King of the Mountains - huh?

[nesocip]

Wasn't The Chicken way up on the GC when he did his polka dot crash fest in the final TT in 2005? Think he dropped from a potential podium spot that day.

Nobody took him seriously as a GC contender that year. He was given 3 minutes in a breakaway earlier on. Without those 3 minutes he wouldnt have been in podium contention at the time of TT.

 

[riobonito92]

What?

If Boonen wasn't the fastest sprinter in 2007, then he was pretty darn close. Tied with Bennati for most stage wins by a sprinter. McEwen was definitely the best sprinter in 2006. Boonen was better then Hushovd in 2005... so you're right there. 2004 was pretty even... Boonen and McEwen were on par. Pettachi was probably the best in 2003, ahead of Cooke who actually won. McEwen was the best in 2002 I think. Zabel was the best in 2001. Steels was probably better then Zabel in 2000.

Overall... the best sprinter does seem to win the points jersey... or at least the best still left in the race. Sprinters do often abandon. Last year and this year are a little odd.

Cipollini was the fastest for most of the years that he rode, even if he never got beyond state 8. That was the basis of my statement. McEwen in 2002 I would agree with. Kirsipuu was pretty quick in 2001.

 

[goggalor]

I would have been happy if Contador or Schleck or Menchov or Sanchez etc etc were wearing the polka dot. They might even compete each other for it in addition to podium positions. At the moment this is a joke.

If you only ride hard the last 20 minutes of every mountain stage you don't deserve a KOM jersey.

 

[kurtinsc]

Cipollini was the fastest for most of the years that he rode, even if he never got beyond state 8. That was the basis of my statement. McEwen in 2002 I would agree with. Kirsipuu was pretty quick in 2001.

While that's true, Cippo didn't win a stage at the Tour after 1999. For most years though, the winner of Green has been the fastest sprinter to finish the tour... or at least there's a strong argument for saying so.

It's only this year and last year that the man who's quite clearly the best sprinter made it to Paris and didn't win green.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

So where do people stand on things like Garzelli's GPM in 2009 and Sella's in 2008? Or Rujano's in 2005? All of these were thanks to at least one suicide breakaway (Garzelli's solo breakaway to Sestrière being his only one, while Rujano and Sella were involved in several). Of those, Rujano (though he did wheelsuck a lot in that Giro) and Sella could probably claim to being the best climbers in the race even if they collected the mountains points the same way as a Jalabert or Rasmussen; Garzelli was definitely not the best climber in that race, but could anybody begrudge him the jersey just because of the one suicide breakaway? Or Moncoutié riding out of his skin to protect his jersey, taking himself into the top 10 overall at the 2008 Vuelta, a jersey he mostly chanced into by getting in a long break and leaving the break behind at the base of Pla de Beret?

 

[Michielveedeebee]

Mountain classification

There might already be a thread on this, not sure though so I thought i'd make one myself.
Lucien Van Impe declared he was disgusted with the way the 'maillot a pois' is won and by whom. Guys that attack, like virenque and jallabert, but that can't climb, something they could.
According to him, the classification will lose all meaning if they don't change the way they count points.

I agree with what he says. any comments?

 

[turtlesoup]

how else do you count points for this? Only change i could see is a larger sliding scale between the categories of the mountains.

 

[roundabout]

Bonus seconds on mountain tops?

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

The real king of the mountains would more or less be

1 - Contador
2 - Schleck (switch him with Contador if you like, it's all the same to me)
3 - Sanchez
4 - Menchov
5 - Vandenbroeck
6 - Rodriguez / Gesink
8 - Hesjedal (gradually improving all the time)

rest - does not count, too irregular.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The Giro's system is to be stingier with the points (no such thing as a 4th-category climb for them!), and to give massively more points for 1st than for 2nd at each mountain. Any MTF garners a large points selection (3, 2 and 1 for 3rd cat., 5, 3 and 1 for 2nd cat., 10 6 4 and 2 for 1st cat., 15 10 6 4 and 2 for MTFs and 20 15 10 6 4 and 2 for the Cima Coppi).

