dgodave said:
A... 3 week tour MUST be a true endurance event. Thats the essence of a grand tour... If you could swap out riders, then most of the team wouldnt even complete the race, as a continuous infusion of fresh domestiques would be essential to protecting the GC man.
I can see that, but I definitely would be ok with replacing riders who leave through injury. Heh heh! Maybe there should be a system like American Football, if I'm correct, where you designate that certain players will only play certain positions. So, if you lose a domestique, you can only replace him with a domestique, etc.. But, truly, I even like the idea that if you're DS and you're unhappy with how a rider is racing, you should be able to drag his a**ss out of the race and subsitute him at will! : ) I bet Lefevre would have done that with Boonen this year!
Tugboat said:
... The whole purpose of the grupetto forming [is]... to relax... They know that they can ride as slow as they want through the mountains providing they stick together. The organisers often adjust the time limit to just behind the grupetto to avoid having to cull big chunks of the peloton every day.
Nobody wants to see a Tour where 30 or 40 riders are kicked out after the first day in the mountains and maybe only eventually 50 riders reaching Paris do they?
It would be a nightmare scenario, but, Yes! I'd love to see it! Then I would consider it a true endurance event! : ) It'd be kind of cool to one year see "not-sprinters" racing for glory on the Champs Elysee! : )