Completely agree with hrotha Eshnar and co on the Vuelta.
It's designed for 5' of excitement, nothing more. Short stages, few, if any difficulties before the end, basically guaranteeing that nothing will ever happen in the GC before the last few kilometers. Make it as easy to control as possible, as unattractive as possible to try something early. All for the last kms! Be it the sprints, the ramps, and even 2 of the MTF, Cuitu Negru and Bola del Mundo, make sure it's in the last 2 or so km that everything happens. Unless Valverde crashes of course.
Ok, we had 2 succesful escapes now, kind of surprising, before the Vuelta I predicted 0, with 2 possible... yesterday, which in the end turned out to end with an escape. And that strange thing next week, the easy long "mountain finish". We already had 2 now, Valdezcaray, didn't expect that. Next stages? Of the mountain stages today the best chance IMO, but won't happen. So... most of the time, just 5' of excitement at the end, don't bother with anything before that.
And that's not what a GT should be about.
It's like if you change an athletics meeting . No more 5000 meters, no more 800 meters etc. let's just have 10 100 meter races.
A good GT should have bit of everything, long stages, short stages, easy sprints, harder sprints, stages for classic riders, (stages, not just the finish like in Barcelona), single climbs, multiple climb stages, maybe a downhill finish, maybe a finish with 10 km flat after a downhill, ramps.. ok, I'm getting a bit tired of the 'rampism' lately, Some are great, Mur de Huy, San Luca in Emilia. Now, we have ramps in the TdF too, there at least it's kind of understandable, no more bonifications, so to keep the fight for yellow in the first days open, ok, put in 2 ramps per year... I'd rather have a hard classic stage.... but obviously Prudhomme is afraid that, then differences would be too big, no more excitement.. fake excitement really, but ok. Ramps ok, but that many and everywhere?but the Vuelta too, ramps ramps ramps.. .ok, let's have one, why not.
But of course the riders make the race as well.. Yesterday was a nice example, Degenkolb too dominating, his team too weak, no sprint. With a less dominating Degenkolb yesterday would have been a sprint too IMO. (BTW, can't understand why most of the top sprinters didn't start here... best GT for sprinters in a while, x straight forward sprints, no hard mountain stages with a big fight to stay inside the timelimit) BUT, the riders make the race according to the route as well. Here, there is 0 possibility for a GC rider to ever try something early. Either it's a single ramp/mtf, or the last mountain is clearly the hardest, so it's assured that nobody goes on a suicide mission, since that's what it would be on the Bola del Mundo and Cuitu Negru stage.
Agree less on the criticism of the TdF. The route was good IMO, generally Prudhomme is doing a good job anyway, just think back to Leblanc. This year a bit much TT, 10-20 KM less had been ok, but the route gave the riders the possibility to try something. In the end... nothing happened almost. The 'culprits': Sky, jsut to strong. Knees/EBH and even more so Porte and Rogers just controlled the whole thing too well. It could have been only 20 km of TT and nothing would have changed, SKY was just to strong. Similarly the Giro, the route while far from perfect, too backloaded mostly, did allow attacks, but Liquigas with a strong team and Basso that finally was too confident controlled to well. Can happen, you could have the perfect course and a boring GT, if one team is just too strong. But in this Vuelta you don't even need a strong team, average will do. You could say that's good, so really the strongest wins, ok. And it wouldn't really have taken much to improve on this route. Like the last days, in Galicia of all places they managed to make 2 stages along the coast, mostly flat. Just head to the interior and you can't find a flat meter... Here you have a real stage that is hard to control, that gives good chances for an escape, that if it's hard enough (but without an all deciding ramp at the end) can allow a GC attack. Most of the time then it doesn't happen, but sometimes it does, Simoni Faenza for example. But if you don't offer the possibility it will never happen.
So... my vote for the route would still be a 1, worst thing I've ever seen.
Excitement, spectacle? 7 so far, it's been fun to see those 5 minutes per day. It's close, 4 guys in it for the win. Depending on how it goes from now my vote can even go up more... but down too of course... it risks being decided after the next 3 stages... the last week doesn't really promise much except Bola del Mundo (which is the same as Cuitu Nigru, couldn't they just have had one this year, one next?)
