Rate the Vuelta 2018 route

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

This is a level or two below the past few years. 2015 was bad apart from two well designed stages, 2016 only really had Formigal which stood out (everything else was ok, especially if you like schleck-contador dynamics up climbs and the froome yo-yo) and 2017 was generally kind of poor, apart from Froome having an off day and Contador attacking at every incline. So I would take you up on 'the vuelta is always amazing'. Giro 2015, and the final week of 2016, were better. Because of well designed stages.

I have to disagree with this. For me, the Vuelta has been the best GT of each of the past four years. Giro 2015 comes closest, but the GC battle was limited to too few stages. Whereas in the Vuelta there is GC action on more stages than not. Of course this is just my personal preference though, I can see why you would have prefered the Giri.

One thing I don't understand is how you can be so dismissive of this route. The formula is the same as previous Vueltas as far as I can see - with the aim of encouraging GC action on the majority of stages. This then creates dynamics where some riders will lose time early and be forced into a position to make gambles (like ambush stages), rather than the main players always waiting for the last few days in the mountains - like invariably happens in the Tour or Giro. That is the Vuelta's modus operandi in recent years, and I think this course will deliver more of the same.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

No, there is no problem. And no, it's not a "theory" as you put it, or at least not any more of a "theory" than your same old posts defending the same tired Vuelta model.

And since nowhere in my post did I call for a design with a lot of mountain stages your last paragraph is once again one of your strawmen.

Lol, easily the best GT of the last few years is a tired model? The age of super long mountain stages being entertaining is behind us. Short stages, muritos and letting the riders make the race is the future, not making them slaves to a ridiculously hard course.

Race parcours have always been changing, so they stay entertaining as times change. It's time a few people accepted that what they believe should create entertaining racing, doesn't work any more. Perhaps cut some slack to the professionals who have been delivering a great GT for the last few years.

Race parcours stay entertaining as times change? So the Tour 2009 and 2012 were staying entertaining as times change? No, they were garbage, as you know.

'The riders make the race' may be true, but the organizers don't have any say in what the riders feel on any given day. They do have a say in the course the riders are on. And one problem is that it doesn't matter how much riders want to make a race if they're given a course on which they can't make it outside of the last 10km.

And really, to say that long mountain stages don't produce the goods anymore is a nonsense, as pointed out before with stages like Galibier and Rifugio Gardeccia, which quite demonstrably brought great entertainment over a very long stage.

Unipuerto and short mountain stages have a place, but we can't just assume that other factors didn't play into why they worked. For example, without the riders being tired, nobody's going to be dropped by the early attacks in a short mountain stage, so the short mountain stage's value is eroded by that. I don't remember everybody going ape about the awesome innovation of the 2004 Giro with its 110km queen stage, or the Alpe di Siusi 120km stage in the 2009 Giro either, because they didn't utilize the short mountain stage in a way conducive to making it good; the Bormio 2000 stage was included in a terrible route where the only intrigue was between two teammates, and the one good stage of the race was 217km long. The 2009 stage came in the middle of the first week of the race, so there was no cumulative fatigue and we just ended up with a sprint of the elites at the top. Not exactly selling the short mountain stage. It was only when the 2011 Tour came along, and you had a 110km mountain stage directly off the back of a 200km multi-col odyssey which was raced from afar, and placed it late in the race where riders couldn't wait for tomorrow anymore, that it worked, and it worked well. Even then, it wasn't as good a stage as the 200km stage that preceded it.

