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Season With Worst GT Routes in the 21st Century?

With all 3 GT routes being pretty awful (Vuelta worst by some margin though), and after seeing this post:
Time for someone to make "Worst year for atheGT routes" thread?

We can actually combine it with "the best year"
I wanted to open this thread. Was there a year when the GT routes were worse than this in modern times?
And, as a second question what was the year with the best GT routes in modern times?
 
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I would go for 2009 for the worst GT routes. The Giro had some decent stages (but as bad as this one is, it still has some decent stages) but it wasn't anything impressive.
Most of the mountain stages in the Tour were a total joke. Pyrenees especially were abomination. I can't recall worse block of mountain stages than that one. Yes, Rome-Colombiere is good but it's just too little. Oh, and Ventoux as stage 20 is never good.
I can't exactly recall the Vuelta route but that's usually meh so yeah.


As for the best GT routes, I'd probably go for 2019.
None of the routes was great but I dare to say all of them were very good. The Giro had some nicely designed mountain stages, Courmayeur particularly was great, I liked stage 20 as well (although it has some weaknesses).
And the Vuelta is your usual Vuelta.
 
I would go for 2009 for the worst GT routes. The Giro had some decent stages (but as bad as this one is, it still has some decent stages) but it wasn't anything impressive.
Most of the mountain stages in the Tour were a total joke. Pyrenees especially were abomination. I can't recall worse block of mountain stages than that one. Yes, Rome-Colombiere is good but it's just too little. Oh, and Ventoux as stage 20 is never good.
I can't exactly recall the Vuelta route but that's usually meh so yeah.


As for the best GT routes, I'd probably go for 2019.
None of the routes was great but I dare to say all of them were very good. The Giro had some nicely designed mountain stages, Courmayeur particularly was great, I liked stage 20 as well (although it has some weaknesses).
And the Vuelta is your usual Vuelta.
It was better than the 2025 route. Granted, that probably has more to do with 2025 Vuelta route being absolutely awful but still.

By the way 2019 was one of the best Vuelta routes I can remember. And yes I also liked stage 20 of Giro 2019.
 
I mean, really the only thing that's changed lately is the decline of the Giro. Because the Tour and the Vuelta having a bad route in the same season has never been particularly rare.

I think this year narrowly beats out its immediate predecessor for worst of the more recent years, but it's not as bad as 2002, 2004 or 2009.

Best route is a much harder question because even when 2 of the GTs produce something really good, there's always one who drops the ball. I agree that 2019 is a good shout for a year where nobody dropped the ball, but I would argue that the 2015 Vuelta more or less matches its 2019 counterpart and then that year's Giro is awesome enough to make up for a typically underwhelming Tour route. 2020 also isn't a bad shout, but it depends heavily on which iteration of the routes you're rating. The cancellation of the foreign starts didn't really hurt the Vuelta and clearly improved the Giro, but the subsequent axing of the French mountain stages hurt both and the Giro in particular. If we're rating the penultimate iteration of both, then the Giro route has two all-timer mountain stages on a really hard overall route and the Tour has arguably the best of its 21st century routes (I am still salty about what is comfortably ASO's coolest design for a final mountain stage being turned into an all-time terrible final mountain stage by the riders), and then even a poor second half of the Vuelta can't push the year out of first for me.
 
I mean, really the only thing that's changed lately is the decline of the Giro. Because the Tour and the Vuelta having a bad route in the same season has never been particularly rare.

I think this year narrowly beats out its immediate predecessor for worst of the more recent years, but it's not as bad as 2002, 2004 or 2009.

Best route is a much harder question because even when 2 of the GTs produce something really good, there's always one who drops the ball. I agree that 2019 is a good shout for a year where nobody dropped the ball, but I would argue that the 2015 Vuelta more or less matches its 2019 counterpart and then that year's Giro is awesome enough to make up for a typically underwhelming Tour route. 2020 also isn't a bad shout, but it depends heavily on which iteration of the routes you're rating. The cancellation of the foreign starts didn't really hurt the Vuelta and clearly improved the Giro, but the subsequent axing of the French mountain stages hurt both and the Giro in particular. If we're rating the penultimate iteration of both, then the Giro route has two all-timer mountain stages on a really hard overall route and the Tour has arguably the best of its 21st century routes (I am still salty about what is comfortably ASO's coolest design for a final mountain stage being turned into an all-time terrible final mountain stage by the riders), and then even a poor second half of the Vuelta can't push the year out of first for me.
There's Vuelta's and there's Vueltas.

