Rate the Vuelta

[BigMac]

I could not give it -10. So I didn't vote. I'd vote 10 if I could change my vote to zero. That would do. But not only I can't to that, there's no 0 option.

 

[Dutchsmurf]

weighted average for the rating so far: 6.58

I think people liked this Vuelta despite having any truly epic stage. a sign of poor quality of GTs nowadays?

I would consider a 6 rating to be average, so it seems the Vuelta gets rated slightly above average. And compared to the Giro and Tour this year, it maybe says more about the other 2 than about the Vuelta itself.

 

[veji11]

On a purely cycling level, I would agree the Vuelta was a bit limited and I generally do appreciate stages where there is a lot of action and scope for the opportunists and attack and counter attack on the road as outlined by veij11. One of the great things about cycling is the race within the race, and the personal battles on any one stage between man / machine / the course / rivals (whether GT favourites or not) and weather.

But, like ILoveCycling, for me racing is also about narrative, and there was a great - no, epic - narrative to this Vuelta - two favourites and principal rivals coming back from injury; uncertainties about form; the prospect of the Battle Royale we'd been denied earlier in the season. It's easy to say in hindsight 'it was won by Stage 10', but I don't think it's true - it only seems predictable when there hasn't been an upset.

I can understand your view, but where was the battle royale ??? Our view of what suspense is, is skewed by such a route. It makes us believe that "wow there is only 1mn20 between the two, all is possible !!!" whereas on such a route, nibbling away 30 seconds on a stage is a massive performance ! the only stages where there could be a tiny bit more were the ITT, Farrapona and Ancares.
- in the ITT you had 17 riders within 2 minutes of the winner (Martin) and 31 riders within 2 minutes of the first CG contender (Contador).
- at Farrapona, you had 12 riders within 2 minutes of the winner (contador)
- at Ancares (At last !!!) on the penultimate stage, you had only 5 riders within 2 minutes of the winner (Contador again).

And these are the 3 most decisive stages. One can argue that only Ancares in this whole Vuelta yielded time differences coherent with a GT. all other stages (including the 2 aforementioned "big gaps") stages yielded ridiculously small time differences. So sure one gets the feeling of suspense, etc, but our perception of time differences is skewed on such a parcours. On the Vuelta I would say time counts almost double : if you are 1mn20 behind, it actually equates to 2mn40 or so on the Tour or the Giro !

Compare that with the Tour de France :
- Stage n°5 (aka the cobbles) : Only 10 riders within 2 minutes of Lars Boom, if you take the first GC contender (Nibali), only 19 riders within 2 minutes.
- Stage 10 (Planche des Belles filles) : 21 riders within 2 minutes of Nibali
- Stage 13 (Chamrousse) : only 7 riders within 2 minutes of Nibali
- Stage 14 (Risoul) : only 11 riders within 2 minutes of Majka, same for Nibali
- stage 16 (Luchon) : only 12 riders within 2 minutes of Pinot (first GC contender).
sameish for stages 17/18. only on the ITT do we see a tight pack of GC riders.

What I mean is on the Tour we had more than double the amount of stages yielding the time differences we saw on the most selective stages of the Vuelta. where on a Tour you see on average on a selective stages 12ish riders unde the 2 minutes mark from the biggest GC guys, on the Vuelta on average you get a good 20ish.

AND this goes with a far bigger form discrepancy on the Vuelta than on the Tour : on the vuelta some guys are tired, coming back from injury, etc.. on the tour more or less everybody is on top form. so this doesn't mean that on the Vuelta you have a higher level or more homogeneous starting list.

Just that the route is skewed against significant time gaps. So it gives us the false impression that everything is possible. But barring a fall or diahrea, if you are 1mn30 behind a guy in the GC in the Vuelta, it is virtually unovercomeable !!!

On the tour or the Giro you tend to have time differences in the end more commensurable with what competitive road cycling is : a sport of extreme endurance !

Whereas on the Tour you get the time differences of a Marathon, on the Vuelta, you get the time differences you would have if you forced everybody to run behind a car at a set speed for 38ks and only let them loose for the last 4. This is my main beef with the Vuelta. This is just not GT cycling.

 

[Dutchsmurf]

What I mean is on the Tour we had more than double the amount of stages yielding the time differences we saw on the most selective stages of the Vuelta. where on a Tour you see on average on a selective stages 12ish riders unde the 2 minutes mark from the biggest GC guys, on the Vuelta on average you get a good 20ish.

But take away Nibali and it suddenly looks a lot less impressive. Are the gaps at the Tour bigger because of the stage design, or because one guy was simply a lot better than everyone else?