Likewise, the long mountain stage is now seen as something to be afraid of, producing negative riding, but if the final section is tough enough, it will still produce gaps because of fatigue in the legs. The Vuelta may have gone the way of ever steeper walls as a way to move away from the train template, but Unipuerto can never break the train template unless the final climb is brutal enough to prevent it from being effective, because it guarantees all the domestiques are there until the final climb. There isn't the possibility to create action like Rifugio Gardeccia or Galibier 2011 on any of the stages in the 2018 Vuelta, because the race is tending to eschew connective climbs leading directly into the final climbs. It doesn't have to be all that kind of stage all the time, of course! But, one big multi-climb stage wouldn't go amiss. Just as one of my biggest concerns is the very end of the race. Hopefully a good GC mix will mean this doesn't cause any problem, but I do have my worries that the short mountain stage on stage 20 will be less effective because of stage 19 being Unipuerto and not being too tough a stage; La Rabassa is the shallowest MTF of the race since the middle of week 1, so the most conducive to the trains. And because stage 20 is so short, riders will be less afraid of a tough mountain stage on stage 19, so it's more disappointing that we have a single-climb stage. But like so many of these, it really depends who's in the leaders' jersey.

Now what they have done, however, is an old Tour de Suisse trick, putting big mountains early then long breaks before the final climb so it guarantees it will only be the final climb that creates action, but people won't know how much it's affected their form until they get to it.

You characterize the arguments like everybody who is critical of the route is clamouring for all multi-col odysseys of 220km all the time. They're not. They clamour for variety in the format of the stages. Yes, what we've got in terms of racing on the courses provided has been decent. But what we get could be better.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

No, there is no problem. And no, it's not a "theory" as you put it, or at least not any more of a "theory" than your same old posts defending the same tired Vuelta model.

And since nowhere in my post did I call for a design with a lot of mountain stages your last paragraph is once again one of your strawmen.

Lol, easily the best GT of the last few years is a tired model? The age of super long mountain stages being entertaining is behind us. Short stages, muritos and letting the riders make the race is the future, not making them slaves to a ridiculously hard course.

Race parcours have always been changing, so they stay entertaining as times change. It's time a few people accepted that what they believe should create entertaining racing, doesn't work any more. Perhaps cut some slack to the professionals who have been delivering a great GT for the last few years.

I don't have words to describe you... you are even more annoying than taxus and that is not easy

 

[hrotha]

I'm curious about what it'd take for DFA and others to rate a route as "bad".

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

No, there is no problem. And no, it's not a "theory" as you put it, or at least not any more of a "theory" than your same old posts defending the same tired Vuelta model.

And since nowhere in my post did I call for a design with a lot of mountain stages your last paragraph is once again one of your strawmen.

Lol, easily the best GT of the last few years is a tired model? The age of super long mountain stages being entertaining is behind us. Short stages, muritos and letting the riders make the race is the future, not making them slaves to a ridiculously hard course.

Race parcours have always been changing, so they stay entertaining as times change. It's time a few people accepted that what they believe should create entertaining racing, doesn't work any more. Perhaps cut some slack to the professionals who have been delivering a great GT for the last few years.

Race parcours stay entertaining as times change? So the Tour 2009 and 2012 were staying entertaining as times change? No, they were garbage, as you know.

'The riders make the race' may be true, but the organizers don't have any say in what the riders feel on any given day. They do have a say in the course the riders are on. And one problem is that it doesn't matter how much riders want to make a race if they're given a course on which they can't make it outside of the last 10km.

And really, to say that long mountain stages don't produce the goods anymore is a nonsense, as pointed out before with stages like Galibier and Rifugio Gardeccia, which quite demonstrably brought great entertainment over a very long stage.

Unipuerto and short mountain stages have a place, but we can't just assume that other factors didn't play into why they worked. For example, without the riders being tired, nobody's going to be dropped by the early attacks in a short mountain stage, so the short mountain stage's value is eroded by that. I don't remember everybody going ape about the awesome innovation of the 2004 Giro with its 110km queen stage, or the Alpe di Siusi 120km stage in the 2009 Giro either, because they didn't utilize the short mountain stage in a way conducive to making it good; the Bormio 2000 stage was included in a terrible route where the only intrigue was between two teammates, and the one good stage of the race was 217km long. The 2009 stage came in the middle of the first week of the race, so there was no cumulative fatigue and we just ended up with a sprint of the elites at the top. Not exactly selling the short mountain stage. It was only when the 2011 Tour came along, and you had a 110km mountain stage directly off the back of a 200km multi-col odyssey which was raced from afar, and placed it late in the race where riders couldn't wait for tomorrow anymore, that it worked, and it worked well. Even then, it wasn't as good a stage as the 200km stage that preceded it.

