Rate the 2015 Tour de France !

[Escarabajo]

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.

Because the Vuelta has a lot tougher mountain stages the way they are meant to be?

 

[djpbaltimore]

I gave it an 8. The GC battle was not as close as many had hoped but there was still some doubt with 5km on the final climb, so it wasn't a blowout either. But I don't rate GTs exclusively on how the race for the jersey plays out. The mountain stages were more entertaining than they normally are due to many early attacks, but a decent part of the entertainment value for me are the stages not in the mountains. Many years, they are very dreary, but this TDF had a lot of interesting intermediate stages. A very memorable edition. Behind 2003, 2006, and 2010, but better than any other edition of the 2000s.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

I gave it a 1 out of 10 out of principle because it didn't have any TT.

 

[hfer07]

6.5

1st week was very interesting & promising,
2nd week SKY literally killed any expectations by the first MTF stage and from that moment on it became dull.
3rd week carried some of the boredom from the previous week up until the last 3 MTF stages when the spectacle was great once more.

 

[orangerider]

i'll tack on another 0.5 points with the final stage neutralized with respect for the GC riders. I would like to see that repeated even if it's not rainy. Just no reason to expect the GC riders to have to risk themselves in a field of tired, hungry, riders looking for some last minute tv attention. I really respect what they did.

 

[guncha]

I gave it 5 but it is a bit too generous. After stage 10 and other days in Pyrennes it looked like one attack TDF. It would have been a big LOL if the most mountinous TDF in years stayed that way. However, Alpes provided some entertainment and made it better than 2009 un 2012 editions.

 

[malakassis]

nice Normal distribution! i gave it 3. my formula is: the more yellow changes among GCs, the better. therefore this years route had a lack of good terrain. real montain stages instead of truncated U21 stuff and maybe froome had lost

 

[Wattie]

Shock announcement: most Tours de France are not very exciting. I first followed the Tour de France in 1986 so have thirty tours to look back on. In all honesty only a few of those could really be said to have been consistently exciting with the result in the balance. 1987 was exciting with a range of riders leading and the final classification resolving itself very late in the day. 1989 was the only race which really was a cliff-hanger and saw genuine uncertainty with two contenders having good and bad days and swapping the lead all the way to the end. Through the Indurain years the race was done by the conclusion of the first mountain stage. 96 Riis was clearly going to win with a week or more to go, 97 Ullrich was miles ahead after the stage to Arcalis, Pantani's win came from one epic ride on an extraordinary day, but not that much happened elsewhere in the race. All the Armstrong "wins" were a foregone conclusion very early in the race. Contador's first win was in the balance (but spoilt for me by the influence of Rasumssen and his withdrawal). Sastre's win was close, but the early part of the race saw very little happen. And so on and so forth. The point is that one anticipates the tour each year, but it can only ever be a let down because when looked at objectively most tours are quite dull with occasional pockets of excitement. Only the 1989 tour really offered continual excitement and uncertainty. This year the tour was much like any other - some good bits and some boring and predictable bits. I think people have a sort of platonic ideal of a perfect Tour de France, which in reality the event has almost never lived up to. Personally, though the tour may be the most prestigious race and grand tours what many people treat as the pinnacle of cycling, I look forward far more to watching the classics because one day races seem to me to offer more excitement, risk taking and attacking.

 

[malakassis]

Shock announcement: most Tours de France are not very exciting. I first followed the Tour de France in 1986 so have thirty tours to look back on. In all honesty only a few of those could really be said to have been consistently exciting with the result in the balance. 1987 was exciting with a range of riders leading and the final classification resolving itself very late in the day. 1989 was the only race which really was a cliff-hanger and saw genuine uncertainty with two contenders having good and bad days and swapping the lead all the way to the end. Through the Indurain years the race was done by the conclusion of the first mountain stage. 96 Riis was clearly going to win with a week or more to go, 97 Ullrich was miles ahead after the stage to Arcalis, Pantani's win came from one epic ride on an extraordinary day, but not that much happened elsewhere in the race. All the Armstrong "wins" were a foregone conclusion very early in the race. Contador's first win was in the balance (but spoilt for me by the influence of Rasumssen and his withdrawal). Sastre's win was close, but the early part of the race saw very little happen. And so on and so forth. The point is that one anticipates the tour each year, but it can only ever be a let down because when looked at objectively most tours are quite dull with occasional pockets of excitement. Only the 1989 tour really offered continual excitement and uncertainty. This year the tour was much like any other - some good bits and some boring and predictable bits. I think people have a sort of platonic ideal of a perfect Tour de France, which in reality the event has almost never lived up to. Personally, though the tour may be the most prestigious race and grand tours what many people treat as the pinnacle of cycling, I look forward far more to watching the classics because one day races seem to me to offer more excitement, risk taking and attacking.