 

[Netserk]

But take away Nibali and it suddenly looks a lot less impressive. Are the gaps at the Tour bigger because of the stage design, or because one guy was simply a lot better than everyone else?

If Contador and Froome hadn't crashed out even fewer would've been within 2' of the best GC rider.

 

[veji11]

But take away Nibali and it suddenly looks a lot less impressive. Are the gaps at the Tour bigger because of the stage design, or because one guy was simply a lot better than everyone else?

We can always find circumstances, but the fact is that if you look at the Tour and the Vuelta in the last 3 years, time differences between the big guns are a lot bigger in the Tour, because the route allows it, whereas the Vuelta's compresses time gaps.

 

[jens_attacks]

7 but i have to say it was under 2013 and 2012. still better than tour and giro though
of course just my opinion for me, a mano a mano 10 min between alberto and froomey makes 1000x more than one hour fight between bardet, papy peraud and tejay van garderen or whatever. and all crushed by vincenzo. majka was cool though

there is hope that next year finally vuelta will lose the best grand tour of the year award. now 3 on a row haterz !

 

[Dutchsmurf]

We can always find circumstances, but the fact is that if you look at the Tour and the Vuelta in the last 3 years, time differences between the big guns are a lot bigger in the Tour, because the route allows it, whereas the Vuelta's compresses time gaps.

Or the Tour always has 1 dominant rider (certainly true the last 20 years with few exceptions) and the field is more even in the Vuelta. After all it isn't like anything interesting happens in 9 out of 10 mountain stages before the 3km mark in Tour mountain stages.

 

[Red Rick]

Hrotha, if you could just tell your reasons why you thought the race was awful, instead of judging people about their respective opinions, this thread might go somewhere.

I think a lot of people give the race credit for being the only GT this year that actually had a fight for the GC victory and where the 2nd placed rider actually tries to win the Vuelta on the penultimate stage. There were at least 4 riders about whom you could at one point think they had a real shot at winning the thing. This however, says little about the racing itself.

The parcours was awful, almost all stages had no way of providing more than 5 minutes of GC action, and the fact that the only rider capable of attacking from 50 k out was in the leaders jersey by the time the 2 good mountain stages came, certainly didn't help.

There were barely stages with good exciting breakaway's, and not one time there was a tactical battle between the breakaway for the victory. The sprinters field was pretty thin, so those stages also sucked.

What also didn't help, was that Quintana crashed out, and that for the rest the differences between the contenders were pretty consistent. Contador, Aru, Froome, Rodriguez and Valverde were the 5 best climbers on every single stage for example. Because of this, not much changes when you'd put them on the Giro route, except they attack from a little further out cause the finishing climbs are a little longer.

 

[Electress]

I can understand your view, but where was the battle royale ??? Our view of what suspense is, is skewed by such a route. It makes us believe that "wow there is only 1mn20 between the two, all is possible !!!" whereas on such a route, nibbling away 30 seconds on a stage is a massive performance ! the only stages where there could be a tiny bit more were the ITT, Farrapona and Ancares.
- in the ITT you had 17 riders within 2 minutes of the winner (Martin) and 31 riders within 2 minutes of the first CG contender (Contador).
- at Farrapona, you had 12 riders within 2 minutes of the winner (contador)
- at Ancares (At last !!!) on the penultimate stage, you had only 5 riders within 2 minutes of the winner (Contador again).

And these are the 3 most decisive stages. One can argue that only Ancares in this whole Vuelta yielded time differences coherent with a GT. all other stages (including the 2 aforementioned "big gaps") stages yielded ridiculously small time differences. So sure one gets the feeling of suspense, etc, but our perception of time differences is skewed on such a parcours. On the Vuelta I would say time counts almost double : if you are 1mn20 behind, it actually equates to 2mn40 or so on the Tour or the Giro !

Compare that with the Tour de France :
- Stage n°5 (aka the cobbles) : Only 10 riders within 2 minutes of Lars Boom, if you take the first GC contender (Nibali), only 19 riders within 2 minutes.
- Stage 10 (Planche des Belles filles) : 21 riders within 2 minutes of Nibali
- Stage 13 (Chamrousse) : only 7 riders within 2 minutes of Nibali
- Stage 14 (Risoul) : only 11 riders within 2 minutes of Majka, same for Nibali
- stage 16 (Luchon) : only 12 riders within 2 minutes of Pinot (first GC contender).
sameish for stages 17/18. only on the ITT do we see a tight pack of GC riders.

What I mean is on the Tour we had more than double the amount of stages yielding the time differences we saw on the most selective stages of the Vuelta. where on a Tour you see on average on a selective stages 12ish riders unde the 2 minutes mark from the biggest GC guys, on the Vuelta on average you get a good 20ish.