Likewise, the long mountain stage is now seen as something to be afraid of, producing negative riding, but if the final section is tough enough, it will still produce gaps because of fatigue in the legs. The Vuelta may have gone the way of ever steeper walls as a way to move away from the train template, but Unipuerto can never break the train template unless the final climb is brutal enough to prevent it from being effective, because it guarantees all the domestiques are there until the final climb. There isn't the possibility to create action like Rifugio Gardeccia or Galibier 2011 on any of the stages in the 2018 Vuelta, because the race is tending to eschew connective climbs leading directly into the final climbs. It doesn't have to be all that kind of stage all the time, of course! But, one big multi-climb stage wouldn't go amiss. Just as one of my biggest concerns is the very end of the race. Hopefully a good GC mix will mean this doesn't cause any problem, but I do have my worries that the short mountain stage on stage 20 will be less effective because of stage 19 being Unipuerto and not being too tough a stage; La Rabassa is the shallowest MTF of the race since the middle of week 1, so the most conducive to the trains. And because stage 20 is so short, riders will be less afraid of a tough mountain stage on stage 19, so it's more disappointing that we have a single-climb stage. But like so many of these, it really depends who's in the leaders' jersey.

Now what they have done, however, is an old Tour de Suisse trick, putting big mountains early then long breaks before the final climb so it guarantees it will only be the final climb that creates action, but people won't know how much it's affected their form until they get to it.

You characterize the arguments like everybody who is critical of the route is clamouring for all multi-col odysseys of 220km all the time. They're not. They clamour for variety in the format of the stages. Yes, what we've got in terms of racing on the courses provided has been decent. But what we get could be better.

I agree with your conclusion here, of course the route could be better. I only rated it 7 myself. But there are a lot of posts very critical of this route, which seem to be ignoring that this strategy has bought success to the Vuelta in recent years. Rating it a 3 or 4 seems ridiculous considering these organisers have delivered us very good GTs in the last few years - they probably know what they are doing, even if there is also some luck involved.

I personally think that one or two big mountain stage could unbalance the route, not enhance it; if, for example, it allows someone to gain 2 or 3 minutes over several rivals then it can kill the GC battle. The Vuelta's success in recent years has been limiting the potential for big time gaps in the mountains, so that the GC is nail biting throughout - even to the extent that a time triallist can come from nowhere and nearly win it. I get that purists might not like it, but it gives it a unique character and places unique demands on GC riders, in terms of having to be involved at the sharp end of the race on most days.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

I'm curious about what it'd take for DFA and others to rate a route as "bad".

For me, the worst routes are those that have a load of flat or easy rolling stages, a flat TT and two or three huge mountain stages. With not a lot else. Races where the GC guys only have to turn up for a handful of stages. Kind of like how the Vuelta use to be, and how the Tour has been more often than not in recent years.

On those parcours the riders really can't make the race very easily. I don't think this Vuelta route fits into that category at all.