im like the other way around. in GTs you can shine bright one day, and bonk the next. i like riders who try to shine. sometimes it pays off. but in most cases the solid ride was successful (e.g evans 2011).
2015 - nairo did his best in miserable designed mountain stages
2013 - same
2011 - solid evans beat spectacular but risky Aschleck effort
2010 - close
2008 - great tour, sastre turned the race upside down and utterly deserved this
2007 - also great
2006 - idem
1998 - insanely great, only marco was capable of such things

i think we had several tense tours. miguel and lance years were a bit boring, as they were patrons. but froome isnt patron, he has less respekt in peloton so things can go chaotic again! and therfore i insist: froomes rivals need big mountain stages. it cant be in ASOs interest to have the most unpopular winner take it again and bore most cycling fans.

 

[wendybnt]

Re:

6.5

1st week was very interesting & promising,
2nd week SKY literally killed any expectations by the first MTF stage and from that moment on it became dull.
3rd week carried some of the boredom from the previous week up until the last 3 MTF stages when the spectacle was great once more.

First week was indeed fantastic. Far more exciting than the usual borefest of uneventful flat stages with no hope breakaways and inevitable bunch sprint won by one of 5 people.

2nd week Sky took the race to everybody it with Froome's early attack. Then a big boring wait while the other contenders failed to get their *** together. Last couple of stages were pretty exciting as we watched whether Quintana could make an attack stick. He nearly did it, but needed a few more km of climb. One more mountain stage and the end result could have been different.

 

[Farcanal]

10 is the best possible rating.
1 is the worst possible rating.

I thought it started out really great. Finally a prologue ! Lots of tension as each rider came down and failed to beat Dennis. Really nice first week with echelons/cobbles/huy. Tony Martin win ?

While stage 10 itself was actually pretty exciting (if not the best first MTF of all time) it was also the stage that killed the middle section of the tour. Froome looked undefeatable and that took a lot of buzz out of the race I think for most people.

I liked the Mende stage aswell where Cummings stole the day with some insane cornering. Sagan's eternal second was also an interesting story line.

The race finally picked up on the final two mountain days as Quintana challenged Froome. I actually thought there was a chance Froome was going to lose it on the Alpe and it was a tense watch.

So what are all y'all thoughts ?

Think I'm going to go for a 6 ... but I do like Froome.

Overall there have been much better but also much worse Tours.

I agree that the middle section was killed a bit by Froome's lead. What I don't get is that most commentators blame Sky/Froome for this when it is the inability, or lack of confidence, of the rest to take the race to them. I'm sure Froome looked better than he actually was on that day because of the failings of the others - Nibali overweight, Contador tired, Quintana too cautious (inexperience), Valverde (well, just Valverde) and the Frenchies found out it ain't as easy as last year when there are real riders there.

 

[Tank Engine]

6.5. To balance out the rounding up, I rounded down. The first week was very good by TdF standards, especially Stage 2. Froome's dominance on the first Pyrrenean stage killed off the GC action for a long time. He was the strongest until the first Alpine stage (inclusively). On the second, Thomas was strong and Valverde "weak", so nothing happened.

Three things that could together have made this tour classic
1. Nibali being stronger in the first 10 days.
2. Bertie being strong (not riding Giro).
3. Movistar going full genius on the first ascent of the Croix de Fer. That was the time when Sky were at their weakest and Nairo already stronger than Dawg.