It's designed for 5' of excitement, nothing more. Short stages, few, if any difficulties before the end, basically guaranteeing that nothing will ever happen in the GC before the last few kilometers. Make it as easy to control as possible, as unattractive as possible to try something early. All for the last kms! Be it the sprints, the ramps, and even 2 of the MTF, Cuitu Negru and Bola del Mundo, make sure it's in the last 2 or so km that everything happens. Unless Valverde crashes of course.
Ok, we had 2 succesful escapes now, kind of surprising, before the Vuelta I predicted 0, with 2 possible... yesterday, which in the end turned out to end with an escape. And that strange thing next week, the easy long "mountain finish". We already had 2 now, Valdezcaray, didn't expect that. Next stages? Of the mountain stages today the best chance IMO, but won't happen. So... most of the time, just 5' of excitement at the end, don't bother with anything before that.
And that's not what a GT should be about.
It's like if you change an athletics meeting . No more 5000 meters, no more 800 meters etc. let's just have 10 100 meter races.
A good GT should have bit of everything, long stages, short stages, easy sprints, harder sprints, stages for classic riders, (stages, not just the finish like in Barcelona), single climbs, multiple climb stages, maybe a downhill finish, maybe a finish with 10 km flat after a downhill, ramps.. ok, I'm getting a bit tired of the 'rampism' lately, Some are great, Mur de Huy, San Luca in Emilia. Now, we have ramps in the TdF too, there at least it's kind of understandable, no more bonifications, so to keep the fight for yellow in the first days open, ok, put in 2 ramps per year... I'd rather have a hard classic stage.... but obviously Prudhomme is afraid that, then differences would be too big, no more excitement.. fake excitement really, but ok. Ramps ok, but that many and everywhere?but the Vuelta too, ramps ramps ramps.. .ok, let's have one, why not.
But of course the riders make the race as well.. Yesterday was a nice example, Degenkolb too dominating, his team too weak, no sprint. With a less dominating Degenkolb yesterday would have been a sprint too IMO. (BTW, can't understand why most of the top sprinters didn't start here... best GT for sprinters in a while, x straight forward sprints, no hard mountain stages with a big fight to stay inside the timelimit) BUT, the riders make the race according to the route as well. Here, there is 0 possibility for a GC rider to ever try something early. Either it's a single ramp/mtf, or the last mountain is clearly the hardest, so it's assured that nobody goes on a suicide mission, since that's what it would be on the Bola del Mundo and Cuitu Negru stage.
Agree less on the criticism of the TdF. The route was good IMO, generally Prudhomme is doing a good job anyway, just think back to Leblanc. This year a bit much TT, 10-20 KM less had been ok, but the route gave the riders the possibility to try something. In the end... nothing happened almost. The 'culprits': Sky, jsut to strong. Knees/EBH and even more so Porte and Rogers just controlled the whole thing too well. It could have been only 20 km of TT and nothing would have changed, SKY was just to strong. Similarly the Giro, the route while far from perfect, too backloaded mostly, did allow attacks, but Liquigas with a strong team and Basso that finally was too confident controlled to well. Can happen, you could have the perfect course and a boring GT, if one team is just too strong. But in this Vuelta you don't even need a strong team, average will do. You could say that's good, so really the strongest wins, ok. And it wouldn't really have taken much to improve on this route. Like the last days, in Galicia of all places they managed to make 2 stages along the coast, mostly flat. Just head to the interior and you can't find a flat meter... Here you have a real stage that is hard to control, that gives good chances for an escape, that if it's hard enough (but without an all deciding ramp at the end) can allow a GC attack. Most of the time then it doesn't happen, but sometimes it does, Simoni Faenza for example. But if you don't offer the possibility it will never happen.
So... my vote for the route would still be a 1, worst thing I've ever seen.
Excitement, spectacle? 7 so far, it's been fun to see those 5 minutes per day. It's close, 4 guys in it for the win. Depending on how it goes from now my vote can even go up more... but down too of course... it risks being decided after the next 3 stages... the last week doesn't really promise much except Bola del Mundo (which is the same as Cuitu Nigru, couldn't they just have had one this year, one next?)
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