 

[Gigs_98]

@DFA123
You are always talking about the successful vuelta formula which was used in this route again, but I'm still not sure what this "vuelta formula" is supposed to be?
Do you mean that there are many ___/ stages with a murito at the end? Yeah, we still have those kind of stages, but then again those have never been the stages which made the vuelta great. They have been entertaining a few times (most notably Cumbre del Sol 2015 or Peña Cabarga 2011) and they will surely be entertaining again...for 10 minutes. If you think these stages are the main reason why previous vueltas were great we simply disagree.
But then again, I don't find anything else in this route which seems similar to one of the things which made the vuelta great.
There were many medium mountain stages last year with downhill finishes. The last week of the 2015 vuelta was great too and guess what, all three stages had downhill finishes. How many downhill finishes are there this year? One...with the last climb ending with 26 km to go and that climb has a gradient of a bit over 3%.
(To be fair, there are a few stages with a tricky finish like stages 7, 11, 12, which could be interesting to watch, but they won't cause action like for example the Sagunt stage last year)
Then again maybe you liked about previous years that there are hardly any sprint stages. But then again I count between 6 and 8 sprint stages this year. That's not a lot but it's normal. Just as a comparison, I count 7-8 sprint stages in the giro.
But hey, maybe you liked the shallow mtf's like Fuente De or Formigal which didn't frighten the riders like harder mtf's and therefore led to long range attacks. Well, there is only one shallow mtf like that in this years vuelta, being stage 4 and I'm sure you know just as I do that nobody will risk a crazy long range attack so early in the race.

So I guess the only things in this route which follow the vuelta formula is the muritos and the short mountain stages you praise so much...oh wait, there is actually only one single mountain stage shorter than 150 km in this race, being stage 20. That's not much for any gt. For example the tour this year has more short mountain stages.

So I have to ask, what element of previous vuelta routes that created great action do you see in this parcours?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

I personally think that one or two big mountain stage could unbalance the route, not enhance it; if, for example, it allows someone to gain 2 or 3 minutes over several rivals then it can kill the GC battle. The Vuelta's success in recent years has been limiting the potential for big time gaps in the mountains, so that the GC is nail biting throughout - even to the extent that a time triallist can come from nowhere and nearly win it. I get that purists might not like it, but it gives it a unique character and places unique demands on GC riders, in terms of having to be involved at the sharp end of the race on most days.

Only because the time trial mileage is paltry. If the time trial mileage was half decent, there wouldn't be a problem with a couple of mountain stages that produced bigger time gaps. That's the issue with current racing, the success of train templates combined with the UCI's points system rewarding placement over secondary prizes has led teams to believe that large gaps are insurmountable, and race to protect what they have rather than try to gain where it is a significant risk; large teams are even eschewing the time-honoured tactic of shipping the leader's jersey to an unthreatening breakaway to save themselves now. You can also argue that the Vuelta has provided action more consistently because of its layout compared to the other Grand Tours, but unlike the Tour we don't see Vuelta stages broadcast from km0, so it matters less if there is no relevant action until the very end. Ironically, in the 2012 Vuelta they went ballistic on the uphill finishes and the success of that race laid the template they have followed since, but they missed the single most meaningful attack of the race because the TV hadn't started yet.

Essentially, Javier Guillén saw his anæmic mountain stages creating very small gaps, and thought "in order to create large gaps, we need more of these" so created a large number of stages that followed a similar format, rather than seeing them and saying "in order to create large gaps, we need our mountain stages to be less anæmic". And also, the problem is that while this format may create consistent action, it is by and large the same kind of action. The acid test will be how it does in a couple of years' time; this format was built on the successes of a great generation of Spanish riders, many of whom specialised in this kind of racing - Contador, Valverde, Rodríguez, Moreno, Sánchez. Moreno's a shadow of the man he was, Sánchez is suspended, Contador and J-Rod are retired. Valverde is the last man standing. Will the race pulling out the stops for this type of finish still work for Landa, Soler, Más and Barceló? It depends how they specialise (Landa certainly can handle this type of climb, btw). After all, the era of the TT-focused Vueltas won by Abraham Olano, Aitor González and Ángel Casero came off the back of the generation of Big Mig-inspired engines; the race is a lot more international than it used to be, but that's not to say home concerns won't still hold a lot of sway for Unipublic; they need to safeguard their race with its home crowds foremost.

