That's fair. As a Dutchman, having GT starts in my own country has lost its appeal a long time ago
The day this forum likes a Tour route better than most is the day the world ends. I know full well this forum isn't representative at all, but there's a lot of people out there who react positively to every route announcement ever. I was wondering if that was the case for some on here too, thanks to everyone who responded for proving me wrong.
I'd say the French tend to complain more, actually. I mean yes the media does its usual cheerleading (although not always, for example a few years back the limited amount of individual TT km's elicited quite a bit of criticism) but you'll find 2 areas where French cycling fans are often vocally unhappy with a Tour route:
- not visiting enough regions or showing off enough of the country
- not enough climb finishes
This Tour has been criticized for the former (people are always unhappy on that front) but the overall mood is positive regarding the latter. I'm no different, i.e. give me a good climb finish because even when the stage can be a bore fest, at least there's some GC action at the end.
People last year were unhappy for example about the Ventoux stage in the 2021 Tour because of the descent finish (& the way the stage unfolded, with Vingegaard losing his advantage gained on the climb, later gave credence to those complaints IMO). A good climb finish is the best "fail safe" fall back option which at least gives some certain time gaps & action - whereas routes designed by the organizers to encourage "adventurous racing" have a tendency to backfire & create duds, i.e. I'm thinking of typical Prudhomme stages with new climbs in the middle mountains found god knows where which he oversells as super hard... then a peloton of 40+ riders pass the top without any problems. And stages with the big climbs way too far from the finish. That also used to happen too much in the 2010's.