Rate the 2015 Tour de France !

[SafeBet]

Re:

I gave it a 5 because the first week was decent, the breaks were entertaining and the Alps weren't bad.

Nothing to add really.

 

[ebandit]

LOL i thought it were great...........best for years ............even if some of the stages were rather

'too designed for TV' no long time trial ...few flat sprint stages.......great variety and outcome

not ensured 'til 2nd last day

it can still be good if your fave doesn't win............

Mark L

 

[jens_attacks]

8 because look at that top 5

too bad movistar didn't attack earlier
same thing like astana in the giro

 

[Sasquatch]

Re:

lol, im really shocked by how highly this is being rated, but if all of you really found this race to be entertaining, then good for you I guess, you will really enjoy anything this sport offers.

In my opinion, it was a bad race. Not as bad as 2009, or 2012 or 2014 but still bad.

First of all, there was no gc battle. That alone makes the maximum score in my opinion a 5. GC is what Gts are all about. the rest of it is scraps. A gt can't be any good on scraps alone. It would be like going into a restuarant to review a hamburger, getting a crap burger but still giving the meal 5 stars because you liked the chips.

These other stages and fights for green (which also wasn't contested) can't carry a gt. They can turn a good gc battle into a great gt (see 2010 Giro) but alone they won't make a crap gc battle into a good gt.

But even that wasn't anything special. The cobbles stage was a big damp squib. Prologue had no surprises either. Muur d huy was good, I'll give it that.

There were like 10 mountain stages though and only one was one by an actual gc guy, + nibali won one but he was already too far down. All breakways.

A breakaway is enjoyable if it happens once in a while. Gives the lesser guys a chance to shine once in a while. If however it happens every single bloody stage, that defeats the purpose. Everybody and their dog got chances to win a stage in this years tour.

I give the TDF a 2.5. One great stage - PSM. One ok one - Alpe (Quintana never stood a chance). A lot of mountain stages that promised a lot but offered nothing because Movistar only wanted to ride for 2nd place.

Agreed with basically everything. Except this years was worse than 2009 and 2014. The giro and vuelta are much more enjoyable than the Tour and it wouldnt' surprise me if a lot of people start focusing their attention more to those races.

 

[barmaher]

5 for me.

Battles for green, white and yellow were not very competitive. Polka dots jersey was only won by someone who won it as collateral damage.

I hated seeing Martin and Cancellara bow out while in yellow.

Contador and Nibali were not in good enough form.

Quintana is not the type of rider you want to have chasing a 3 minute deficit. He is a very good rider. I like the guy. But he has no panache.

There was a huge circus about Froome and doping. I don't enjoy that stuff. It took from my enjoyment of the race.

PSM stage and ADH stage were memorable. I missed Stage 2, but it sounds as if that could be classified similarly. Stages I will think about for a number of years. After that, I struggle to come up with a memorable stage.

Loved Sagan's descending. Bardet's stage win, Pinot's stage win. Nice win by Dennis.

But I saw many of the stages for 3 hours plus. And a lot of it was boring. I know cycling can be like that sometimes. But it really wasn't exciting too much.

 

[Eshnar]

Re: Re:

The giro and vuelta are much more enjoyable than the Tour and it wouldnt' surprise me if a lot of people start focusing their attention more to those races.

I would be very surprised actually. That didn't happen in the early 2000's when the Tdf was as thrilling as a military parade... I would even say the Tour got even a bigger fanbase during those years, wrt Giro and Vuelta.

 

[rainman]

Gave it 5. Could only go on surface impressions due to work, although it was on in the background most days. The expectation of a giant 4 way battle fell through when it was obvious Froome was way stronger than anyone else, which really showed first in the TTT, and the others in crap form. Kudos to Q for at last giving a serious go on Alpe but still too little too late, and to Nibs when he finally came good in the Alps.
My favourite stage by miles was into Zeeland and yesterdays WAY the most boring. To think Champs used to be exciting, Jeez what a snooze.
Beautiful scenery throughout but tv presentation DIRE imo.

 

[veji11]

Gave it a 7 :
- we had lots of action with an interesting first week. Even if Greipel ended up dominating the sprints Kittel style, it never felt like a foregone conclusion so sprints were interesting too for once.
- Echelons and Cobbles were nice
- Huy, Mûr de Bretagne, Le Havre, Rodez made for fun if vueltaish stages sometimes.
- Alpes were fun even if the Movistar were a bit shy : all 4 stages were very watchable with action early on (Contador's attack that doomed TVG, the Bayard and Chaussy orgies to begin the stages, etc...)
- We had nice breakaway battles in the Alpes and even the best possible triple threat battle in l'Alpe d'huez : Breakaway guys for the stage win + Leaders for the overall win + leaders AND breakaway guys for the stage win.
- Only big drawback was that Froome had the tour traumatised by stage 10 and the Movistar only started shaking the shock and thinking like something could happen 3 days from the finish, ie too late.
- My other regret is the lack of long multi-climbs mountain stages except the Toussuire stage.

So overall a good tour, entertaining even if the GC action was underwhelming (like in 90% of the tours though, it is the way it is).

 

[PremierAndrew]

Gave a 7 - first 9 stages were great imo with the exception of the cobble stage. Middle week was fairly poor because GC had been killed along with the green jersey, but the final week was also very good and the polka dot jersey wasn't decided until late on either

 

[DBotero]

8,Porte not dropping Quintana on l'Alpe d'Huez stage stop me for rating it higher.