Vuelta normally is like a döner sandwich when you're piss drunk. You know it's bad for you but it still tasts good, mostly because the too many MTFs are still actually steep and hard and so you know action will go down. Now it's more uphill sprint *** than attackable climbs.
 
There's Vuelta's and there's Vueltas.

Vuelta normally is like a döner sandwich when you're piss drunk. You know it's bad for you but it still tasts good, mostly because the too many MTFs are still actually steep and hard and so you know action will go down. Now it's more uphill sprint *** than attackable climbs.
It will end when Roglic retires. He was better in 2024 but he still is a mountain sprinter.
 
This is honestly a terrible thread.

This year's Tour route is the best in a decade. THe only thing wrong with it is having two sprint stages in the last week and not having a GC stage 20 (and it could kinda be a GC stage if the margins between the big four are under a couple of minutes).

The Vuelta route is weak. Pretty much the only one you have a point about.

Giro is good. Not brilliant, but good. Happy to see the Mortirolo back as well as Finestre and Sestriere. Would have liked one more MTF but there are only four genuine sprint stages, another three that could be sprint stages but will suit the guys like Wout or MvdP or Bling if they rode it.

All three will be good GT's regardless. Maybe the Giro will be won easily (I see a clear gap between Rogla and the next contenders) but I really like the Tour route in particular
 
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This is honestly a terrible thread.

This year's Tour route is the best in a decade. THe only thing wrong with it is having two sprint stages in the last week and not having a GC stage 20 (and it could kinda be a GC stage if the margins between the big four are under a couple of minutes).

The Vuelta route is weak. Pretty much the only one you have a point about.

Giro is good. Not brilliant, but good. Happy to see the Mortirolo back as well as Finestre and Sestriere. Would have liked one more MTF but there are only four genuine sprint stages, another three that could be sprint stages but will suit the guys like Wout or MvdP or Bling if they rode it.

All three will be good GT's regardless. Maybe the Giro will be won easily (I see a clear gap between Rogla and the next contenders) but I really like the Tour route in particular

There's actually many wrong things with this Tour.
Weekend stages, transfers, too many sprints, stage 20 being horrendous, overly reliant on the MTF's with 0 stages where you have a good incentive for long range attack. I don't think we can actually point 3 worse routes in the last decade.

As for the Vuelta, we seem to agree.


As for the Giro, well, all the mountain stages except for Finestre are really poor.
As for Mortirolo, it's been a long time since we've seen it, right. 9 months already.
I guess you forgot it's been in the route last year? Can't blame ya, it was from the meh forgetable side while this year....Oh, they climb it from the same forgettable side. But I guess we have to be happy just about the name, no?
 
There's actually many wrong things with this Tour.
Weekend stages, transfers, too many sprints, stage 20 being horrendous, overly reliant on the MTF's with 0 stages where you have a good incentive for long range attack. I don't think we can actually point 3 worse routes in the last decade.

As for the Vuelta, we seem to agree.


As for the Giro, well, all the mountain stages except for Finestre are really poor.
As for Mortirolo, it's been a long time since we've seen it, right. 9 months already.
I guess you forgot it's been in the route last year? Can't blame ya, it was from the meh forgetable side while this year....Oh, they climb it from the same forgettable side. But I guess we have to be happy just about the name, no?
I think you're being overly critical. Weekend stages are good, and there are plenty of opportunities to mount long range attacks for me and even then that's a minor concern. Maybe one sprint stage too many but the Tour needs to cater for all. I can point to the last four routes being far worse than this one. It almost has the right balance and it's been Prodhomme's best work since 2020 and for me better than that.

If you think the Tour route is worse than 2022's, I have no words. That was a genuine 3/10 and this year's is a good 8.5-9/10 with minor concerns IMO.
 
I think you're being overly critical. Weekend stages are good, and there are plenty of opportunities to mount long range attacks for me and even then that's a minor concern. Maybe one sprint stage too many but the Tour needs to cater for all. I can point to the last four routes being far worse than this one. It almost has the right balance and it's been Prodhomme's best work since 2020 and for me better than that.