 

[DFA123]

@DFA123
You are always talking about the successful vuelta formula which was used in this route again, but I'm still not sure what this "vuelta formula" is supposed to be?
Do you mean that there are many ___/ stages with a murito at the end? Yeah, we still have those kind of stages, but then again those have never been the stages which made the vuelta great. They have been entertaining a few times (most notably Cumbre del Sol 2015 or Peña Cabarga 2011) and they will surely be entertaining again...for 10 minutes. If you think these stages are the main reason why previous vueltas were great we simply disagree.
But then again, I don't find anything else in this route which seems similar to one of the things which made the vuelta great.
There were many medium mountain stages last year with downhill finishes. The last week of the 2015 vuelta was great too and guess what, all three stages had downhill finishes. How many downhill finishes are there this year? One...with the last climb ending with 26 km to go and that climb has a gradient of a bit over 3%.
(To be fair, there are a few stages with a tricky finish like stages 7, 11, 12, which could be interesting to watch, but they won't cause action like for example the Sagunt stage last year)
Then again maybe you liked about previous years that there are hardly any sprint stages. But then again I count between 6 and 8 sprint stages this year. That's not a lot but it's normal. Just as a comparison, I count 7-8 sprint stages in the giro.
But hey, maybe you liked the shallow mtf's like Fuente De or Formigal which didn't frighten the riders like harder mtf's and therefore led to long range attacks. Well, there is only one shallow mtf like that in this years vuelta, being stage 4 and I'm sure you know just as I do that nobody will risk a crazy long range attack so early in the race.

So I guess the only things in this route which follow the vuelta formula is the muritos and the short mountain stages you praise so much...oh wait, there is actually only one single mountain stage shorter than 150 km in this race, being stage 20. That's not much for any gt. For example the tour this year has more short mountain stages.

So I have to ask, what element of previous vuelta routes that created great action do you see in this parcours?

I think I've explained this already. The Vuelta's formula, imo, is to have GC action on the majority of days, even though time gaps will ultimately be small from the vast majority of them. I think they're not interested in sprints, and not that interested in break away stages, but prefer to go all in for the GC battle.

And I think this route follows that formula. There will probably be GC action of between 5 and 60 minutes on over half of the stages. That's what sets it apart from the other two GTs imo and what has contributed to it being entertaining in recent years.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

I personally think that one or two big mountain stage could unbalance the route, not enhance it; if, for example, it allows someone to gain 2 or 3 minutes over several rivals then it can kill the GC battle. The Vuelta's success in recent years has been limiting the potential for big time gaps in the mountains, so that the GC is nail biting throughout - even to the extent that a time triallist can come from nowhere and nearly win it. I get that purists might not like it, but it gives it a unique character and places unique demands on GC riders, in terms of having to be involved at the sharp end of the race on most days.

Only because the time trial mileage is paltry. If the time trial mileage was half decent, there wouldn't be a problem with a couple of mountain stages that produced bigger time gaps. That's the issue with current racing, the success of train templates combined with the UCI's points system rewarding placement over secondary prizes has led teams to believe that large gaps are insurmountable, and race to protect what they have rather than try to gain where it is a significant risk; large teams are even eschewing the time-honoured tactic of shipping the leader's jersey to an unthreatening breakaway to save themselves now. You can also argue that the Vuelta has provided action more consistently because of its layout compared to the other Grand Tours, but unlike the Tour we don't see Vuelta stages broadcast from km0, so it matters less if there is no relevant action until the very end. Ironically, in the 2012 Vuelta they went ballistic on the uphill finishes and the success of that race laid the template they have followed since, but they missed the single most meaningful attack of the race because the TV hadn't started yet.

