Rate the 2016 Tour de France

[ice&fire]

Re:

Have we honestly come so far that we all are waiting for the Vuelta, the GT of 10 murritos, to commence? At least we are sure we will see some decent time gaps.

(Yes, admittedly, the 2012 Vuelta was the GT that sparked my interest in cycling again after some sad, sad years).

Froome is also waiting for la Vuelta after his training ride around France

 

[happytramp]

No GC. Break wins every stage = Awful entertainment. I give it a 3 and really regret spending do much of my time watching it. Hopefully the Vuelta is more fun.

 

[blaxland]

1.worst tour since 2012 the gc riders all bar froome should have a good hard look at themselves.very conservative riding "ooops its raining no attacking"Bardet was the only gc rider deserving of a podium,porte and yates have lots to learn.bring on the vuelta..

 

[difdauf]

To get the 2nd place in this tour, you just had to take 30 seconds in a descent. How can it be exciting ?

 

[Thepirateisgood]

5

plus for all sprint stages where a train was not applicable according to some german guy who won a stage he normally wouldn't.
plus for Froome/Cavendish giving the finger to everyone calling them boring/pensioners or whatever, downhill and surfing wheels in sprint
plus for wind and not cancelling too much


Minus for the rest, basically. GC turned out shei+ cause of abandons by YKW and some other stuff. Still I enjoyed 19 and 20 stages, dont like to see crashing(19), but a nice way out for Purito(20).
Next year I understand all stages will be live from start to stop, which surely will be the end of the tour as there is not enough space in the world for the smalltalk by television presenters.

Ventoux was maybe spectacular in some way, TV people made it out that way, but it didn't matter other for minor placings.

 

[Ruby United]

5.
+
Froome won and I'm British
Froome running up Ventoux
Cavendish won 4 stages (and I'm British)
Yates came 4th, Bardet 2nd; nice to see them there
Sagan
-
No battle for the top step
No battle for the top step
Sky train (though I'm British)
Quintana incredibly weak (yet got podium), Contador crashed
Porte came 5th though he deserved 2nd

 

[SHAD0W93]

I would give it a 7. I am ecstatic that Cav won 4 stages and got yellow, even though that was the only prediction I got right. I am not able to watch races as heavily as others here so I just saw the last 20kms of the stages on NBCSN when I got home from work and wasn't bored. Though that could be that I already saw who won. Sagan's stage wins were really good as well.
Froome wasn't in my top 10 pick that I would want to win the race but he deserved it. Happy Bardet got a podium and that Yates did so well to finish where he did after the crash. Sad that TGBM has such a bad last 2 days.

Can't wait for next year.

 

[Electress]

2 - One for Sagan and one for Cav finding his form again. The rest just meh. Glad I didn't waste my time watching more than the odd highlight in the mountains.

 

[The Hegelian]

3.

The new'ish mix of GC pretenders was interesting. There were some high quality riders making the race - especially Sagan and GVA. To a lesser extent Nibali.

Really enjoyed GVA's tour - winning a stage, wearing yellow then becoming super domestique.

But the GC battle was truly woeful. Sky train + Contador out + Quintana below his best = a pitiful state of affairs.

The mountain stages were just dire. And a tour with boring mountain stages is not worth watching. I should have bailed out earlier.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

Froomy should've been given a penalty for running up the parcours. The rules don't allow it. Would've made for some GC excitement, perhaps.

I disagreee as it was one of the high points of the race and Froome was not even on his bike !

 

[cantpedal]

it strikes me that a lot of posters on this forum are always hoping for rain and that's what screwed up 2 potentially great stages.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

it strikes me that a lot of posters on this forum are always hoping for rain and that's what screwed up 2 potentially great stages.

The gamble of the penultimate stage finishing with a descent did not pay off.

 

[hoolaparara]

3 at best, Seriously all those riders close together and apart from bardet no racing even for places! Terrible,1 for bardet attack 1 for sagan and the other regular attackers and 1 for getting their name right on the top of the paper.

 

[Sciocco]

I voted a 0. Feels a bit high honestly.

Where are you real (pretty much anything else) races?

 

[Scarponi]

Seeing 10-14 riders come in together on the final mountain stage with the top 5 so close in time is the saddest sight I have seen in professional cycling. It really has lost the spark for me at the moment. Outside of Froome and the two Movistars, The top 10 looks like a poorly attended Criterium International that would be laughed ( like it does every year here) at for its weak field. Giving this Tour a 2, I used to froth staying up to 2am to watch every stage but I didn't watch any more then two stages of the last week and I was bored enough to finish a novel during it.

 

[Cookster15]

Re:

I voted a 0. Feels a bit high honestly.

Where are you real (pretty much anything else) races?

Maybe next time Sky / Froome are dominant we ask that the poll starts at -5? :lol:

 

[Sciocco]

Re: Re:

I voted a 0. Feels a bit high honestly.

Where are you real (pretty much anything else) races?

Maybe next time Sky / Froome are dominant we ask that the poll starts at -5? :lol:

-8 through 0 and Vino sound like solid poll options to me.

 

[LaFlorecita]

1.
Sagan, Pantano and Zaka saved it from being a 0.

 

[Tank Engine]

In terms of an Altman movie with lots of subplots, some of them rather surreal, this tour was quite good (a 6 or a 7). In terms of a movie blockbuster, it was a complete disaster. What's the main story? Of the two main rivals to the "hero", one retired early after a crash and the other had the flu and still got onto the podium. Overall, a 3

 

[sienna]

I rated it an 8 as I enjoy all GT's whatever the outcome.
Sagan should get an extra award for lighting up the race.
I'm not fussed about Froome's achievements either way except to say that I would rather see a rider win with minimal help take it out. The Sky train looked invincible because there was no one to take them down except for the day RP took off.
I was impressed with the contributions of Alaphilippe, Pantano and Meintjes.
I'm not a huge fan of Cavendish but winning four stages at this stage of his career was impressive.
Quintana was disappointing, especially with the pre-race hype.
Stage 20 was a huge anti-climax.

 

[Jagartrott]

So, seems like the Brits gave this Tour a pass, the rest a fail - for the most part.

 

[rainman]

A bit hungover this morning, felt to amend this post a bit. There was a lot that was positive so I'm preferring to focus on that. 6.

 

[WildspokeJoe]

Seeing 10-14 riders come in together on the final mountain stage with the top 5 so close in time is the saddest sight I have seen in professional cycling.

I think this is a fabulous point. For me, what I love about the mountain stages is when the top GC guys attack and blow the field apart. Then the moto starts at back of the lead group and goes one by one to see who had been dropped. We never really got that this year. No Drama.

And as someone said earlier, Quintana had a horrible, uninspired race and still finished on the podium.

 

[Simurgh]

Gave it a 4. 1 point because the sprints were great (and we still got one left, go Coq!), 1 point because the breakaway battles, that were awesome (Pantano vs Majka and Alaphillipe). 1 point because of Sagan, and 1 point because of the only GC rider, that took some chances, even though he didn't have to (Froome). Very disappointing GC battle though. My tour was personally over, when Contador and Pinot abandoned.

 

[Red Rick]

Most striking moment was that only Valverde chased Froome in that descent. Everyone else but movi had already given up