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Suggestions and Ideas for the Tour de France

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manolo

May 5, 2009
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I wouldn't mind seeing some things changed or added to the Tour.

1. The Team Time Trial Stop taking the time of the 5th man. Give everybody their true time. If a sprinter wants to shave a second or two off his time, let him go for it. If a team leader wants to solo off to shave off a little more time, let him go for it.

2. A Two Man Team Time Trial Let your GC man and the next best time trialer on your team have a shot at building up their lead. Pair every one up. Every one will have a chance. Have 9 on a team? Pair your last man with the 'Lantern Rouge" of other teams!

3. Downhill Individual Time Trial It would be fun to have a time trial stage or prologue, especially at the beginning of the race, where the heavier riders or the fearless descenders might start with a few minutes on the field just based on their bike handling skills or their bigger mass! :)

4. Extremely steep climbing prologue Nothing but a climb. Nothing else! :)

5. Have a red jersey for the most combative rider

6. Have a different jersey for the rider who has spent the most time in breakwaways or alone out front but has not been successful This guy's a loser, but it would probably be a blast to recognize him... It's probably difficult to keep records of this, but?... ;)

7. Set a non-varying cutoff time limit for stages Say, no matter how fast or slow stages are ridden. Everyone must come in at most, to pick a number, 1:45:00 after the stage winner. This might be crazy, but it also might make for different names in the final sprint in Paris! Heh heh! :)

8. Have a special jersey for the 'Lantern rouge' This guy's also loser, but how loveable is he?...

9. By far the most controversial: Let teams replace any riders they lose through injury


Feel free to comment!
 
O

Oldman

Jun 19, 2009
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Tour suggestions

Salary Cap. Would make buying the TTT more difficult as well as corralling all your competitors on your team with golden handcuffs. Teams could designate "franchise player" that had a no limit salary.
 
DenisMenchov

DenisMenchov

May 5, 2009
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manolo said:
I wouldn't mind seeing some things changed or added to the Tour.

1. The Team Time Trial Stop taking the time of the 5th man. Give everybody their true time. If a sprinter wants to shave a second or two off his time, let him go for it. If a team leader wants to solo off to shave off a little more time, let him go for it.
Click to expand...
That is called individual time trial.
BEcasue you get your individual time and not teams`
 
M

Moondance

Jul 2, 2009
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1. Fine idea, pretty inconsequential to be honest.

2. While a neat idea in principle it does destroy the team nature to cycling. Although it does raise some interesting game theory questions. Does Saxo pair Cancellara with Jens Voigt to go for the stage, or do they pair him with A.Schleck to go for best GC for Andy. Its a clever idea and it's quite tickling, but i wouldn't really like it for the biggest, most prestigious race in cycling.

3. This is asking for big crashes and major injuries. I don't like this idea in the slightest.

4. I don't like mountain time trials. If you want climbing, make more mountain stages. Although it would help to define the GC contenders early on, but i don't know whether that is a good thing either.

5. Great idea, give the attacking guys some more rewards. The Giro does it and i enjoy it there. I always favor more rewards for the guys who attack.

6. This seems a bit cheap. Everyone likes a lovable loser, but there's no need to rub it in.

7. Nah, it works fine the way it does now.

8. No. While we all love us some Kenny van Hummel, we like him because of his big efforts. But we can admire him from a distance, no need to actually reward the last place guy. It's not what we want to encourage.

9. This idea is so wrong. So much abuse could happen. Team time trial on stage 4? Maybe stage 5 all the time trial experts on yoour team get food poisoning so you replace them, with some good climbers maybe?


My suggestion:

1. No time trial besides the prologue. You can make the prologue a bit longer, like it was this year at the tour, but apart from that, no mas. I like me some climbing, that's the real sh!t. Tour winners should be the best climbers in the tour, that's just me.
 