Essentially, Javier Guillén saw his anæmic mountain stages creating very small gaps, and thought "in order to create large gaps, we need more of these" so created a large number of stages that followed a similar format, rather than seeing them and saying "in order to create large gaps, we need our mountain stages to be less anæmic". And also, the problem is that while this format may create consistent action, it is by and large the same kind of action. The acid test will be how it does in a couple of years' time; this format was built on the successes of a great generation of Spanish riders, many of whom specialised in this kind of racing - Contador, Valverde, Rodríguez, Moreno, Sánchez. Moreno's a shadow of the man he was, Sánchez is suspended, Contador and J-Rod are retired. Valverde is the last man standing. Will the race pulling out the stops for this type of finish still work for Landa, Soler, Más and Barceló? It depends how they specialise (Landa certainly can handle this type of climb, btw). After all, the era of the TT-focused Vueltas won by Abraham Olano, Aitor González and Ángel Casero came off the back of the generation of Big Mig-inspired engines; the race is a lot more international than it used to be, but that's not to say home concerns won't still hold a lot of sway for Unipublic; they need to safeguard their race with its home crowds foremost.

I agree with most of that, but I think the time to change the formula is after a bad GT when things clearly need freshening. I think the rating for last year's race was around an 8 on average on this forum, so clearly people are still enjoying it. Undoubtedly the time will come when this formula doesn't work any more, but I think that will be the time to mix it up again, not before.

I also agree that the dominance of teams is the main culprit behind defensive riding in GTs, but I think that muritos are a solution to that, and not a bad one in the current racing climate. Until the underlying issues are addressed (team strength, radios, all the usual stuff...) I'd rather watch a race with 10 muritos or single climb finishes which are too steep to be controlled by a team, than watch a race with four or five multi mountain stages where Sky or Movistar rides tempo for 90% of the stage, before Froome or Quintana flies off the front to gain a minute in the lat few kms.

 

[Netserk]

Re:

I'm curious about what it'd take for DFA and others to rate a route as "bad".

Clearly the Giro '15 had a crappy parcourse compared to this masterpiece.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

I also agree that the dominance of teams is the main culprit behind defensive riding in GTs, but I think that muritos are a solution to that, and not a bad one in the current racing climate. Until the underlying issues are addressed (team strength, radios, all the usual stuff...) I'd rather watch a race with 10 muritos or single climb finishes which are too steep to be controlled by a team, than watch a race with four or five multi mountain stages where Sky or Movistar rides tempo for 90% of the stage, before Froome or Quintana flies off the front to gain a minute in the lat few kms.

But in the murito / single climb finish stages, aren't those teams still riding tempo on the front for 90% of the stage? It's just that it's mostly on the flat rather than over multiple mountains and there isn't even the scope for a daring escape if somebody wants one, or, because the final climb is garage ramp steep, you don't get the tempo riding on the actual climb? Is there a significant difference in the entertainment value between Movistar carrying everybody over three cols and halfway up the last one before Quintana strikes for home on the last 5km of a 15km mountaintop, and Movistar carrying everybody along the valley roads leading to a 3km garage ramp before unleashing Valverde on a puncheur odyssey, when both take the same amount of time from the train being left to the line being crossed?

I mean, other than the inevitable entertainment of everybody on the forum throwing their toys out of the pram when Valverde wins, obviously.

 

[DFA123]

Re: Re:

I also agree that the dominance of teams is the main culprit behind defensive riding in GTs, but I think that muritos are a solution to that, and not a bad one in the current racing climate. Until the underlying issues are addressed (team strength, radios, all the usual stuff...) I'd rather watch a race with 10 muritos or single climb finishes which are too steep to be controlled by a team, than watch a race with four or five multi mountain stages where Sky or Movistar rides tempo for 90% of the stage, before Froome or Quintana flies off the front to gain a minute in the lat few kms.

But in the murito / single climb finish stages, aren't those teams still riding tempo on the front for 90% of the stage? It's just that there isn't even the scope for a daring escape if somebody wants one, or, because the final climb is garage ramp steep, you don't get the tempo riding on the actual climb?

