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Rate The 2021 Tour De France Parcours!

Page 3 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

What Do You Rate The TDF 2021 Course Out Of 10?

  • 10

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • 9

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 8

    Votes: 12 10.9%
  • 7

    Votes: 21 19.1%
  • 6

    Votes: 22 20.0%
  • 5

    Votes: 22 20.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 16 14.5%
  • 3

    Votes: 9 8.2%
  • 2

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • 1 or 0 (Vino/Red Rick/Libertine Seguros Option)

    Votes: 6 5.5%

  • Total voters
    110
6
First 2 stages are ok but basically uphill sprints, surely they can design a more difficult hilly stage for one of them. They seem to be trying to give Alaphilippe yellow but without any buffer. Like the early time trial and perfect overall amount of TT km's for me although I'd prefer one of them a bit more rolling.
Stage 7 is great but placed where it is will end up just for the breakaway, having stages like this placed away from the big mountains is the way forward.
The first mountain block is the wrong way around as stage 9 ( I understand it has to be in there) is absoulutely tragic and could possibly but hopefully discourage attacks on the better preceding stage.
Ventoux is great and the Andorra stage isn't bad either. Portet is a good brutal MTF which every GT should have only quibble with the last 2 stages is that the Tourmalet should have a leg sapper before it, seems bizarre that there isn't even a cat 2 before it.
Overall solidly average route which (much like this year) will depend on INEOS turning up with Carapaz and Bernal as co-leaders and causing chaos as no other team has the strength and need to do it. Praying that Thomas is putting out subpar watts for this reason.
 
I think that must be the reasoning behind the concept. I mean many posts here sound like the ASO just likes to p** off cycling fans, or like they have no idea what they are doing. But taking the monetary aspects (that they will rate higher than we do) out of the equation, I think we should consider the possibility that they are not totally clueless.
In fact what the recent GTs have shown is that actually the declared big stages made everyone hold back before and that teams waited for the two "decisive" stages. Everyone was so afraid of the monsters of mountains or the accumulated fatigue or just waited for that one time trial where they thought they would have the upper hand.

Which is an argument for having them early. Not an argument for not having them at all.
 
Which is an argument for having them early. Not an argument for not having them at all.
I think the issue is posters on this forum are more hardcore cycling fans and ASO are trying to cater to the more casual ones as they know people like us will watch it anyway. They're trying to keep gaps small so people will read it and think wow thats close, rather than trying to create the most exciting set of stages
 
I think the issue is posters on this forum are more hardcore cycling fans and ASO are trying to cater to the more casual ones as they know people like us will watch it anyway. They're trying to keep gaps small so people will read it and think wow thats close, rather than trying to create the most exciting set of stages

I'm sure that's what many here think, but actually that appears a bit arrogant. :confused_old:
Okay, maybe that's because I do not belong to the cycling specialists.
But if I look at the Giro elimination game and all the threads here I feel there is some heavy, not really legitimate bias against the Tour, and it appears people just want to find fault with the Tours. I mean, there sure are reasons to do so, but it's a bit like when I'm at the literature institute and meetings of my literature people and everyone is raving about Roman Ehrlich, while Kazuo Ishiguro practically doesn't exist and if he does he's "ah, the guy who wrote that love story with the butler". What I mean: Hipsters can have their points. But they can also be a bit dismissive sometimes.
 
I'm sure that's what many here think, but actually that appears a bit arrogant. :confused_old:
Okay, maybe that's because I do not belong to the cycling specialists.
But if I look at the Giro elimination game and all the threads here I feel there is some heavy, not really legitimate bias against the Tour, and it appears people just want to find fault with the Tours. I mean, there sure are reasons to do so, but it's a bit like when I'm at the literature institute and meetings of my literature people and everyone is raving about Roman Ehrlich, while Kazuo Ishiguro practically doesn't exist and if he does he's "ah, the guy who wrote that love story with the butler". What I mean: Hipsters can have their points. But they can also be a bit dismissive sometimes.
This is definitely fair but I do think it is partly caused by the tour being the most commercialised of the three.
 
Gave it a 7

improvements needed are the second TT needed to be nearly twice the length (the first ITT at 27km is OK since it comes so early in the race).

Then, only improvements needed were Bales on the Portet Stage and Aspin in the Luz Ardiden stage

Back in the days of 2 TTs plus a prologue (plus an ITT. And maybe a MTT too, for good measure) the long TT was the mid-race one, just before the race entered the mountains. The final TT would be the shorter one, just to be a last showdown between the leaders.
 
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Back in the days of 2 TTs plus a prologue (plus an ITT. And maybe a MTT too, for good measure) the long TT was the mid-race one, just before the race entered the mountains. The final TT would be the shorter one, just to be a last showdown between the leaders.
The '84 Tour was insane in that respect...prologue 5km, stage 3 TTT then an 83km stage the same day, stage 7 a 67km ITT, stage 16 a 22km climbing ITT, and stage 22 (of 23) was a 51km ITT.
 