A

amp300

May 13, 2009
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Bicycle Jousting. Each team selects one rider to participate halfway through the tour in a jousting tourney. Winner gets either 20 points towards the jersey of their choice, 20 bonus seconds, or some euro's for the teams pot.

Actually I would like to see no TT bikes during TT's. Good old fashioned road bikes during TT's
 
M

Moondance

Jul 2, 2009
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Oldman said:
Salary Cap. Would make buying the TTT more difficult as well as corralling all your competitors on your team with golden handcuffs. Teams could designate "franchise player" that had a no limit salary.
Click to expand...

Would this be for all the teams in general, throughout the year, or just for the 9 guys you get to take with you to the tour?
 
A

Anonymous

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On the final climb, use solid metal 5' barriers on both sides for the last 5K. As the final rider of the day crosses the 5K threshold, close a gate behind them. From the top, release a pack of ravenous wolves. It would do two things, reward riders for strength,(because the strong would finish before the wolves were released) and cull the weak from the herd. Now I realize this would have caused the untimely death of Kenny (my favorite rider), but sometimes you have to sacrifice things for the thrill of competition.
 
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Oldman

Jun 19, 2009
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Salary cap

Moondance said:
Would this be for all the teams in general, throughout the year, or just for the 9 guys you get to take with you to the tour?
Click to expand...

Hadn't thought beyond the Tour. What do you think? The Protour selection process seems like the top teams buy the roster that qualifies them for races suited to their sponsor's needs. That doesn't necessarily change for better or worse.
 
F

fatandfast

Jul 14, 2009
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Time bonuses announced on the night before.No more riding around talking to each other.No more sprinters winning mountain stages. Just a way for them to throw out a really valuable prize.
 
O

Oldman

Jun 19, 2009
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Thoughtforfood said:
On the final climb, use solid metal 5' barriers on both sides for the last 5K. As the final rider of the day crosses the 5K threshold, close a gate behind them. From the top, release a pack of ravenous wolves. It would do two things, reward riders for strength,(because the strong would finish before the wolves were released) and cull the weak from the herd. Now I realize this would have caused the untimely death of Kenny (my favorite rider), but sometimes you have to sacrifice things for the thrill of competition.
Click to expand...

It would make the next day's strategy progressively easier. Actually, you could do away with Directors and radios. Just put microphones on the riders to hear the screams.
 
ThisFrenchGuy

ThisFrenchGuy

Jul 25, 2009
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manolo said:
4. Extremely steep climbing prologue Nothing but a climb. Nothing else! :)

5. Have a red jersey for the most combative rider

6. Have a different jersey for the rider who has spent the most time in breakwaways or alone out front but has not been successful This guy's a loser, but it would probably be a blast to recognize him... It's probably difficult to keep records of this, but?... ;)

(...)

8. Have a special jersey for the 'Lantern rouge' This guy's also loser, but how loveable is he?...
Click to expand...

4 - As said, there is a red number for the most combative rider already, he is selected after each stage to wear it through a system I did not catch (public can submit names, but the "winner" is selected by some sort of jury on the race?). Wouldn't make real sense to have a jersey which would switch each day. Jerseys are supposed to be defended and worn for several days if possible, IMHO. It would require a separate chart and I don't see any way to do that objectively.
A few years back I wonder if there was not a red jersey for most combative of previous stage, though?
The number makes more sense.

5 - At the end of the Tour, the "overall most combative rider" is picked up by a jury. It seems too close to what you mention. Being "up front" does not necessarily means that you are combative or competing for stage races.

8 - Back in the day, the Lanterne had to carry a Lanterne on the last stage. Today you get to say hello on the TV while going to Paris with a gadget of your linking and/or get mentioned anyway. More than a jersey, I regret that TV coverage cannot afford to follow the Lanterne Rouge. Van Hummel would have been epic.

I think having more jerseys would feel gimmicky. I said earlier I think jersey should only apply to continuing objective charts (GC, points). Besides the four honors jerseys, you also have national champions and world champion jerseys. It would be confusing.
 
