The 2016 Tour of Britain (2.HC) 04/09-11/09/2016

[Armchair Cyclist]

Wiggins has the strangest forehead wrinkles I have ever seen.

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

OBE only needed to put one rider at the front of the peleton in the last 5kms and Ewan probably wins the stage - In saying that, two of their riders Edmondson and Hepburn ( who have been a disaster in this tour ) finished 18 minutes back, and Power was involved in the Poppel crash - Still they should have rolled the dice and put either Tzurruka or Mezgec at the front in the last 5km.

I'm guessing Doull, Wiggins and anyone else who has come straight from Olympic team pursuiting haven't exactly been lighting it up either.

Seriously riders like Cavendish, GAviria, Kluge, Viviani have done OK combining track and road in 2016 - My post is referring specifically to the stage won by Bauer where the peleton couldn't bring back the break who had 1 m and 30s with 15kms to go. It was an observation that if OBE put one rider to the front the break would have been brought back, but at the same time, when you gave 2 riders out of 6, struggling to keep pace with the peleton, then your options are limited - fact is Hepburn and Edmondson have struggled in this tour - Power had one race day before ( long term injury ) before the TOB and has performed much better.

Those are all Omnium riders though, instead of Team Pursuiters.

Thanks to the awfulness that is the current Olympic track program, the Omnium riders are the ONLY ones who have to do any endurance track events, with the Elimination and Points races both being significantly longer than any of the other races on the Olympic program now there's no individual Points or Scratch nor the Madison, so that we can make room for some outright terrible events (I truly dislike the Team Sprint, as it lacks both the visual impressiveness and cohesion of the Team Pursuit, and the tactical acumen of the Individual Sprint, leading to a much less interesting spectacle to me). The omnium riders are therefore also doing a range of events that require fast burst and changes of pace as well as explosiveness, including within the endurance races. Track pursuit is completely different. The distance is way shorter (4k) and much of it is about maintaining a smooth and even pace - immense concentration and consistency is required, but when you get onto the roads, especially in a race like the Tour of Britain with a lot of rolling hills and uncategorized ramps along with a number of short hills needing short explosive efforts and sprints, somebody who's been training primarily for the Team Pursuit will take a bit longer to adapt back to changing up and down pace like that than an Omnium rider, I'd anticipate.

A very good explanation as usual - It should be noted that Cavendish was a reserve for the men's team pursuit so would have done some of that specialised training My specific post referred to two specific flatter stages of the TOB and the poor performance of Edmondson and Hepburn - I will never understand why track cycling abolished the individual pursuit event from the Olympics.

 

[yaco]

Ewan was super impressive winning stage 8 of the TOB - His top end speed and strength was awesome - Interesting to see how OBE place him in 2017.

 

[Der Effe]

nice to see papi horner's twin brother also returning to the days of his lost youth

 

[Pricey_sky]

Overall I thought it was fairly substandard ToB compared to some of the recent additions. Much better racing and parcours on the Tour of Yorkshire, and with that potentially expanding to 4 days next year this Tour needs to up its game.

 

[MatParker117]

Re:

Overall I thought it was fairly substandard ToB compared to some of the recent additions. Much better racing and parcours on the Tour of Yorkshire, and with that potentially expanding to 4 days next year this Tour needs to up its game.

Wonder if they will finally up the team size to allow riders some rest.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

Overall I thought it was fairly substandard ToB compared to some of the recent additions. Much better racing and parcours on the Tour of Yorkshire, and with that potentially expanding to 4 days next year this Tour needs to up its game.

The tough stages weren't tough enough, and the sprint stages too closely resembled the Tour of Utah/Alberta/Colorado crappy circuit races where the first sprinter out of the last corner (which comes as late as 300m to go) is almost guaranteed the win. And that sprinter is rarely the fastest of the field, merely the one prepared to divebomb through the corners. I think the TOB suffers from covering too large an area and trying to please too many people. With a Tour of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, North of England and South of England - and of course the existing Yorkshire race - you could have distinct races for distinct types of racers, instead of the hotchpotch that is the TOB, where the only guarantee is lumpy roads. Alternatively the organisers should be ruthless and hold each edition in as little of the country as necessary and not care about having to visit all three mainland nations or finish in London.

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

Overall I thought it was fairly substandard ToB compared to some of the recent additions. Much better racing and parcours on the Tour of Yorkshire, and with that potentially expanding to 4 days next year this Tour needs to up its game.

Wonder if they will finally up the team size to allow riders some rest.

Upping team size in the Tour of Britain would be one of the most reckless and regressive moves the organisers could think of. The reason that the Tour of Britain has been good over the past years is because of that, and sure you get stages like the Stannard one, but you also get the Cumbria stage. I would rather both than neither. And it would be dangerous. The ToB peloton is small for a reason, and increasing team size either enlargens the peloton or reduces the number of teams, which would be disastrous for small UK based teams that are so often and so well represented in the race.

 

[yaco]

Re: Re:

Overall I thought it was fairly substandard ToB compared to some of the recent additions. Much better racing and parcours on the Tour of Yorkshire, and with that potentially expanding to 4 days next year this Tour needs to up its game.

Wonder if they will finally up the team size to allow riders some rest.

Upping team size in the Tour of Britain would be one of the most reckless and regressive moves the organisers could think of. The reason that the Tour of Britain has been good over the past years is because of that, and sure you get stages like the Stannard one, but you also get the Cumbria stage. I would rather both than neither. And it would be dangerous. The ToB peloton is small for a reason, and increasing team size either enlargens the peloton or reduces the number of teams, which would be disastrous for small UK based teams that are so often and so well represented in the race.

Realistically with the Vuelta and the two Canadian Classics on at the same time, you can only have a 6 man team for the TOB.