If you think the Tour route is worse than 2022's, I have no words. That was a genuine 3/10 and this year's is a good 8.5-9/10 with minor concerns IMO.
That's a first timer. Tour 2022 3/10 and this one 8,5-9/10. Right balance? Yeah, because 33 km of flat TT is better balance than 50 km of flat TT (compared to 2022, which also had the better mountain stages).
Good weekend stages? There's a grand total of 1 GT relevant stage in the weekends. 2, if you count stage 2. Well, we have 4-6 sprint stages on the other hand but I suppose that's your definition of good, so I'll give you that.
Long range attacks? Where? Long range attacks before these MTF's are about as likely as attacks on Grappa and San Pelegrino in Alpe in the Giro.
Oh, and 2020 is one of the few worse routes than 2025.


I suppose, however, you didn't bother to check these details just like you didn't bother to check which side of Mortirolo they climb and that it actually was on the route this year as well.
 
That's a first timer. Tour 2022 3/10 and this one 8,5-9/10. Right balance? Yeah, because 33 km of flat TT is better balance than 50 km of flat TT (compared to 2022, which also had the better mountain stages).
Good weekend stages? There's a grand total of 1 GT relevant stage in the weekends. 2, if you count stage 2. Well, we have 4-6 sprint stages on the other hand but I suppose that's your definition of good, so I'll give you that.
Long range attacks? Where? Long range attacks before these MTF's are about as likely as attacks on Grappa and San Pelegrino in Alpe in the Giro.
Oh, and 2020 is one of the few worse routes than 2025.


I suppose, however, you didn't bother to check these details just like you didn't bother to check which side of Mortirolo they climb and that it actually was on the route this year as well.
Oh wow. The 2022 route was hot garbage, if you think this one is worse then you're crazy. The 2020 route was pretty damn good too. 21-24 were far, far worse than this one. And I said almost the right balance between mountains, ITT's, sprints and hilly stages. As I said, I'd rather have one less sprint stage and one more mountain stage but overall I think it's a good balance.

You're so obsessed with which side they HAVE to ride up for it to be any good. Both sides are good, one is harder than the other yes, but talk about an overreaction. I really like the route for the Tour. Calling it worse than any of the past 4 is honestly gobsmacking, all four routes were terrible and this is a very good route. Maybe I'm overrating it because of how bad the past few have been but it's still much better than any of them.
 
Oh wow. The 2022 route was hot garbage, if you think this one is worse then you're crazy. The 2020 route was pretty damn good too. 21-24 were far, far worse than this one. And I said almost the right balance between mountains, ITT's, sprints and hilly stages. As I said, I'd rather have one less sprint stage and one more mountain stage but overall I think it's a good balance.

You're so obsessed with which side they HAVE to ride up for it to be any good. Both sides are good, one is harder than the other yes, but talk about an overreaction. I really like the route for the Tour. Calling it worse than any of the past 4 is honestly gobsmacking, all four routes were terrible and this is a very good route. Maybe I'm overrating it because of how bad the past few have been but it's still much better than any of them.
If you go with the balance logic, then pretty much every Tour recently is well balanced. And then you have the lack of GT stages in the weekends, the real small kilometres of flat TT and the mountain stages being pretty much all about the MTF.

As for the Giro, that route is possibly better than the last 3 but that doesn't speak much as I rate them very y low (I admit I used to rate 2023 high initially). And as for Mortirolo, of course it matters which side they climb (especially in the context of the actual stage). Unless, of course, you claim that 11,6 km/11,3% is similar to 12,6/7,6 (yes, okay, they can't climb the Mazzo side naturally).
Point being, that side of Mortirolo placed 50 kilometres away in a stage that only contains Passo del Tonale basically cries for 25 riders group climbing together some 10 minutes away from the breakaway. And that's not good.
 
The annual whining tradition. Nice
Funny that any route raced by current crop is brutal. Average speed, climb speeds, TT results everywhere you look quality and speed of racing, racers is up..to say the routes are important, I will go with it for the sake of the thread, current professional bunch make warming up or neutral zones difficult. Add gravel and off road popularity.. Racing is as hard as it's ever been.