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Rate the 2024 Tour de France Route

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Rate the 2024 Tour de France Route


  • Total voters
    83
We sure see some coincidences in the Giro quite often with a lack of action in the stage before the last big GC stage.
Alpe di Mera and Sestriere all weren't underraced. For 2023 Coe was raced as well as you can expect, and I don't think anyone had any hope for Giau action going down anyway. If the stages had been reversed in 2023 then Rog defending 11 seconds would have led to Thomas waiting for Tre Cime to attack. Big deal. 2019 didn't have a serious mountain stage before Monte Avena, 2018 had Finestre as the penultimate mountain stage, 2017 had the Piancavallo stage that almost had a Fuga Bidone, 2016 had Nibali going nuts on the Agnello. 2015 had Aru attacking quite early on Cervinia, 2014 saw pretty normal amount of action on Rifugi Panarotta a day before Grappa MTT and Zoncolan the day after that as well as pretty hard action on Montecampiones before the Val Martello tappone. Basically your entire argument rests on Santuario del Castelmonte, which was like 6km at 7.5% coming after a 20km valley was underraced. And even there Carapaz attacked a few times. In 2011 Contador destroyed everyone with Rujano on Grossglockner the day before Zoncolan and 2 days before the biggest mountain stage of the last 15 years.

It's not really fear of fatigue that drives strategy much, it's risk/reward now versus later. When the Tour does 3 mountain stages in a row these days, nearly always will there be one that's just not a good place to attack.

I don't buy that. How is it worse than 2015 in that regard?

Isola 2000 > La Toussuire
Couillole > Alpe d'Huez
Pdb = PdB
Pla d'Adet > PSM

And I even more strongly disagree with 2019 having the worst mountain stages of the decade, judged by the route as it was intended.
I see why you'd think PdA is a better stage than PSM, but Unipuerto PSM isn't even that bad. Isola and Couillole I literally can't tell if you're taking the piss or not cause the connectivity of climbs to Isola is so much worse and Croix de Fer is much more attackable in general with a 5km 9% section near the top. Couillole is just an easier design than Telegraphe/Galbier/Alpe d'Huez in every possible way.
 
6.

I changed my mind about the route after I saw the details in La Flamme Rouge.

Plus:
- Something different, just like last year. They need to get credit for this.
- Gravel stage. It could be huge this time. Last time Wout and a moto bailed Vingegaard.
- ITT stages for the riders we have should bring more action.
- High altitude mountains. As a Colombian I love to see that.

Negative:
- Lack of Tappones. I just feel like this Tour lacks these type of stages. Stage 19 cannot be the Tappone because of the distance. And overall some of the mountain stages lack some hardness. To me that is the most important thing in a GT, above TT kms, pave, gravel, medium mountains, etc. That's why I was hooked to cycling for 40 years now.
 
- Lack of Tappones. I just feel like this Tour lacks these type of stages. Stage 19 cannot be the Tappone because of the distance.
They have more or less stopped doing these kind of stages in the Tour. In terms of climb length, number of height meters and stage length the 2022 stage to AdH is something of the closess to a tappone the last years. Without this in anyway being a rememberable stage. To illustrate; earlier they could have all of Portillo-Peyresourde-Aspin and Tourmalet before a Luz Ardiden finish. Now we're lucky if they do just Aspin and Tourmalet.

Fortunately Pog and Vingegaard don't need tappones to make great stages. But without these two the later version of the Tour would probably also be pretty mediocre.
 
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I think 2016 is the first year where they broadcast every stage in full, and I think it's not a coincidence that you started to see a change in philosophy around that time.

2017 tried to spread its mountain days throughout the tour (too much, imo) and there's also the positive trend of more intermediate days going on recent editions.
 
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Sensible changes do make a difference. Descents aren’t the problem so much as maybe not put the finish line right there at the very bottom of it

Add helmets (they did). Disallow certain positions (they are still doing). Disallow narrow handlebars for better handling of the bike, even if less aero (haven’t done yet)
 
In the wake of Gino Mader, I get it why folks don’t want to see downhill finishes. Wider handlebar regulations would be great too.
I'm against the whole banning decent finishes, but I 100% agree with the widening handlebars. As someone who races domestically in the UK, this narrow handlebar and in particular turning in the hoods fad is causing lots of issues in terms of handling ect. There's a reason why mountain bike handlebars are getting wider all the time.
 
Jens Voight complaining about the downhill finish of stage 4 and the decent in the final ITT

I take it he'd rather run the races on Zwift then
accidents are a part of racing

Nobody said to eliminate descents after Kivalev died. Instead, common sense changes like requiring helmets were made. It shows how soft Gen Z is as a whole
Wow, Jens Voigt must be younger than I thought...
 
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