all.
 
Re:

Valv.Piti said:
I honestly cannot understand how people find a TT such as stage 19 boring. They assure time gaps and gives advantages to people who actually can do something else than just climb. I love to watch TT's, especially now that they are kinda rare. At least the long ones.

TTT is a different subject: as long as they are meaningful (+20 km) and aren't included every single time, I have no problem. Every third year a TTT of 40 kilometres would be great. I know it isn't super balanced (favours teams like Movistar and Sky even more), but a benefit could be you would have to replace a mountain goat with a rouleur which could translate to more unpredictable racing in the mountains.

I guess Im a sucker for time differences, thats all.
Team Sky can win TTT's with 'mountain goats'.
 
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Well, I guess we can all agree to a certain point that GTs need to be balanced. I don't like TTTs for the same reason as Libertine gives (I think?), that an already strong team get even more of an advantage.

But what is a grand tour?

Well, in my puny view it should be about everything in road racing (except TTTs ;) ), and it should be balanced in some way which is pretty hard to do in any mathematical way.

In my view, we should have easy Tro-Bro/Strade stages, easy Roubaix stages, some pure sprint stages (restdays, anyone?), well hard mountain stages not necessarily with a MTF well over 200ks and two or three good TTs in the general GC. Opens up the race a whole lot more to different types as the OT states as well.

But of course, cycling is about history too, and from what I understand - GTs have always been clinging to some riders, or take away their strengths by changing the parcours as seen fit. I'm not so knowledgeable about pre 2000, if anything at all.

It's just my view of things. And like Valv.Piti. says above, how could anyone see the stage 19 as boring. As well as the TdF TT.
 
Another thing is that there are plenty of factors that go into designing a GT. We can talk about Froome-proofing a GT, but I suspect we may see less of that going forward, for the simple reason that the fans' rejection of Froome this year was far less aggressive than in 2013 or 2015. Whether it be because we've just got used to him, or because he raced a more interesting race this year (and there was more frustration at others not challenging him rather than at him as a result) and there was no "Clinic explosion" dominant performance like Ax-3-Domaines or Pierre-St-Martin, or whatever the reason may be, one of the reasons for organizers trying to design routes to allow others to get close to Froome is quite possibly because they realized they have an unpopular champion; if somebody dominates and is popular, it can galvanize the sport's fanbase. But if somebody dominates and is not popular (notwithstanding that Froome's success being consistently followed by doping innuendo in the media and on social media) then fans want to cheer for somebody to dethrone them, or will just switch off in frustration. Obviously ASO don't want that. If the fanbase is ready to accept or at least tolerate Froome as a major champion, they won't need to try to engineer a course to prevent him winning too easily anymore.

At the same time, organizers have done plenty of tailoring of courses towards the riders they want to win. Back in the 50s and 60s especially the Vuelta used to tailor its course directly to the foreign stars it wanted to turn up, in an attempt to secure their participation, even at the expense of their own homegrown stars. This only really started to change in the era of Ocaña and Fuente (although the race director did in fact ask KAS' DS to call Fuente back in his legendary Formigal raid to prevent the GC being settled with a comparative unknown winning, with the KAS DS understandably and thankfully telling him to go forth and multiply). We still see it to this day though; the way the Tour removed the TTT after 2005 and then didn't have one for three years, but when Armstrong was returning we saw a long, difficult TTT early and then the first set of mountains being neutered, it was clear a lot of the route was designed around the thinking that, if Lance wasn't all that good (we had no idea how strong he'd be in his comeback at this point) then he'd at least be in contention for the first two weeks, guaranteeing the spike in public interest. 2012 is a similar example, where it seemed fairly transparent that the organization wanted Wiggins to win and capitalize on the new-found British interest in the sport (coming off the back of a number of other ASO-organized races which favoured a strong time trialist who could control the race).

