roundabout said:I still don't get why 2007 is a good format while say 2008 isn't.
Oh right, a route biased to time-trialists will always be a better format in your eyes than a more balanced route such as 2008.
Once again, the 2007 format is the right one in my eyes, not because it favours time-trialists, but because it is balanced and complete. A testament of that are the two riders in the final GC: Contador and Evans, the two most complete riders of our generation. One more of a climber, the other more of a TT-list, and both had their chance to win and brought it to the wire.
Now like I said, the 2007 route was very improvable in the mountains. The Le Grand-Bornand stage featured a lonely Colombière, the Tignes stage featured three well linked climbs at the end, but none of them was a HC and all of them where not particularly steep. And still, that was the stage where the chicken finally got the maillot jaune, after starting the day more than 4 minutes back. In the Briançon stage, the Galibier was again too isolated and the stage too short. The Plateau de Beille stage had again too much easy terrain between Pailheres and Beille. Loudenvielle was good, same as this year's last mountain stage but descending into Loudenvielle. And we still remember that stage vividly. And the Aubisque stage, well needless to say Aubisque was also too isolated, that was a bad final mountain stage.
2008 wasn't the worst of tours, though very improvable (EDIT: actually on closer inspection, it was pretty bad) but again, I'm not talking about individual tours, I'm using 2007 as the point in time where the GTs, and specifically the TdF, drifted from the classic concept to the capped one of recent years.