 

[Simurgh]

Gave it a 5. Interesting first week, but the GC win was already decided with SKY destroying everyone (Froome superior, Porte 2nd, Thomas top 10 too), and seeing Contador and Pinot fail (and failed again on Mende ). For once I enjoyed the sprints, Sagans impressive green jersey hunt was great to watch, and Alpe d'Huez stage was IMO the most exciting MTF 'cause of the battle between Pinot vs Quintana (for stage) vs Froome (for GC), though I couldn't imagine Froome throw it away at the end.

But for me it was the best Tour since 2011.

 

[Ruby United]

Re:

I was disappointed by the lack of a classic breakaway finish where 4 rouleurs look at each other and grind to a near halt before a slo-mo 'sprint' finish

Think the closest we got was Pinot's slo-mo finish for Cummings

 

[Ruby United]

Re:

Gave it a 5. Interesting first week, but the GC win was already decided with SKY destroying everyone (Froome superior, Porte 2nd, Thomas top 10 too), and seeing Contador and Pinot fail (and failed again on Mende ). For once I enjoyed the sprints, Sagans impressive green jersey hunt was great to watch, and Alpe d'Huez stage was IMO the most exciting MTF 'cause of the battle between Pinot vs Quintana (for stage) vs Froome (for GC), though I couldn't imagine Froome throw it away at the end.

But for me it was the best Tour since 2011.

Agreed, but then again every Tour since 2011 has been totally dominated by Sky, besides last year which was dominated even more than Sky ever have in the Tour. 2010/2011 were the last times the Tour was actually competitive (I don't think anyone really doubted Froome this year)

 

[Gigs_98]

7
the first week was okay with the cross wind, the drama around martin, the uphill finishes were good too IMO. However the other sprint stages were meh and the cobbles were disappointing

the second one was the worst one with the froome dominance in lpsm and no gaps in pdb. the win from majka on the tourmalet stage was my highlight of the pyrenees. My highlight of the week was mende with a real gc battle. Rode and Gap were okay too (that sagan descent will stay in my mind)

third week was pretty good. Froome isolated on the allos but noone could benefit from that. Still there was some action and combined with the fight for the stage it was an okay stage. I missed almost everything of the glandon stage but I heard that it was good. The final two stages were great IMO with nibalis great attack on the croix de fer, and quintanas attacks on the croix de fer and later on the alp. However NQ could have made the tour a lot better if he had done more on the other alp stages.

 

[Netserk]

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Better than '09 and '12, worse than '06, '07, '08, '10 and '14 and on par with '11 and '13.

So that equals a 4. Could just as well have been a 3 or 5.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

8 because look at that top 5

too bad movistar didn't attack earlier
same thing like astana in the giro

Yes I agree but too bad that many people rate the race mainly on how their favourite rider fared. I never expected Contador do make the podium but then I never expected Valverde to make it either. It can't be said that the best riders did not have their chances. Looking at polls before the race, most people were picking Quintana or Froome and Quintana seemed to have the most votes.

 

[Sasquatch]

Re: Re:

The giro and vuelta are much more enjoyable than the Tour and it wouldnt' surprise me if a lot of people start focusing their attention more to those races.

I would be very surprised actually. That didn't happen in the early 2000's when the Tdf was as thrilling as a military parade... I would even say the Tour got even a bigger fanbase during those years, wrt Giro and Vuelta.

I for one rate the Tour de France the equivalent to the Tour Down Under. A boring irrelevant race. Until they fix the parcours up and make mountain stages the way they are meant to be made, and make it tougher, the Tour de France will never be an event I look forward to. I look forward to the Giro and Vuelta way more.

 

[slim charles]

7, because of interesting first week, and last 2 Alps stages. Everything in between - quite boring. Still can't wait for next year's tour to start.
And still think Giro is a much more interesting race, even if not as good in terms of quality of the riders.

 

[Hayabusa]

I gave it an 8, felt it was a much better Tour than the borefest that was 2014 after all the contenders bar Nibali had left. Things stopping me from going higher were Movistar not attacking earlier and the fact that the second week was pretty dull.

 

[Pentacycle]

7 - The fight for yellow was decided pretty rearly on, and it was clear that Quintana had a hard time taking back time. Still, in the end you have five top riders from three different generations at the top of the GC. On top of that you get the wins of climbers like Bardet, Purito, Pinot, Majka, and classics guys like Geschke, Stybar, GVA. And Plaza and Cummings came out of nowhere.

 

[Tommy79]

8 - hard to recall a dull stage.

I did suffer through expectations which were through the roof for the GC battle... if only Contador and Nibali had turned up, if only Quintana hadn't lost time in the crosswinds....

Still, overall, much better than the last few years.

 

[greenedge]

I gave it a 7 as the first week was great and the last two mountain stages were suspenseful.
Froome's ride on Stage 10 was great, but dulled much of the race.

 

[Brullnux]

6- Pretty much what everyone else has said but too many people racing for positions. Also the abuse from fans against Froome left a sour taste.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Better than '09 and '12, worse than '06, '07, '08, '10 and '14 and on par with '11 and '13.

So that equals a 4. Could just as well have been a 3 or 5.

Why was this worse than 2014? I think last year was boring as hell

 

[DBotero]

Re:

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Better than '09 and '12, worse than '06, '07, '08, '10 and '14 and on par with '11 and '13.

So that equals a 4. Could just as well have been a 3 or 5.

This seems a bit odd,why do you think it was worse?Might be the route i suppose.