Rate the 2017 Tour de France

[Lupi33x]

usually there's only one good GT per year and this year it was the Giro's turn

 

[trucido]

Re:

usually there's only one good GT per year and this year it was the Giro's turn

You should at least pass judgement on this till after all the year's GTs are completed.

 

[jmdirt]

I honestly don't understand all of the 'glass shattered' stuff. I makes me wonder if most of you prefer top fuel racing.
8
Those rating below 7 should have to ride their bicycle without the seat for 101 Miles! :lol:

 

[DFA123]

Re:

usually there's only one good GT per year and this year it was the Giro's turn

Giro was terrible as well for most of the first two weeks. Last week was great, but the Vuelta has an open goal to retain its crown imo.

 

[Lupi33x]

Re: Re:

usually there's only one good GT per year and this year it was the Giro's turn

You should at least pass judgement on this till after all the year's GTs are completed.

sorry, the good GT load was blown at the Giro. There's nothing left for 2017.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Re:

usually there's only one good GT per year and this year it was the Giro's turn

"Good"?

 

[DFA123]

One thing I will say which is good about the Tour, and is the same pretty much every year, is that there are no freebies. To win a stage you have to be a very, very good professional cyclist. You very rarely get the no names winning from a 20 minute up the road break that you do quite frequently in the Giro and Vuelta.

 

[trucido]

I give it a 4.

Pluses:
- Close GC until the ITT.
- The riders made the best of a terrible design.
- Barguill, Calmejane, Bardet, Demare: great Tour for the French. Always nice.

Minuses:
- Froome was beatable, but no one dared to risk it all.
- Two weeks worth nothing, one week of "action". The TdF bore-fest tradition continues. Anyone who rated the -
Route 8 when it was made public should be sentenced to ride his bike without a saddle for one hundred miles.
- Incompetent officials. As always.
- TV commentators, broadcast in general: mediocre at best.
- The Sagan fans whining was annoying.

Agreed. How Demare escaped any penalty on two occasions and the whole illegal feeding incident involving Bardet was a farce.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

I honestly don't understand all of the 'glass shattered' stuff. I makes me wonder if most of you prefer top fuel racing.
8
Those rating below 7 should have to ride their bicycle without the seat for 101 Miles! :lol:

That has absolutely nothing to do with how good the tdf was. It's like saying a football game without any chances, because one team is only defending, has to be good because defending so well is something very difficult.

 

[Lupi33x]

Re:

One thing I will say which is good about the Tour, and is the same pretty much every year, is that there are no freebies. To win a stage you have to be a very, very good professional cyclist. You very rarely get the no names winning from a 20 minute up the road break that you do quite frequently in the Giro and Vuelta.

no doubt its the deepest and hardest GT to win anything...nobody disputes that
that doesnt necessarily make it always entertaining

 

[Red Rick]

Few good stage wins make sure it avoids the 0.

 

[Carols]

5 mainly because I fell in love with Wawa, loved Rigo's stage win and podium and watching Bardet fighting through such a crisis to prevail by a single second was memorable. Oh and the scenery .

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

One thing I will say which is good about the Tour, and is the same pretty much every year, is that there are no freebies. To win a stage you have to be a very, very good professional cyclist. You very rarely get the no names winning from a 20 minute up the road break that you do quite frequently in the Giro and Vuelta.

no doubt its the deepest and hardest GT to win anything...nobody disputes that
that doesnt necessarily make it always entertaining

Agree, but as Armstrong correctly stated, the only thing more boring than a sprint, is a day where the peloton calls it a rest and a handful of no names battle it out from a break which is 20 minutes up the road. Even when the break is given a long leash in the Tour, you get riders like EBH and Barguil having to really fight for the win.

And also, for example, seeing Kittel - the finest exponent in the world - win a sprint stage is more entertaining than seeing Gaviria win one just because most of the fast guys aren't there.

 

[Escarabajo]

A bit better than 2012 and 2014. Close to 2016. For me the battle for GC was not as great but in the Tour you always have the best riders on sprint, breakaways and everywhere as well. So that is always a plus. It is close to 6.