M

Moondance

Jul 2, 2009
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Oldman said:
Hadn't thought beyond the Tour. What do you think? The Protour selection process seems like the top teams buy the roster that qualifies them for races suited to their sponsor's needs. That doesn't necessarily change for better or worse.
Click to expand...

I like salary caps for sports in general. US sports like American football and basketball are generally some of the most competitive sports league out there, where teams always have to be working hard and improving, while in Rest of the World football the rich teams always dominate and win, which is why only like 20 different teams have won UEFA Champions League in it's 50+ year history.

I don't think anyone can make the argument that the tour woud've been less exciting if 4 of the best GC men in the peleton hadn't been on the same team at the start of this year's tour (Astana). Having a salary cap would spread the wealth of talent around and there would definitely be more teams out there, and teams would have to work much harder to promote and bring forth more young talented riders who don't cost a lot of salary money.

Problem is, is that it would be impossible to set the cap. Do you set it at 10m euros, which would only affect 5 teams or so (although it would be the dominating team like Astana and Columbia that would have to downsize). Or would you set it at 5m or so, in which case all ProTour teams would have to cut back, but it would also seriously impede the ability of cyclist to earn some good money. I mean, Alberto Contador deserves to make a lot of money, being the best and most dominating rider in the sport, but if he could only make as much money as the 10th highest paid player on Real Madrid or the LA Lakers, despite working his **** off and dominating, how many athletically talented kids are going to look at going into cycling?

I would almost say that this discussion merits it's own thread. ;)

EDIT: So b-u-t-t gets censored out? Prudish babies.
 
O

Oldman

Jun 19, 2009
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Moondance said:
I like salary caps for sports in general. US sports like American football and basketball are generally some of the most competitive sports league out there, where teams always have to be working hard and improving, while in Rest of the World football the rich teams always dominate and win, which is why only like 20 different teams have won UEFA Champions League in it's 50+ year history.

I don't think anyone can make the argument that the tour woud've been less exciting if 4 of the best GC men in the peleton hadn't been on the same team at the start of this year's tour (Astana). Having a salary cap would spread the wealth of talent around and there would definitely be more teams out there, and teams would have to work much harder to promote and bring forth more young talented riders who don't cost a lot of salary money.

Problem is, is that it would be impossible to set the cap. Do you set it at 10m euros, which would only affect 5 teams or so (although it would be the dominating team like Astana and Columbia that would have to downsize). Or would you set it at 5m or so, in which case all ProTour teams would have to cut back, but it would also seriously impede the ability of cyclist to earn some good money. I mean, Alberto Contador deserves to make a lot of money, being the best and most dominating rider in the sport, but if he could only make as much money as the 10th highest paid player on Real Madrid or the LA Lakers, despite working his **** off and dominating, how many athletically talented kids are going to look at going into cycling?

I would almost say that this discussion merits it's own thread. ;)

EDIT: So b-u-t-t gets censored out? Prudish babies.
Click to expand...

That's where the marquee riders get more sophisticated and turn their success into endorsements. The market will reward those that maintain the image and the end result might be, I just said MIGHT BE; that protecting long term endorsement income might motivate a cleaner pro rider. There are mediocre former American baseball and football players making many times more $$$ than they ever earned as a player, 3 decades after retirement. What about Europro cyclists? They're dead from stomach cancer or settled back into their realistic lives with some acting as hack sports commentators. As a thread subject it probably is minimal. It's a better idea if it is kept simple.
 
auscyclefan94

auscyclefan94

Jun 16, 2009
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Oldman said:
Salary Cap. Would make buying the TTT more difficult as well as corralling all your competitors on your team with golden handcuffs. Teams could designate "franchise player" that had a no limit salary.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be fair though on tweams like Katusha and Columbia who have big money behind them. They got big sponsors to support them so they should be able to spend big money on riders they want.
 
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