AND this goes with a far bigger form discrepancy on the Vuelta than on the Tour : on the vuelta some guys are tired, coming back from injury, etc.. on the tour more or less everybody is on top form. so this doesn't mean that on the Vuelta you have a higher level or more homogeneous starting list.

Just that the route is skewed against significant time gaps. So it gives us the false impression that everything is possible. But barring a fall or diahrea, if you are 1mn30 behind a guy in the GC in the Vuelta, it is virtually unovercomeable !!!

On the tour or the Giro you tend to have time differences in the end more commensurable with what competitive road cycling is : a sport of extreme endurance !

Whereas on the Tour you get the time differences of a Marathon, on the Vuelta, you get the time differences you would have if you forced everybody to run behind a car at a set speed for 38ks and only let them loose for the last 4. This is my main beef with the Vuelta. This is just not GT cycling.

VEIJ11 Surely, if it is difficult to gain time back, it is also difficult to win time in the first place? So whilst we might have to shift our perceptions from TdF time gap mode, it shouldn't matter overall when comparing the parcours? So long as the parcours is internally consistent..? The only issue would be if the overall route was unbalanced - i.e. there was one or maybe two utterly decisive stages where there was TdF-scale time gap possibilities and so that was where the race was won or lost, no matter what the rest of the performances elsewhere? (An aside - I would say that the ITT can be that or prove that dominant in all GTs - but then I prefer the cat and dog of the road than the 'internal race', and don't like it when the ITT is decisive, because it's not my personal preference.)

I guess the upshot of what you say is that in both the Tour and the Vuelta someone had established a significant lead relatively early on, it just looked less significant for the casual viewer in the Vuelta? Being Devil's Advocate, one could argue this made the race more exciting on an audience-wide level than it might have been - even if you and other more experienced viewers 'knew it was most likely all over'. But if I accept what you're saying is true - and largely, I do - I'm still not sure that you can really blame the course design that Contador had a 'real GT time gap / TdF equivalent ' of 2min 40 by your reckoning. Surely it was a reflection of Quintana's crashes and Froome's weak performance in the ITT, and sluggish return to form, thus enabling Contador to build a significant lead - even if it didn't look as significant as it 'should have done for a GT'?

I'm not actually disputing anything of what you say, really - the Vuelta's design is problematic. But I did want to make the point that a sub-par parcours does not necessarily mean a sub-par race, and in this case, I certainly felt the race had a great narrative which elevated it from other races this year. Some of this is also personal preference - I'm obviously a Contador fan - so I'm more engaged with how it unfolded than I might have been had he been limping along at the back nursing Wounded Knee and leaving Froome to grind up the hills with Purito and Vvde, however much I would also have enjoyed efforts like AH's.

I'd also add that I deliberately wrote 'the prospect of a Battle Royale' because I would concur that the battle between the leaders could have been more spectacular for all I enjoyed it. But I'm not sure this was the fault of race design. There certainly was a battle - unlike the TdF - and Ancares did offer the potential for an upset. Maybe that upset wasn't likely, but by that stage the stakes felt pretty high even if the lead was pretty secure. So, on that score alone, I enjoyed the Vuelta more; again, because of the narrative.

Would I change the design somewhat if it were me? Quite probably. But then, I'd make other changes to the TdF and Giro, too, most years. If I could exorcise the potential for the Team Machine thundering along in a giant train day after day, I would. That has done a lot to suffocate exciting racing in my book. I favour a bit of the death or glory combative risk taking and would like courses which tip the odds a bit more towards the courageous individual riders to outfox the poursuivants and reward a decisive manoeuvre. But I actually think the Vuelta has less of this than the TdF. I'm not sure this is purely the fault of race design…maybe the fault of race design not yet catching up with current race approaches to level the playing field.

 

[veji11]

VEIJ11 Surely, if it is difficult to gain time back, it is also difficult to win time in the first place? So whilst we might have to shift our perceptions from TdF time gap mode, it shouldn't matter overall when comparing the parcours? So long as the parcours is internally consistent..? The only issue would be if the overall route was unbalanced - i.e. there was one or maybe two utterly decisive stages where there was TdF-scale time gap possibilities and so that was where the race was won or lost, no matter what the rest of the performances elsewhere? (An aside - I would say that the ITT can be that or prove that dominant in all GTs - but then I prefer the cat and dog of the road than the 'internal race', and don't like it when the ITT is decisive, because it's not my personal preference.)