At the same time, we've seen a parallel development in the Giro and Vuelta to horrendously imbalance the routes because of the audience figures, as previously mentioned. ASO will always have less trouble attracting the world's eyeballs at the Tour, because the Tour is the one race which has truly global currency even outside of the cycling fanbase. Zomegnan and Guillén, although their philosophies related to these were different, both noticed that the increased audience figures for hilly and mountainous stages were notable, and tailored their routes in that direction to capitalize. Zomegnan, of course, went a bit too far, and of course lost his job, but Guillén is still in his role. He got very lucky in 2012 that both the Giro and Tour were absolutely awful that year, and that a range of lucky circumstances led to his route, an experimental affair with no stages in the south, some absurd transfers, a dozen mountaintop finishes, next to no major mid-stage cols, hardly any time trial mileage and some absurd circuits, being a success. Even so, just like this year when the same formula was used, it was the least anticipated mountain stage that created the story that people will remember.
 
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Are you saying one guy makes the route for each GT?

I've heard about Zomegnan, but just thought it was just one of those legends.

Of course, money from start/end city counts for something, but that sounds crazy.

Edit: Well, giro/vuelta was apparently like that before. Haha! that's the craziest fu%#ing thing I've ever heard!
 
Re:

Thepirateisgood said:
Are you saying one guy makes the route for each GT?

I've heard about Zomegnan, but just thought it was just one of those legends.

Of course, money from start/end city counts for something, but that sounds crazy.

Edit: Well, giro/vuelta was apparently like that before. Haha! that's the craziest fu%#ing thing I've ever heard!
In Spain the current trend is that money comes more often from the regions and the provinces than the cities, so those in charge of race design have more freedom of choice for stage departure and finish places, for instance, on top a mountain in the middle of nowhere just because there's a a 30% ramp.
 
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Re:

hrotha said:
Pure climbers should be able to win GTs, but only if they earned it by taking advantage of the stages that suit them the same way time-trialists take advantage of the ITTs. Yes, 100 km of ITT should be more or less standard.

No, it would kill all racing. Froome would take 7-8 minutes in 100km of ITT alone... No amount of epic mountain stages will earn you 8 minutes these days. Most riders would just decide to skip the Tour because they would stand no chance against Froome. As long as Froome is riding they should keep all ITT out of GTs, or stick to one medium ITT.
 
Re:

PremierAndrew said:
Doesn't change the fact that courses these days are anti-Froome. It's understandable that organisers want a spectable so try to give other guys a chance but they had no problem giving Indurain 100km of TTing every time

How can any course be anti-Froome? Among his rivals he is the best overall against the clock and arguably the best in the mountains. He has the strongest team singularly dedicated to putting him in the best position to win. He only lost the Vuelta due to a momentary lapse in focus by he and his team.

By the way this thread being tapped out in between sobbing sucks on one's thumb because a particular rider did not win is not reason enough for me to honor it with anything more than this paragraph. If this results in a ban then so be it. I'll use the extra time to put in extra miles on my bike before the cold weather kicks in.
 
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Re: Re:

El Pistolero said:
hrotha said:
Pure climbers should be able to win GTs, but only if they earned it by taking advantage of the stages that suit them the same way time-trialists take advantage of the ITTs. Yes, 100 km of ITT should be more or less standard.

No, it would kill all racing. Froome would take 7-8 minutes in 100km of ITT alone... No amount of epic mountain stages will earn you 8 minutes these days. Most riders would just decide to skip the Tour because they would stand no chance against Froome. As long as Froome is riding they should keep all ITT out of GTs, or stick to one medium ITT.


What?

That is what they are doing, but it's nice you appreciate that Froome is a complete rider that would win everything all things normal.

Jokes aside, maybe someone should learn how to TT instead, it would help them immensely in other parts of their craft, and lay aside that gap that Froome and Dumolain have now. Look at Thibaut.

Andy Schleck for instance was always a great rider, but if anyone told me he'd win a GT I would call the police.
(Yes, I know he did, but he shouldn't have - and I don't mean Contador)
 
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Re: Re:

Thepirateisgood said:
El Pistolero said:
hrotha said:
Pure climbers should be able to win GTs, but only if they earned it by taking advantage of the stages that suit them the same way time-trialists take advantage of the ITTs. Yes, 100 km of ITT should be more or less standard.

No, it would kill all racing. Froome would take 7-8 minutes in 100km of ITT alone... No amount of epic mountain stages will earn you 8 minutes these days. Most riders would just decide to skip the Tour because they would stand no chance against Froome. As long as Froome is riding they should keep all ITT out of GTs, or stick to one medium ITT.


