Can't see anyone from the Giro challenging for the overall except Contador. Not sure if Menchov can back up even though he has improved as the Giro has gone on. Otherwise it's Andy Schleck, Gesink, VDB and possibly Basso Evans and Sanchez to fight out the top five. Can see Vino winning a stage but not finishing in the top five. Can see Horner, Frank Schleck, Leipheimer or Kloden making up the rest of the top 10.
Bavarianrider said:
It won't matter due to the new format for the green jersey. At the intermediate sprints, the top 15 get points (20 for 1st as opposed to 45, I think, for winning a stage). These sprints are on 15 stages and only one (maybe two) are after a significant climb. Gilbert will lose points to the sprinters in large numbers at these.
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jobiwan said:As I enjoy both the sprint stages and mountains, I enjoy this route.
EXCEPT STAGE 13. What is the deal with the Aubisque??
This year:
Last year:
Last year could have been an awesome stage, had it been done in reverse.
Thor Hushovd should not be getting points at the end of a mountain stage!! Enough said.
Obviously Prudhomme has a fascination with the Aubisque.
I guess in the stage this year you'll get one of the usual guys winning: Fedrigo, Casar, Voeckler, Cunego, LL Sanchez - you know, those guys.
Unless someone wants to race it like the Madeleine, I doubt we'll see anything here.
It also looks like the Grenoble TT will be in in the Dauphine, so we'll get a preview. More like the 2009 Annecy TT than the Bordeaux TT, which is good. (And shorter, so Andy has a chance!)
It's not good, it's a pathetic joke to have 42 TT km only
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If this Giro's anything to go by, Bert will totally dust Andy and everyone else. Andy can't have improved his TTing that much. Bert could have won like 5 stages of the Giro or something. Witih that much of a gap between the Accountant and his rivals, what are Sanchez/Schleck/Gesink/Basso going to be able to do that's so different?
- Jul 28, 2010
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Bavarianrider said:
We know where you're going with this. Tony Martin has no business winning a GT, so leave it at that.
GT's belong to the top climbers, and the winners are the ones who are also good at the TT.
Tony is not a top-tier climber. Alberto, Andy, Samu and the like are.
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jobiwan said:
That's simply not true. Tours with many time rials km are always more exciting then those with less.
Plus the Tour is about the best cyclist, not just the best climber.
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Magnus said:
Actually the TdF '09 was probably decided in the first week, with a 15 km TT in Monaco, and an overly long TTT where Astana dominated. Contador had no reason to attack other than to eliminate Lance.
I think a Tour where Bradley Wiggins finishes fourth is an indication of too much time trialing.
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jobiwan said:
A Tour that features not even 60km individual TT can hardly be called too much TTkms
- Apr 7, 2011
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jobiwan said:
100TT km that would make ca 130m of time trialing. Even in 2009 therer were far far more climbing minutes where climbers could have attacked.
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Bavarianrider said:
Most of us can agree than the 09 mountains left much to be desired.
Contador had essentially locked up his Tour in the first week by:
- Taking 50 (approx.) seconds on his only real climbing threat (Schleck) in Monaco.
- Getting 40 seconds on the Schlecks in the Team TT. (Without Cancellara, who knows how far back they'd been.)
- Attacking at the very top of Arcalis (a very disappointing climb), to get ahead of Armstrong.
Verbier was just proof that the Tour was already over. Annecy was even further proof. Ventoux was just blah.
- Oct 16, 2009
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IMO there should be two time trials of ~50 km each in the Tour. A good amount of time trialing makes for a good dynamic between climbers and time trialists. With 100K of TTing, there's no way we'd see Schleck and Contador **** about on mountain top finishes like they did last year.
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If we're going to add to the TT kms, we need to make sure the mountain stages are used well.
At present we have a bit of an imbalance with mountains taking precedence over the TTs - result of audience figures I suspect. But it does result in some lazy course design with regards to those mountain stages. The 2009 Tour did not have 'too much' TT distance - but it was too much for the unimpressive mountain stages they had. A bit like the oft-discussed Paris-Nice 2011; an ITT in Paris-Nice isn't necessarily a bad thing - but you have to balance out with a tougher mountain challenge than the laughable "queen stage" they had this year.
Compare the 2009 Dauphiné with the 2010 route.
Both races had long time trials for a 1-week race (42,4km in 2009, 49km in 2010). Both had two mountaintop finishes as key stages (Ventoux and Col de la Madeleine in 2009, Risoul 1850 and Alpe d'Huez in 2010). But the ITT was far more integral to the result in 2010, because the mountains weren't as hard (Alpe, though legendary, is not as tough as either Ventoux or the oft-underrated Madeleine). I'd have suggested that 2009 could have benefited from the 49km ITT (though all that would ultimately given us is Valverde attacking Evans with Contador's help rather than defending from him) and 2010 could have benefited from the 42,4km ITT instead.
At present we have a bit of an imbalance with mountains taking precedence over the TTs - result of audience figures I suspect. But it does result in some lazy course design with regards to those mountain stages. The 2009 Tour did not have 'too much' TT distance - but it was too much for the unimpressive mountain stages they had. A bit like the oft-discussed Paris-Nice 2011; an ITT in Paris-Nice isn't necessarily a bad thing - but you have to balance out with a tougher mountain challenge than the laughable "queen stage" they had this year.
Compare the 2009 Dauphiné with the 2010 route.
Both races had long time trials for a 1-week race (42,4km in 2009, 49km in 2010). Both had two mountaintop finishes as key stages (Ventoux and Col de la Madeleine in 2009, Risoul 1850 and Alpe d'Huez in 2010). But the ITT was far more integral to the result in 2010, because the mountains weren't as hard (Alpe, though legendary, is not as tough as either Ventoux or the oft-underrated Madeleine). I'd have suggested that 2009 could have benefited from the 49km ITT (though all that would ultimately given us is Valverde attacking Evans with Contador's help rather than defending from him) and 2010 could have benefited from the 42,4km ITT instead.
goggalor said:
Absolutely. Back in the 80s there used to be 150+ km of time-trialling plus a team time-trial (about 40k). The climbers knew they had to attack in the mountains - and no waiting for the last climb of the day.
Then Indurain came along and spoilt it by demolishing everyone in the TTs.
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