Now, obviously this doesn't work perfectly; nobody would say Matthew Lloyd was the best climber at this year's Giro, nor would anybody say that Fabian Wegmann was the best climber at the 2004 Giro. But both lost their jerseys to GC contenders with two days left and had to go out and get them back, and both had to get into 7 or 8 breakaways to hoover up enough 3s and 5s to cover the GC men.

 

[El Pistolero]

how else do you count points for this? Only change i could see is a larger sliding scale between the categories of the mountains.

Record the time how long it takes for every rider to get up a climb.

The rider who has the lowest total time on all climbs together is crowned king of the mountains.

They have the technology for it now, so I don't see why it would be a problem. It would be a lot more interesting.

Contador would have won in 2009 if they did it like that by the way.

 

[goggalor]

The real king of the mountains would more or less be

1 - Contador
2 - Schleck (switch him with Contador if you like, it's all the same to me)
3 - Sanchez
4 - Menchov
5 - Vandenbroeck
6 - Rodriguez / Gesink
8 - Hesjedal (gradually improving all the time)

rest - does not count, too irregular.

To me, that's a list of the fastest climbers. What have they done to deserve be crowned King of the Mountains? I haven't seen Contador cresting first over many cols this year.

Of course, ideally, the jersey would be won by someone who jumped out of the pack whenever the road tilted upwards, and rode over four HC climbs on his way to epic stage wins, something à la Sella 08. Hopefully Soler will return to the Tour to do something similar next year. But to me, Charteau isn't an undeserving winner.

 

[Biffins]

Jeebus! It is the mountain points jersey not the best climber jersey. The best climber's jersey is usually yellow. The polka dot jersey is designed to provide drama apart from the GC contest.

I disagree. The green jersey is not called the sprinter's jersey. That's called the Points classification. That I understand. This is called the King of the Frickin Mountains. KING. Yet everyday the KING is taking the frickin BUS on the big mountains, just like today. It's a frickin disgrace and belies everything the jersey has stood for.

 

[Carl0880]

I disagree. The green jersey is not called the sprinter's jersey. That's called the Points classification. That I understand. This is called the King of the Frickin Mountains. KING. Yet everyday the KING is taking the frickin BUS on the big mountains, just like today. It's a frickin disgrace and belies everything the jersey has stood for.

The problem has to do with the riders. When was the last time you heard somebody say they are specifically going for the KOM before the Tour. The last two were Virenque and Rasmussen. Everyone else before this were guys gunning for a mountain stage win (Soler), or gunning for Top GC placing and failed o the first mountain stage and decide to go for the the jersey instead (Pellizotti last year). Its the riders themselves that have devalued the jersey. Don't blame Charteau, he saw an opportunity to become a part of race history and he took advantage of others indifferences.

The main incentives for most things in life is money. So do what NASCAR use to do. Offer an extra financial consider like 50K extra to any GC podium guy to who also wins the jersey, and 100k if the Winner of the race also wins the KOM (Or whatever amount deemed worthy to the riders to take the chances) I am sure Lloyd's of London would take on a insurance policy with the reason history of the jersey. Off the top of my head, the last time a podium guy wore the polka dot jersey was Virenque in the middle 90s.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The last time a podium guy wore the polka dot jersey was Bernhard Kohl in 2008.

For the record, I've calculated the KOM if the Giro's points system were in place. Worth noting is that the winning KOM total is the smallest in living memory; even Wegmann and Lloyd managed 56 points, but then again, with the points biased toward MTFs, and there not being many MTFs in this Tour, it's not surprising. Moreau would have won, solely because the Tourmalet is the Tour's Cima Coppi.

Contador is 11th on the list.