I guess the upshot of what you say is that in both the Tour and the Vuelta someone had established a significant lead relatively early on, it just looked less significant for the casual viewer in the Vuelta? Being Devil's Advocate, one could argue this made the race more exciting on an audience-wide level than it might have been - even if you and other more experienced viewers 'knew it was most likely all over'. But if I accept what you're saying is true - and largely, I do - I'm still not sure that you can really blame the course design that Contador had a 'real GT time gap / TdF equivalent ' of 2min 40 by your reckoning. Surely it was a reflection of Quintana's crashes and Froome's weak performance in the ITT, and sluggish return to form, thus enabling Contador to build a significant lead - even if it didn't look as significant as it 'should have done for a GT'?

I'm not actually disputing anything of what you say, really - the Vuelta's design is problematic. But I did want to make the point that a sub-par parcours does not necessarily mean a sub-par race, and in this case, I certainly felt the race had a great narrative which elevated it from other races this year. Some of this is also personal preference - I'm obviously a Contador fan - so I'm more engaged with how it unfolded than I might have been had he been limping along at the back nursing Wounded Knee and leaving Froome to grind up the hills with Purito and Vvde, however much I would also have enjoyed efforts like AH's.

I'd also add that I deliberately wrote 'the prospect of a Battle Royale' because I would concur that the battle between the leaders could have been more spectacular for all I enjoyed it. But I'm not sure this was the fault of race design. There certainly was a battle - unlike the TdF - and Ancares did offer the potential for an upset. Maybe that upset wasn't likely, but by that stage the stakes felt pretty high even if the lead was pretty secure. So, on that score alone, I enjoyed the Vuelta more; again, because of the narrative.

Would I change the design somewhat if it were me? Quite probably. But then, I'd make other changes to the TdF and Giro, too, most years. If I could exorcise the potential for the Team Machine thundering along in a giant train day after day, I would. That has done a lot to suffocate exciting racing in my book. I favour a bit of the death or glory combative risk taking and would like courses which tip the odds a bit more towards the courageous individual riders to outfox the poursuivants and reward a decisive manoeuvre. But I actually think the Vuelta has less of this than the TdF. I'm not sure this is purely the fault of race design…maybe the fault of race design not yet catching up with current race approaches to level the playing field.

Actually I agree with you for the most part. You are right, considering the sucky parcours, this Vuelta was pretty good.

To be honest, now with a cooler head, I must say that this Year's GTs were all quite good compared to the last 2 years. We had good racing, consistent "sort of logical" form levels (ie no Cobos or Horners or Mosqueras) and quite a few memorable days.

The Vuelta moved me the least, because of the lack of subplots, but yeah sure, it was the only GT where it looked like there could be battle till the end for the win, which when I think of it, is the main objective for a competitive race....

 

[Fight.The.Power]

Voted a 6 and as AFrank says - as soon as Contador was in red it was pretty much game over.

Absolutely loved watching it but really once Quintana crashed it was between Contador and Froome with the latter not at his peak.

 

[perico]

I was generous and gave it a 10 because regardless of the lack of excitement in some aspects, it felt like anything could possibly happen on any given stage. The Tour and the Vuelta have suffered from parcourse issues over the last years.

I can at least understand the Vuelta's decisions, as they are not on the same level, but Prudhomme and co seem more interested in trying to squeeze in every last non climbed mountain each year, at the expense of well known climbs that have drawn immense crowds over the years and strange stages where an HC is crossed in the first 75 Km only to finish with 150 KMs of flat that allows the sprinters time to recover or basically designing a course that basically invalidates historically epic Mtn finish such as Luz Ardiden.

 

[David_Incognito_66]

This was so fake i didin't like any of it.

 

[Electress]

Actually I agree with you for the most part. You are right, considering the sucky parcours, this Vuelta was pretty good.

To be honest, now with a cooler head, I must say that this Year's GTs were all quite good compared to the last 2 years. We had good racing, consistent "sort of logical" form levels (ie no Cobos or Horners or Mosqueras) and quite a few memorable days.

The Vuelta moved me the least, because of the lack of subplots, but yeah sure, it was the only GT where it looked like there could be battle till the end for the win, which when I think of it, is the main objective for a competitive race....

I welcome any year without Horner-esque exploits… And though I'm British, I agree re the last years - I do not look on (particularly TdF) 2012 as glory days. I'd rather have a 100 versions with Nibali or whoever dominating but still riding out the mountain stages as a champion, and podium chasing subplots than a repeat of that.

 

[cineteq]

This was so fake i didin't like any of it.

Would you give it a 0 if you could?

 

[sienna]

3.

Maybe I'd have voted a bit higher if I hadn't just finished watching that crap final stage.

That was so f-ing pointless.

 

[neineinei]

That was so f-ing pointless.

Eurosport has scheduled three reruns of it today, one at 9:00 , the second at 12:43 and the third at 15:58.