- Jun 10, 2010
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Seeing as how I'm constantly being told about unhappiness or sour grapes when I say this Vuelta is terrible, I figured I would start a thread to discuss the issues in depth.
The Vuelta has this philosophy where they want it to be as close a race as possible until the very end. To that end, they design stages that can't create gaps. This usually translates into a short, flat stage with a single MTF, only one ITT, and a hilly one at that to make sure it suited all contenders.
The result is that we get about 5 minutes of racing per stage.
Some say that's more than what we got at the Giro or the Tour. I disagree, but for the sake of the argument, I'll say I agree. However, that's irrelevant. Both the Giro and the Tour were designed to make things happen. The Tour in particular was a risky attempt to try to get a more aggressive style of racing back, by forcing the climbers to attack. The parcours was IMO pretty good, and with Contador and Andy there it would probably have been a great race. The Giro parcours wasn't perfect by all means, what with the hardest stages being together at the end of the race and offering very little before that, but even then there was terrain to try something.
Not in the Vuelta. With the Unipublic way, there's no room for tactical moves. What De Gendt did might be relatively rare, but it does happen every now and then, and Unipublic just disallows the possibility. They just want close uphill sprints because they think that's what the general public wants to see. They design courses that blatantly favour the punchy climber specialists (many of whom would never have been GT contenders in previous decades) because that's what the best Spanish riders are, and they're pandering to the general public.
Is pandering to the general public bad, you'll ask? Not per se. But when it involves cheapening what's supposed to be a GT like this, the answer should be different.
We get a gazillion MTFs, most of the time with no previous climbs, with super short stages, and only one hilly ITT, to make it as little selective as possible. That's the most unbalanced and ridiculous parcours I can think of.
I'd have no issues with the stages we've already seen if what's coming next wasn't, for the most part, more of the same. Yes, we get 5-20 minutes of action or whatever, and yes, the action we do get is good, but by celebrating it, you're celebrating the Unipublic way, which runs contrary to what cycling is supposed to be (you know, the epicness and all that? Extreme endurance tests?). You're validating the current Vuelta organizers and making it less likely that we'll see a change. The Tour parcours backfired, but it was a much needed attempt to get a more aggressive style of racing back. At least they tried. The Vuelta is actively campaigning for YouTube cycling.
"Oh you nostalgic git!", you'll say. Sorry, but I'm not talking about some mythical time in the 70s or 80s. I'm talking about recent Giros and even Tours, not to mention other races (Suisse last year? Colorado? Too many to mention).
So this is why you won't hear me talk about how awesome this Vuelta is.
The Vuelta has this philosophy where they want it to be as close a race as possible until the very end. To that end, they design stages that can't create gaps. This usually translates into a short, flat stage with a single MTF, only one ITT, and a hilly one at that to make sure it suited all contenders.
The result is that we get about 5 minutes of racing per stage.
Some say that's more than what we got at the Giro or the Tour. I disagree, but for the sake of the argument, I'll say I agree. However, that's irrelevant. Both the Giro and the Tour were designed to make things happen. The Tour in particular was a risky attempt to try to get a more aggressive style of racing back, by forcing the climbers to attack. The parcours was IMO pretty good, and with Contador and Andy there it would probably have been a great race. The Giro parcours wasn't perfect by all means, what with the hardest stages being together at the end of the race and offering very little before that, but even then there was terrain to try something.
Not in the Vuelta. With the Unipublic way, there's no room for tactical moves. What De Gendt did might be relatively rare, but it does happen every now and then, and Unipublic just disallows the possibility. They just want close uphill sprints because they think that's what the general public wants to see. They design courses that blatantly favour the punchy climber specialists (many of whom would never have been GT contenders in previous decades) because that's what the best Spanish riders are, and they're pandering to the general public.
Is pandering to the general public bad, you'll ask? Not per se. But when it involves cheapening what's supposed to be a GT like this, the answer should be different.
We get a gazillion MTFs, most of the time with no previous climbs, with super short stages, and only one hilly ITT, to make it as little selective as possible. That's the most unbalanced and ridiculous parcours I can think of.
I'd have no issues with the stages we've already seen if what's coming next wasn't, for the most part, more of the same. Yes, we get 5-20 minutes of action or whatever, and yes, the action we do get is good, but by celebrating it, you're celebrating the Unipublic way, which runs contrary to what cycling is supposed to be (you know, the epicness and all that? Extreme endurance tests?). You're validating the current Vuelta organizers and making it less likely that we'll see a change. The Tour parcours backfired, but it was a much needed attempt to get a more aggressive style of racing back. At least they tried. The Vuelta is actively campaigning for YouTube cycling.
"Oh you nostalgic git!", you'll say. Sorry, but I'm not talking about some mythical time in the 70s or 80s. I'm talking about recent Giros and even Tours, not to mention other races (Suisse last year? Colorado? Too many to mention).
So this is why you won't hear me talk about how awesome this Vuelta is.
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