 

[Gigs_98]

I think some people here are a bit harsh. Yeah it surely wasn't good and I also only gave it a 4, but it's not like there was nothing good about this race. The Jura stages were quite good, the 2nd pyrenees stage was really good, we had a crosswind stage some good breakaway wins (Calmejane, Mollema, Roglic, EBH) and a relatively close battle for yellow. I know the last point I mentioned is a bit overrated but this makes this at least way better than last year when we had no attacks on mountain stages combined with a gc which was decided extremely early. And while the gc relevant stages were sometimes boring, we at least didn't have a stage like last year's stage 20 when the peloton rode over the Joux Plane with I think 4 sky riders at the front.

Better than 2012 and 2016, but worse than 2013, 2014 and 2015

 

[Red Rick]

Meanwhile, the most surprising thing this Tour has to be Tonton's sudden change of avatar.

 

[Lupi33x]

Re: Re:

One thing I will say which is good about the Tour, and is the same pretty much every year, is that there are no freebies. To win a stage you have to be a very, very good professional cyclist. You very rarely get the no names winning from a 20 minute up the road break that you do quite frequently in the Giro and Vuelta.

no doubt its the deepest and hardest GT to win anything...nobody disputes that
that doesnt necessarily make it always entertaining

Agree, but as Armstrong correctly stated, the only thing more boring than a sprint, is a day where the peloton calls it a rest and a handful of no names battle it out from a break which is 20 minutes up the road. Even when the break is given a long leash in the Tour, you get riders like EBH and Barguil having to really fight for the win.

And also, for example, seeing Kittel - the finest exponent in the world - win a sprint stage is more entertaining than seeing Gaviria win one just because most of the fast guys aren't there.

sounds like stage 19, except for the no name part, everyone was happy Edvald won, but it was a boring stage

 

[Simurgh]

5 : Contador's "death or glory" attacks, Boasson Hagen's stage victory, the really exiciting photo finish sprint and Barguil flying made the Tour somewhat interesting. Otherwise the lack of hilly/LBL stages, the risk aversion between GC contenders to attack Froome for real (or perhaps they still aren't strong enough to beat a non-alien Froome), Fuglsang, Porte and Valverde (God, I forgot him, even though I thought of him earlier today. He could have won this Tour) crashing and Pinot weak (to an unexpected degree) is what pulls this Tour down. Right now I even consider Tour 2014 to have been better than this, which is saying something

 

[DFA123]

I think some people here are a bit harsh. Yeah it surely wasn't good and I also only gave it a 4, but it's not like there was nothing good about this race. The Jura stages were quite good, the 2nd pyrenees stage was really good, we had a crosswind stage some good breakaway wins (Calmejane, Mollema, Roglic, EBH) and a relatively close battle for yellow. I know the last point I mentioned is a bit overrated but this makes this at least way better than last year when we had no attacks on mountain stages combined with a gc which was decided extremely early. And while the gc relevant stages were sometimes boring, we at least didn't have a stage like last year's stage 20 when the peloton rode over the Joux Plane with I think 4 sky riders at the front.

Better than 2012 and 2016, but worse than 2013, 2014 and 2015

At least last year had some high quality sprints, some fun breakaways, the novelty of Froome going crazy on descents and then attacking on the flat. Plus Ventoux - that stage will be remembered for ever. There were some moments for the ages last year.

What will be remembered from this edition? What will people talk about from this edition in 10 or 20 years time? Maybe Kittel's wins, but probably not - that kind of haul happens pretty often these days. Otherwise, the only other really memorable events are negative - Valverde and Porte's crashes, Sagan's DQ...

 

[Tonton]

Re:

Meanwhile, the most surprising thing this Tour has to be Tonton's sudden change of avatar.

Well, there's a definite need for greatness these days ...

 

[LaFlorecita]

2. Awfully boring.

 

[Alexandre B.]

Re: Re:

Meanwhile, the most surprising thing this Tour has to be Tonton's sudden change of avatar.

Well, there's a definite need for greatness these days ...

Lino > Rujano. Period.

 

[DNP-Old]

I'm in a good mood, so I'll give it a 2.

 

[Lupi33x]

stage 15 I think was my favourite stage with the hills and the cross wind splits...followed by the stage 12..the climb up the wall
all the other mountain stages pretty much sucked ....the downhill finish stage 17 where Aru got dropped was okay but not great

 

[Sciocco]

2; TdF and the Ardennes are generally so boring and this was no different. Vuelta soon though.