Yes, I think when it gets above 9% or 10% then leaders are pretty much on their own, drafting is such a minor factor at those gradients. And it's the quantity of them that makes them interesting for me. You can have 10+ muritos or single steep climb finishes in a GT, whereas only a few multi mountain stages. So the GC action, rather than controlling by teams, invariably is greater overall with the steep climb option.

I think the greatest strength of the Vuelta in recent years has been the amount of direct mano a mano between the leaders, with the teammates playing a relatively small part. I think steep climbs when leaders are fresh enough to make them explosive is best for creating that dynamic.

The trade off, as you mentioned, is that there may be fewer chances for long range attacks. But they are so rare anyway, that you can't count on them to make the race exciting. And the opportunities are still there in this Vuelta route (e.g. the Basque stage) if someone is particularly ambitious.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

So you left out the bit of the hypothetical where I noted that the length of time in which there is action is the same in my example, even if it is undertaken over a shorter distance in the murito stage?

What's the difference that makes scenario A so much worse than scenario B?

Scenario A: leaders draft behind train over three big cols, leader's team sets tempo up the final climb until attacks begin, 10-15 minutes of action towards the top
Scenario B: leaders draft behind train over flat to rolling terrain, leader's team takes us to the base of the final climb, which is so steep it takes 10-15 minutes to climb the last three kilometres which are steep

Is it that the fact the tempo riding took us halfway up the final climb in scenario A means it feels like we got more meaningful action in scenario B even though we didn't? As to your comments on steep climbs when everybody's fresh creating the best explosive action, should we then have more Tour of Japan-style hillclimb stages? After all, in those, everybody's fresh, we can dispense with the four hours in which nobody is going to attack bar a couple of guys on Spanish ProConti teams and a journeyman rouleur from Ag2r or Lotto, and just have bang for our buck?

The thing is, it's an endurance sport, so endurance should be a factor. The fact the race lasts three weeks is that in and of itself, so there is a place for muritos and for Unipuerto. But even the most famous murito race in the world has about a dozen climbs before the final all-important one, because as well as testing the explosive power of riders off of a cold open (which is the point of the Unipuerto climbs), you can get different outcomes from testing their explosive power when fatigued from several other climbs. Getting a bit of action from every stage is cool, but if it's always the same type of action, it becomes limiting; it's less interesting so the organizers have to find ever badder, ever steeper ramps to keep it fresh and exciting. And riders forget about ways to gain time in other types of stages and make those types of stages interesting, because they have a dozen opportunities in a specific type of stage, and riders who don't suit that type of stage won't bother with the Vuelta because they can't compete.

 

[DFA123]

Re:

So you left out the bit of the hypothetical where I noted that the length of time in which there is action is the same in my example, even if it is undertaken over a shorter distance in the murito stage?

What's the difference that makes scenario A so much worse than scenario B?

Scenario A: leaders draft behind train over three big cols, leader's team sets tempo up the final climb until attacks begin, 10-15 minutes of action towards the top
Scenario B: leaders draft behind train over flat to rolling terrain, leader's team takes us to the base of the final climb, which is so steep it takes 10-15 minutes to climb the last three kilometres which are steep

Is it that the fact the tempo riding took us halfway up the final climb in scenario A means it feels like we got more meaningful action in scenario B even though we didn't? As to your comments on steep climbs when everybody's fresh creating the best explosive action, should we then have more Tour of Japan-style hillclimb stages? After all, in those, everybody's fresh, we can dispense with the four hours in which nobody is going to attack bar a couple of guys on Spanish ProConti teams and a journeyman rouleur from Ag2r or Lotto, and just have bang for our buck?
.

I think the difference between the two scenarios is that scenario B happens more often. Even if the total time that leaders go mano a mano is the same between the two examples (which I don't think is the case in reality), in the Vuelta scenario because the leaders face off on so many different occasions, other factors come into play. Heat, wind, bad legs, poor nutrition, a good night's sleep etc... which can change the dynamic from day to day. It is harder to control a race where you have to be on top form on 11 or 12 stages than it is to control a race where the leader knows they just have to really excel on three or four days to win.