What?

That is what they are doing, but it's nice you appreciate that Froome is a complete rider that would win everything all things normal.

Jokes aside, maybe someone should learn how to TT instead, it would help them immensely in other parts of their craft, and lay aside that gap that Froome and Dumolain have now. Look at Thibaut.

Andy Schleck for instance was always a great rider, but if anyone told me he'd win a GT I would call the police.
(Yes, I know he did, but he shouldn't have - and I don't mean Contador)

He can time trial and climb well, if that's what you want to call a complete rider... sure.

I reserve that honorific for riders who can excel on all kinds of terrain... Like Peter Sagan who has won prologues, a longer time trial, sprints, hilly races, cobbled races and even a one-week race with a mountain in it (California).
 
Re: Re:

El Pistolero said:
hrotha said:
Pure climbers should be able to win GTs, but only if they earned it by taking advantage of the stages that suit them the same way time-trialists take advantage of the ITTs. Yes, 100 km of ITT should be more or less standard.

No, it would kill all racing. Froome would take 7-8 minutes in 100km of ITT alone... No amount of epic mountain stages will earn you 8 minutes these days. Most riders would just decide to skip the Tour because they would stand no chance against Froome. As long as Froome is riding they should keep all ITT out of GTs, or stick to one medium ITT.
It's a shame, because the days of riders like Alberto Contador and Carlos Sastre winning GT's with 80km+ of TT with attacking riding in the mountains were great. 2007 and 2008 were well balanced routes - as long as the best climber wasn't one of the 2-3 best TTers as well.
 
Re: Re:

Angliru said:
PremierAndrew said:
Doesn't change the fact that courses these days are anti-Froome. It's understandable that organisers want a spectable so try to give other guys a chance but they had no problem giving Indurain 100km of TTing every time

How can any course be anti-Froome? Among his rivals he is the best overall against the clock and arguably the best in the mountains. He has the strongest team singularly dedicated to putting him in the best position to win. He only lost the Vuelta due to a momentary lapse in focus by he and his team.

By the way this thread being tapped out in between sobbing sucks on one's thumb because a particular rider did not win is not reason enough for me to honor it with anything more than this paragraph. If this results in a ban then so be it. I'll use the extra time to put in extra miles on my bike before the cold weather kicks in.

It's very debatable whether Froome is indeed the best climber. But he's undeniably the best TTist amongst the GC guys, so any course with deliberately few kms of TTing works against Froome.

It would be understandable if they had 37km TT (not counting the MTT) every once in a while (even then, this never used to be the case, but I'll give you the BoD), but there's been less than 175km of TTing in the last 4 Tours combined. If that's not designed to be anti-Froome, I don't know what is. As for the Vuelta...

Anyway, fwiw, about me potentially being salty like the OP, if Quintana had instigated and engineered the Formigal attack himself, I would actually have supported him against Froome for the rest of the Vuelta
 
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Scrap teams, make it mano-a-mano from day 1. Then it doesn't matter how many ITTs, TTs and MTF there are in the race, it will be the most versatile rider that wins evertime.
 
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Theoretically I agree with the OP, the main issue in nowadays cycling is that with such a homogeneous pateau of professionnal riders, making difference in regular stage has become very difficult. We see in the hilly classics, we see in GTs : very hard routes only lead to attacks in the last 5ks and a few second differences in most cases. In that context, ITTs become an exorbitantly efficient way of making differences, because without drafting to level things up the less powerful riders just lose so much time. The solution adopted has been to have less and less ITTs or even fake ones that are technical and hilly enough to mitigate the impact again...

Ideally I want to see riders like Dumoulin get time on the climbers with ITTs and the climbers having to attack them to win ! But for that to happen I need consistantly weaker teams so that they have a chance to do battle on the slopes of a Stelvio or a Galibier without having the Poels or Thomases of this world putting up a tempo that precludes attacks...

Give me more flat ITTs and massively weaker teams, and let me watch a Nairo trying to shake off Dumoulin 40kms from the finish while there are only leaders left, and not trains of 3 or 4 superteammates.
 

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