king of the mountains

[richo36]

Im personally not the biggest fan of the king of the mountains jersey as it does not always go to the best climber in the race. Alittle bit like past TDFs where cavindish would win 5 sprint stages but not win the sprinters jersey. So I was thinking of ways to try and increase the chance of it going to the best climber.

One idea i came up with is switching the points system to a time based system. The time system would work by timing riders times up the mountain. So as you go under the start of the mountain banner the time starts and the as you go over the summit it stops. Then whoever has the smallest time is the leader of the king of the mountains. You could add in time bonuses (time deductions i should say) for first over the summit to encourage riders to attack each other.

Just a hypothetical. Thoughts?

 

[Marcus135]

KOM is meant to be another competition that the GC guys will not win every time. Doing that will generally mean whoever wins the tour at the end will win the KOM also. Yes it may not always go to the best climber but it generally goes to someone who fights hard to gain and hold it, a competition within a competition. Not just another award for the winner of the tour.

 

[WillemS]

Well, then you could just conserve energy on the flats if you want the jersey and not go into heavy pursuits on the flat to catch a group. You don't have to be in front with time based scoring.

Also, I like to think of climbing as something broader than just the fastest time. It's also in the game to try and shake off the competition by attacking. Attacking normally doesn't improve the total time, but shakes off wheel suckers. Also, attacking on the second-last climb, like Andy in the TDF, will decrease your time on the last climb, but does not automatically mean that you're a worse climber than your pursuiters.

I think the altered system of the TDF, less points on lower cat and more point on big MTFs is already pretty selective for good climbers. If you look at the top of the 2011 TDF, you see a lot of great climbers:

1. SANCHEZ Samuel....108 pts
2. SCHLECK Andy.......98 pts
3. VANENDERT Jelle....74 pts
4. EVANS Cadel........58 pts
5. SCHLECK Frank......56 pts
6. CONTADOR Alberto...51 pts

No need to improve, I guess.

Also, I do like a jersey for attackers. People like Hoogerland, who are just insane but attack on every small climb to earn something. It makes the race some much more interesting.

 

[ImmaculateKadence]

Is it really competition for the best climber and not the most consistent climber? I've always thought of it as the classification that rewards consistent climbing throughout the race, not just the best that doesn't really feature until the final week.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Nah, it's not even really a jersey for the most consistent climber. It's a jersey for the guy who gets over the biggest mountains furthest up most often. The Vuelta's system is the same as the old Giro one, with MTFs given much more points, and so you get the different approaches to winning it.

I'll use the Giro for my illustration:

You can have:
1) a secondary GC man who gets in one big long break that enables them to take the jersey, then defends it by being up in the GC mix for the rest of the race (Garzelli 2009)
2) a superdomestique or climbing specialist who is no GC threat but is able to always be there on the mountaintops (Piepoli 2007)
3) a specialist climber who targets the jersey, even willingly dropping time to make sure they can go, and taking maximum points in all the big mountain stages (Sella 2008, Rujano 2005)
4) a breakaway artist who gets into the jersey almost by chance but then goes on the break repeatedly picking up the small points, just holding on from the GC men (Lloyd 2010, Wegmann 2004).

The different ways of winning the jersey means you often have quite an interesting battle. The Tour changed this year to similarly give fewer points to lesser climbs and more to MTFs in order to make it so that anybody who wanted to win it from breakaways had to work extra hard, because Pellizotti and Charteau both won it by getting away on stages with big points for final climbs so far from the finish that the GC men didn't care.

 

[jordan5000]

The easiest way to do this is give time bonuses of say: 20. 15, 10, 6, 4 seconds for the first rider to the top of a HC climb, that way even if there is a break ahead riders would still be going hard for the 4 seconds.