Getting a bit of action from every stage is cool, but if it's always the same type of action, it becomes limiting; it's less interesting so the organizers have to find ever badder, ever steeper ramps to keep it fresh and exciting. And riders forget about ways to gain time in other types of stages and make those types of stages interesting, because they have a dozen opportunities in a specific type of stage, and riders who don't suit that type of stage won't bother with the Vuelta because they can't compete.

I think this is may be an issue in the future, but not the present for the Vuelta. Most fans have loved recent editions of the race (look at the polls on this forum for example), which have been primarily centered around the GC battle on multiple uni-climb stages. Many of them with steep gradients. It's still attracting the best stage racers in the world, and the top riders (Contador, Froome, Quintana) are still winning it - which suggests that the muritos are not just a gimmick, but do actually result in worthy champions.

 

[hayneplane]

I hope Sagan rides this as climbing prep for the worlds as there are about 6 or 7 stages where I would have him as the legitimate favourite if he came to the race in good condition.

 

[Pennino]

Maybe it's good that the Vuelta has a rather light route. With many kings targeting the Giro and Tour and also the World's offering a lifetime opportunity to the GC boys no one would go kill himself here... And there's plenty of GC action anyway. Don't know, maybe the idea isn't that bad at all.

 

[Ferminal]

For what it's worth I've actually been pretty positive on Vuelta routes of the last few years from the point of view that they have been reasonable implementations of a bad idea (same for the 2017 Tour, which was essentially a really good Vuelta route).

But this... same bad idea, terrible implementation.

 

[WheelofGear]

2.

Stage 20 looks good but that's about it.

Too many MTFs and finishing most of the stages on the hardest climb isn't good racing.

 

[bassano]

3 for me, not very interesting mountain stages and only really good one is too short again
lot of nothing there, last year was much better

 

[SafeBet]

A stepback from last year. Most moutain stages are incredibly dull.
4.

 

[OlavEH]

5

Another mediocre Vuelta route. They could try to make it somewhat more varied. A bunch for muritos and single climb stages isn't what I would call original and innovative stage design. They could try to add a couple of stages designed for action before the last 5-10 kms.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re:

Maybe it's good that the Vuelta has a rather light route. With many kings targeting the Giro and Tour and also the World's offering a lifetime opportunity to the GC boys no one would go kill himself here... And there's plenty of GC action anyway. Don't know, maybe the idea isn't that bad at all.

The point about the Worlds are fair - it would be stupid to make an incredibly hard route, but this route really isn't close to that. Take 2013 before Firenze and thats an infinitely harder route than this, IMO. Not necessarily that much better, although I surely still would take that one. But the point about the Giro and the Tour, why would Unipublic design a worse/lighter race due to many riders targeting Giro/Tour? It has and will always be that way when the Vuelta is the last, and lets be honest, the least prestigious GT. But they should by no means devalue their own product knowing that, rather the opposite (which I think they and many others think they do with all the 'spectacular' muritos, but they really don't).

That said I don't think its too bad. I rated it 5. Overall, all the GTs a pretty mediocre, but at least we don't have a Tour 2017-esque route which demotivated everyone to watch before it began. So I can definitely live with that.

 

[Forever The Best]

One of the worst GT routes. Not even a decent stage. Only stage 20 is OK. Though even that one is too short because the previous day is a 157 km with a Unipuerto MTF. So when your best stage isn't even good the route is horrible simply. It barely deserves a 1.

Edit: Forgot to say that I am very excited to see Monte Oiz being used but that's it. So it goes from barely 1 to plain 1.

 

[Escarabajo]

I just want to bump this thread.

For some reason the pictures of the stages are not showing in my computer. I wonder if anyone is having the same problems.