About the TT kms... back then Hinault was the biggest star in peloton and he's French. During that time the Giro had practically no mountains at all cause Moser and Saronni were lobbying heavy.
In fairness to the French, they had routes like that before Hinault, and they continued with them for years afterwards. Armstrong and Indurain were winning 60+km ITTs, twice per Tour. Plus there'd be prologues, TTTs, MTTs on top. Virenque never had a chance...

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I think the issue is posters on this forum are more hardcore cycling fans and ASO are trying to cater to the more casual ones as they know people like us will watch it anyway. They're trying to keep gaps small so people will read it and think wow thats close, rather than trying to create the most exciting set of stages
That's how the reasoning goes but we've never seen any evidence suggesting the ASO model is actually more attractive for casual fans. They'll just throw raw viewing figures at us and claim they're proof the model works just because.
 
But if I look at the Giro elimination game and all the threads here I feel there is some heavy, not really legitimate bias against the Tour, and it appears people just want to find fault with the Tours.
Why do you say there's a bias?
I'm pretty sure if you asked those posters why they generally prefer the Giro or the Vuelta over the Tour they'd be able to come up with some thorough explanation.
 
Thank god it isn't like that anymore. You would need half a dozen 4000 height meters mountain stages to balance out 120 km of flat ITT and a long TTT. Far too much.
...and the thing is if you did have those stages, what you’d find would be the skinny little climbers would get burnt out early in the race, and by the last week’s climbing it would be all the big high-wattage TTers still surviving.
 
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..and the thing is if you did have those stages, what you’d find would be the skinny little climbers would get burnt out early in the race, and by the last week’s climbing it would be all the big high-wattage TTers still surviving.
Wel, at least then some of the climbers have a chance. Rather than just "handing" the victory to a Wiggins/Dumolin-type of rider in those versions you don't have riders who are among the very best in both climbing and time trialing (like Roglic and Pogacar were this year).

You don't need to have some much climbing/few TT kms that you make awful time trialists like MAL and Landa legit contenders, but at least guys who are on par with Pinot and similar riders.
 
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I'm sure that's what many here think, but actually that appears a bit arrogant. :confused_old:
Okay, maybe that's because I do not belong to the cycling specialists.
But if I look at the Giro elimination game and all the threads here I feel there is some heavy, not really legitimate bias against the Tour, and it appears people just want to find fault with the Tours. I mean, there sure are reasons to do so, but it's a bit like when I'm at the literature institute and meetings of my literature people and everyone is raving about Roman Ehrlich, while Kazuo Ishiguro practically doesn't exist and if he does he's "ah, the guy who wrote that love story with the butler". What I mean: Hipsters can have their points. But they can also be a bit dismissive sometimes.

In your opinion, what is a good bike race, and how has the Tour been a better bike race than the Giro over the past decade?

Most here also think that Paris-Roubaix is a clearly better race than Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but is that down to some hipster bias, or is one of the races just better than the other? If you expressed an argument that can be engaged with, it's possible to have a far more meaningful conversation than just taking turns dismissing others' opinions as bias.
 
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Wel, at least then some of the climbers have a chance. Rather than just "handing" the victory to a Wiggins/Dumolin-type of rider in those versions you don't have riders who are among the very best in both climbing and time trialing (like Roglic and Pogacar were this year).

You don't need to have some much climbing/few TT kms that you make awful time trialists like MAL and Landa legit contenders, but at least guys who are on par with Pinot and similar riders.
Both Wiggins and Dumoulin climbed just as well as all the climbers in the race for their GT wins. The only climber better than Wiggins was his teammate, and Dumoulin was able to stop at the side of the road and give Quintana a free 2 minutes.

The reason Froome was so completely in charge was that he would match Tony Martin in the TT, and drop Quintana et al in the mountains.
 
Both Wiggins and Dumoulin climbed just as well as all the climbers in the race for their GT wins. The only climber better than Wiggins was his teammate, and Dumoulin was able to stop at the side of the road and give Quintana a free 2 minutes.

The reason Froome was so completely in charge was that he would match Tony Martin in the TT, and drop Quintana et al in the mountains.
The 2012 version of the Tour was IMO an unusually poor version of the Tour. And Dumoulin lost several minutes to Quintana in the mountains in the 2017 Giro. In the end he won by half a minute in a GT with 68 km of ITT. I would call that fairly balanced. If there were 120 km he probably would have won by at least 3-4 minutes.
 
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The 2012 version of the Tour was IMO an unusually poor version of the Tour. And Dumoulin lost several minutes to Quintana in the mountains in the 2017 Giro. In the end he won by half a minute in a GT with 68 km of ITT. I would call that fairly balanced. If there were 120 km he probably would have won by at least 3-4 minutes.


He'd probably win anyway without the poop thing. Keep in mind Dumoulin also had weak team in that Giro. Put him in Sunweb 2020 and he wins that Giro comfortably. Also, in all of the GT's I can recall )that's pretty much 15 years) , the winner was climbing close or as well as the other contenders. In fact 'awful'' time trialists like MAL, Bardet and even Chavez were able to get 6 GT podiums between themselves lately, so perhaps a better TT rider but a bit disadvantaged climber (not that I can recall any nowadays) should have his chance (for at least a podum) also.
 
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