Moreau 49
Charteau 44
Pineau 40
Aerts 31
Schleck 30
Fedrigo 27
Riblon 25
Voeckler 20
Casar 19
S Sánchez 18

 

[Eyeballs Out]

The GC boys have no interest in the KOM jersey and neither should they. It's a nice reward for one of the lesser lights quite often from one of the smaller teams and a semi-interesting side show. It rewards riders who consistently get in the break (no easy task) and what would the Tour be without breakaways ? A tedious procession. I'd rather see someone who attacked every day win it than see it fall into the lap of Schleck / Contador

The points are actually weighted more in the GC boys favour now what with the double points on the last climb. What has changed is the scrapping of the bonus seconds - hence the lesser incentive for the break to be brought back

 

[roundabout]

While the Giro system is an improvement i'm sure some people here would have been "Fredy Gonzalez who?". A dominant Basso who was either 1st or 2nd on the hardest stages with the exception of 1 didn't win the KoM in 2006.

Or a similarly dominant Simoni in 2003 with 3 wins and 2 second places on MTFs.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

2009 Tour with Giro system:
Pellizotti 82
Fedrigo 32
Contador 29
Garate 28
A Schleck 28
Chavanel 27
Kern 25
F Schleck 24
Martínez 23
Astarloza 18

2008 should be interesting, since that had a proper amount of MTFs - the 15s for MTFs tend to skew it in favour of the GC riders, but two things factor against that; 1) the lack of MTFs in the last two editions of Le Tour, and 2) the lack of time bonuses in the last three editions of the Tour has meant fighting to win or come top 3 has become devalued, and breakaway victories are more easily allowable.

 

[yetanothergreenworld]

I think that for a long time in order to win the KOM you had to have the most points AND be placed no worse than 10th or 15th or something. Removing that stipulation changed the whole game: now, the easiest way to win the title is to lose a big chunk of time overall so that the peloton will let you go on a series of long escapes and mop up all the mountain points.

 

[mowie133]

who cares!! big deal if a star don't win the kom..there are 171 riders why should they let the stars win everything..how boring would it be without the lesser riders trying to win it..the guys in the top 5 all got in breaks an made the stages fun to watch..

 

[BroDeal]

I disagree. The green jersey is not called the sprinter's jersey. That's called the Points classification. That I understand. This is called the King of the Frickin Mountains. KING. Yet everyday the KING is taking the frickin BUS on the big mountains, just like today. It's a frickin disgrace and belies everything the jersey has stood for.

King of the Mountains. Note that mountains is plural. It is not the King of the Mountain Top Finishes jersey. No GC contender will sprint for the summit of Cat 1 - 3 mountains in the first 80% of a stage. That is the purpose of the KOM competition: To add drama to the mountains before the last one where the GC contenders duke it out.

 

[HokieJoe]

And I see yours; certainly Rinero was nearer the sharp end of the race than any of the people at the top of the KOM in the current edition.

And regarding Jalabert's Polka Dot jerseys: They were pretty much cynically taken by exploiting one long suicide break in each case. I felt at the time they were unworthy of Jalabert who was a great champion, but one who was just a shade light on the attributes needed for Grand tour success. He was a wonderful one day racer and short stage race rider of tremendous versatility. Perhaps he was very good at almost everything, but lacked brilliance in any one area.

I always liked Jalabert.

 

[Tugboat]

Charteau is a deserving winner... he fought well for a lot of his points and was the only rider in the race to win points on every category of climb from cat 4 to HC.

 

[Gcraenen]

I read alot of shortsighted solutions that would turn the TdF into a climbers only competition. The yellow jersey should go to the best all around rider, not the best climber, and that is what your solutions would create.

Perhaps we could combine your ideas of more mountaintop finishes etc. with bonus seconds for wins on flat stages to bring more equity to the game.

 

[Gcraenen]

There might already be a thread on this, not sure though so I thought i'd make one myself.
Lucien Van Impe declared he was disgusted with the way the 'maillot a pois' is won and by whom. Guys that attack, like virenque and jallabert, but that can't climb, something they could.
According to him, the classification will lose all meaning if they don't change the way they count points.

I agree with what he says. any comments?

Lucien is the man. under the old system, he won 6 polka dots and one yellow. That is what I am talking about above.