Le Tour de France 2011 - the big one is coming

[auscyclefan94]

Le Tour de France 2011 - the big one is coming

I thought we should preview the tour now that the race is little over a month away.

Discussion for all classifications and stages is what you can discuss here.

I have included a poll about who will win presuming Contador is eliminated. I just thought that would be more of an interesting poll as it would be interesting to see who people think will take the title out if he is sanctioned.

 

[auscyclefan94]

STUPID POLL! IT DIDN'T FRICKEN WORK!!!!!!!

 

[luckyboy]

Anyone but Andy

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

*awaits who cares Giro is on.. tour is zzzz posts*



Anywhu a month till Gesink trumps all

 

[luckyboy]

Yeah I hope Gesink does well.

Basso and Sanchez too. Some variation of these three on the podium would be best.

 

[Moondance]

Meh... The poll is essentially irrelevant now.

I don't see a single reason why Contador shouldn't be able to ride the Tour now. Only question is now, whether his exploits in the Giro will cost him in his duels with Schleck the Younger.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Meh... The poll is essentially irrelevant now.

I don't see a single reason why Contador shouldn't be able to ride the Tour now. Only question is now, whether his exploits in the Giro will cost him in his duels with Schleck the Younger.

I agree that he rides, the fact AC's team requested an extension gave me this impression, of course it could be political, but I doubt it.

I hope he fails at the tour, if he doesn't I unfortunately will be drawn to one conclusion.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Nice mountain stages and an interesting first week. But a ridiclous low numbe rof TT kilometers. Plus the mountains come too late and it's not good that the only ITT is directly after the Alpes. There should be a day in between.
This years Tour really looks a bit like a Giro route.

 

[luckyboy]

This years Tour really looks a bit like a Giro route.

 

[Moondance]

Nice mountain stages and an interesting first week. But a ridiclous low numbe rof TT kilometers. Plus the mountains come too late and it's not good that the only ITT is directly after the Alpes. There should be a day in between.
This years Tour really looks a bit like a Giro route.

No




That is all

 

[Bavarianrider]

Hilly first week with uphill finishes and a similar mountain to Montevergine.
Short team time trial. Big Mountains come rather late in the race.
The route favors the climbers a lot more then the allrounders.

 

[Bavarianrider]

No




That is all

Hell yeah it does.

 

[Frosty]

From a green jersey perspective i will be interested to see how EBH does on his return from injury.

Looking forward to the first mountain stage - up Tourmalet, then down and straight up Luz-Ardiden, tough stage, hope there will be a lot of attacking. On a personal level, hopefully going to see a Pyreneean stage as well as the Alpe d'Huez one. Could even see the Paris finale too.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Nice mountain stages and an interesting first week. But a ridiclous low numbe rof TT kilometers. Plus the mountains come too late and it's not good that the only ITT is directly after the Alpes. There should be a day in between.
This years Tour really looks a bit like a Giro route.

not quite.
But I like the route this year, not mind blowing, but not bad either.

 

[Moondance]

Hell yeah it does.

Giro: 4 flat stages
Tour: 1392482308723874947200329043* flat stages




*Perhaps the number isn't 100% accurate, but that's how many there seem to be.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Giro: 4 flat stages
Tour: 1392482308723874947200329043* flat stages

Well there are 8 potential mass sprints in this years tour, and there were 5 in the Giro. Apart from that the structure , it's quite similar.
I said it looks like a Giro route, i did not say it looks exactly like this year's Giro route

 

[Moondance]

Tour: 4 MTFs
Giro: 7 MTFs + a mountain TT.

That is a world of difference.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The Tour is going about 2 weeks before any worthwhile stages. Actually that's a bit unfair. Mur-de-Brétagne could be good.

How disappointing that we have to wait for about stage 12 for the first proper mountain stage. That's way later than usual. Also, the flat stages are a tightly-controlled nonsense.

I know what Bavarianrider means about the back-loading of mountain stages. For example in the 2008 Giro the first 'true' mountain stage was stage 14, though we'd already had a couple of very tough intermediate stages (eg stage 7 to Pescocostanzo and stage 11 to Cesena) and some uphill finishes similar to the early Tour stages (stage 1 to Agrigento, stage 5 to Contursi Terme). The Luz Ardiden stage looks similar to the Pampeago stage of the '08 Giro - the Tour stage has an extra climb, but Manghen and Pampeago are tougher than Tourmalet + Luz Ardiden. The Pau-Lourdes stage is a bit of a nothing.

Then I assume that the Plateau de Beille stage:

is a direct comparison to the Passo Fedaia stage:

But obviously the climbs aren't as steep or punishing, though the stage is longer.

From here on in my comparison starts to fall apart. The next Tour mountain stage, to Pinerolo, more resembles a Vuelta stage to Peña Cabarga than a Giro stage, though maybe the similar finish in stage 10 of the 2009 edition matches. Certainly it doesn't match up to its direct comparison in 2008, the Kronplatz ITT. However it doesn't look too dissimilar to the Gavia-Mortirolo-Aprica stage that finished in Tirano - but Sestrières is never going to compete with the Gavia or Mortirolo. Monte Pora is nothing like as hard as the Galibier, but the Galibier finish in the Tour looks mighty... well... very gradual. It had better produce better racing than the depressingly bad Arcalis, that's all I can say.

 

[Midnightfright]

I think schleck takes this regardless off whether contador turns up or is disqualified

 

[Bavarianrider]

Tour: 4 MTFs
Giro: 7 MTFs + a mountain TT.

That is a world of difference.

7 MTFs

Montevergin, Sestriere and today are Mountain finishes, but nothing really happens there. So actually it's 4 Mountain finishes vs 4 Mountainfinishes.

If you count Montevergine then you have to count Super Besse too, which makes it 5 vs 7

Looking only at the real Mountainfinishes, Luz Ardidien, Plateu de Beille, Galiber and Alpe d'Huez are certainly not less then Etna, Glockner, Zoncolan and Refugio

 

[Moondance]

7 MTFs

Montevergine, Sestriere, and today are Mountain finishes, but nothing really happens there. So actually it's 4 Mountain finishes vs 4 Mountainfinishes.

If you count Montevergine then you have to count Super Besse too, which makes it 5 vs 7

Because a MTF in the Tour always guarantees action?

Super-Besse and Montevergine are not comperable at all BTW.

Let's look:

And

Guess which is the Tour and which the Giro?

This year's Tour is absolutely nothing like this Giro.

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

I think schleck takes this regardless off whether contador turns up or is disqualified

I'm desperately hoping someone pips him.

It's hard to consider someone who engages in such large and precise peaking a worthy winner of anything.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Because a MTF in the Tour always guarantees action?

This year's Tour is absolutely nothing like this Giro.

I didn't say it's exactly the same like this Giro.

But from the structure it's more like a Giro then your typical Tour route

 

[Bavarianrider]

Because a MTF in the Tour always guarantees action?

Super-Besse and Montevergine are not comperable at all BTW.

Let's look:

And

Guess which is the Tour and which the Giro?

This year's Tour is absolutely nothing like this Giro.

There will be bigger gaps in Super Besse then there were on Monte Vergine.
You can take this to the bank!
If not you can decide on my avatar right after the Super Besse stage.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Because a MTF in the Tour always guarantees action?

Super-Besse and Montevergine are not comperable at all BTW.

Let's look:

And

Guess which is the Tour and which the Giro?

This year's Tour is absolutely nothing like this Giro.

I agree completely with your opinion.

but to be fair super-besse will probably be better then Montevergine, which was a big pile of meh.