Any GT with less than 50K ITT should really be rated at 3 or below.
Perhaps the occasional good stage in the first week can get this one over 3.....
Perhaps the occasional good stage in the first week can get this one over 3.....
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ITTs or a lack thereof are a tiny problem if the mountains are even worseDazed and Confused said:Any GT with less than 50K ITT should really be rated at 3 or below.
Perhaps the occasional good stage in the first week can get this one over 3.....
Which is exactly what we have these days. Sure, you slightly increase the chance of a once in a lifetime ride like Froome had, but you increase the chance that climbers have no shot by even more.Libertine Seguros said:If Fuente is within 30 seconds of Merckx, the entire final week of the 1974 Giro never happens. If Indurain isn't so far ahead that he desperately needs minutes, not seconds, Chiapucci waits until the final climb. If he doesn't bonk and lose ten minutes the day before, Floyd attacks on Joux-Plane. If Froome is 20 seconds from Yates, he's in virtual maglia rosa when Yates bonks, and can shepherd everybody else rather than launching a solo. That does, however, come with the risk that the gaps become too large if the best time triallists are also among the strongest climbers, but then again if somebody is among the best time triallists and the best climbers they'd probably be up at the forefront anyway.jaylew said:Sorry, I just don't believe that giving the likes of Dumo, Froome, Thomas and Roglic an additional 3-4 minute buffer would be good for the race.hrotha said:ITTs also separate the climbers from the other climbers. It's not just about forcing the 2nd or 3rd strongest guys to attack, it's also about everyone else having to move sooner (or become irrelevant to the race), and that creating a domino effect.jaylew said:I don't know why we continue to separate the climbers from the TT guys, saying stuff like longer TTs will force the climbers to attack sooner. These days, the GC guys with strong TTs tend to also be the best (or among the best) climbers.
Yeah, only then Thomas has 3-4 minutes on the climbers instead of a minute.Libertine Seguros said:The bigger the time gaps, the more distance is required to make them up. Seeing as the stifling train technique has made it so that there are few time gaps in the road stages, the ITT is the other way to create significant enough gaps to make attacking from distance a necessity. Because as we've seen in other races, admittedly without their A team, Sky can get tired and lose their control, such as at Catalunya and in the Vuelta with Froome being dropped early. There's always the chance that a guy like Thomas crashes - he has a history of that, and then all it takes is one more accident or an ill-timed puncture to mean they're in the wrong place when there's a split, and suddenly racing is on.
How can you believe that, when we've been getting increasingly conservative racing, especially at the Tour, at the same time as ITT mileage reaches a ridiculous low point and routes are tailor-made to minimize gaps?jaylew said:Which is exactly what we have these days. Sure, you slightly increase the chance of a once in a lifetime ride like Froome had, but you increase the chance that climbers have no shot by even more.
Again, there are other riders. If the climbers have to go early to get on the podium, even if none of them had a real shot at the yellow jersey (which is a big if), that opens up race situations where those closer to Thomas may benefit. And at any rate, we'll get more than 1,5 km worth of racing even if the leader can't be beaten. Hell, if the leader is so untouchable who cares if people stay close to him? You're basically sacrificing proper racing for an illusion of equality and an open race.Yeah, only then Thomas has 3-4 minutes on the climbers instead of a minute.
First of all, my original post wasn't in response to yours,but it appears that you felt it was. It wasn't.Libertine Seguros said:But I don't think I'm over-criticizing. I think this route epitomises a lot of the current problems with parcours trend, such as anæmic ITT, overuse of the TTT, over-reliance on gimmicks and "name' summits to disguise a lack of creativity or ideas, and spamming of the short mountain stage until we get to the point where we can't even compare to say long stages produce boring racing because we simply never see them anymore.
And even if we do see a great Tour, that won't erase the flaws in the route. The 2012 Vuelta route was still absolutely awful, they got a lot of things that fell into place that meant the race was a lot better than it had any right to be.
Also: La Course.
hence the platitude,as you call it: it's the riders who make the racehrotha said:But all of those would apply to almost every recent route.![]()
Hell, many of them would apply to any route, period.
2017, 14km ITT, PDBF stage 5, [edit] GC with Froome in yellow, 9 riders in the same minute.rghysens said:If it's the aim to keep the gc as close as possible, for as long as possible, there shouldn't be a ttt on day 2. Or a mtf on stage 6.
Tonton said:hence the platitude,as you call it: it's the riders who make the racehrotha said:But all of those would apply to almost every recent route.![]()
Hell, many of them would apply to any route, period....and many recent GT routes have indeed aimed at keeping the race as close as possible for as long as possible. That's how you get TV ratings, keep the fans engaged, et caetera. Wecan be as romantic as we want, but the bottom line is: cycling is a business.And that'sthe new model.
Yes, it is a platitude. It's like filling a forum about interior design and housing with comments about how all that matters is that a family sticks together.Tonton said:hence the platitude,as you call it: it's the riders who make the racehrotha said:But all of those would apply to almost every recent route.![]()
Hell, many of them would apply to any route, period....and many recent GT routes have indeed aimed at keeping the race as close as possible for as long as possible. That's how you get TV ratings, keep the fans engaged, et caetera. Wecan be as romantic as we want, but the bottom line is: cycling is a business.And that'sthe new model. We can agree, disagree,i the end we have to learn to live with it. In my case, I have enough gray hair already
, no need to get upset. Fair enough?
Libertine Seguros said:One-dimensional mountain goats ... Charly Gaul
AnatoleNovak said:Libertine Seguros said:One-dimensional mountain goats ... Charly Gaul
Nitpicking alert: he wasn't really that one-dimensional. He won a few ITT, and not only in mountain.
Red Rick said:Was thinking the same thing about Yates, especially cause he will not drop too much time in the TTT and the boninification gimmicks should favour him as well.
Because I don't agree with your reasoning. There are several factors at work and correlation does not equal causation.hrotha said:How can you believe that, when we've been getting increasingly conservative racing, especially at the Tour, at the same time as ITT mileage reaches a ridiculous low point and routes are tailor-made to minimize gaps?jaylew said:Which is exactly what we have these days. Sure, you slightly increase the chance of a once in a lifetime ride like Froome had, but you increase the chance that climbers have no shot by even more.
Yeah, only then Thomas has 3-4 minutes on the climbers instead of a minute.
I simply don't think more TT miles will result in better racing in this day and age with the riders we currently have, at least not what I see as better racing and what I want to see in a GT.hrotha said:Again, there are other riders. If the climbers have to go early to get on the podium, even if none of them had a real shot at the yellow jersey (which is a big if), that opens up race situations where those closer to Thomas may benefit. And at any rate, we'll get more than 1,5 km worth of racing even if the leader can't be beaten. Hell, if the leader is so untouchable who cares if people stay close to him? You're basically sacrificing proper racing for an illusion of equality and an open race.