The worst Grand Tour you can remember

[Eshnar]

Re: Re:

This Tour has been a bit disappointing. The only exciting things have been the controversies, not really the racing.
Such a difference from the the Giro. I would wake up knowing that when I clicked online to watch, something amazing had happened.
Snooze fest.
Maybe they need to look at what the Giro is doing.

As far as I'm concerned, I didn't see any attacks from 100k to finish by any GC contender in the Giro. For two years in a row, the Tour did.

Problem of the Tour is Sky's depth.

huh?

Col de Chaussy last year - attacks from Valverde, Nibali, Contador.
Attacks from Valverde and Contador in the Andorra stage this year.

Oh well, if you count attacks that have been brought down, Valverde attacked also on the Col de Vars this year in the Giro. And Nibali attacked early on stage 8 (but there was no live coverage there).

 

[Cannibal72]

Ban power meters. As someone pointed out on the race thread, Movistar can't really be blamed for not attacking; they could see the kind of wattage Poels was putting out, they could see exactly what wattage they were putting out, they knew they'd just get reeled in. If you ban power meters, you have a chance of the Skytrain overreaching itself and blowing up early on. Moreover, without the reassurance of a power meter, you're more likely to see Sky responding to attacks rather than knowing they can just up the pace slightly.

 

[el chava]

Re:

Ban power meters.

This. Truly the worst technology introduced within Pro cycling, much worse than Team Race Radios. When was the last time someone bonked for good? Cadel in the Giro, what, 15 years ago?

It won't go away though, everything is turning into a battle for the latest technological/informational edge. But someone might consider to jam/hack the darn things.

I am patiently waiting for a big sponsor turning up to Bjarne Riis and offering him a pile of money to start a team 100% dedicated to winning the tour. No focus on the classics, no giro, no vuelta, just the tour. So one leader (french even?), no co-leader, no stagehunters, no jersey aspirations other than yellow and NO team GC for godsakes!

Sky is dominant, but excluding the TT I haven't really been that impressed by Froome in pure performance (yet, the Alps are looming...). But the rest of the teams seem a bit apathetic or unfocused, paralysed even. Respect for Astana to put the pressure on yesterday, but we know their focus was the Giro and you cannot have a team with the two main stars Aru and Nibali reportingly not talking together.

 

[yaco]

I think the greater issue is the selection of teams in the TDF - We all know Sky have depth in the mountains, and in fact selected 7 riders for the mountains, and leave Rowe and Stannard for the flat - You have teams like Trek and BMC who have GC riders but lack depth in the mountains compared to SKY - These type of teams should select less climbers and use more classic types - Make the racing harder on the flat to burn out Stannard and Rowe and then even one or two of the Sky climbers will be forced to help on the flat, and then when we get to the mountains Sky have less firepower and have more trouble setting tempo on the climbs - Then you get it into more of a man on man battle.

 

[Eric_R]

1993 with nobody able or wanting to attack the position of Indurain. One day flies like Jaskula and Meija were more than happy with their GC position and Rominger had no interest to do anything GC-wise since he already won 2 mountain stages (gifted by Indurain) and won the last TT too.

The other stages were a borefest too, can't remember anything worthwile from that TDF.

 

[Valv.Piti]

More ITT, flat, come on. I lived the BigMig years. Stage 9 and the race is over. Luxembourg anyone?

Since you lived in those years you should have realized that Chiappucci was never gonna attack on the Saises, had he not gotten 5 minutes in Luxembourg.

Pantani was not gonna attack on the Mortirolo if he was at less than 30" from Berzin. Indurain was not gonna follow him if he could say the same.

Pantani also was not gonna attack on the Galibier if he wasn't at 3' from Ullrich.

But we live in the Froome era now, where things have improved a lot. Now we get to stage 9 and the race is...over? But on the GC the gaps are smaller and it looks good I guess.

We dont live in those glory days anymore tho. Its super good on paper, but had they included a 60-70 flat ITT, this race would have been over now and it would have been 2012 all over again. We live in a different era - the era of Sky. They can neutralise all attack with their extremely potent doms. At least its somewhat open now.

 

[Eshnar]

We dont live in those glory days anymore tho. Its super good on paper, but had they included a 60-70 flat ITT, this race would have been over now and it would have been 2012 all over again. We live in a different era - the era of Sky. They can neutralise all attack with their extremely potent doms. At least its somewhat open now.

Open, lol. The yellow jersey hasn't changed once in the last two weeks of a Tdf since 2011. A period where we went from 100 km of ITT in 2012 to 10 km last year. No difference at all.

 

[Valv.Piti]

We dont live in those glory days anymore tho. Its super good on paper, but had they included a 60-70 flat ITT, this race would have been over now and it would have been 2012 all over again. We live in a different era - the era of Sky. They can neutralise all attack with their extremely potent doms. At least its somewhat open now.

Open, lol. The yellow jersey hasn't changed once in the last two weeks of a Tdf since 2011. A period where we went from 100 km of ITT in 2012 to 10 km last year. No difference at all.

This year's Tour is still more open than 2012 which was the point. At least Quintana has a little chance of winning

 

[kwikki]

Does anything beat the borefests that were the Indurain years?

This year doesn't come close, even though it looked over by the end of last week.

 

[PremierAndrew]

We dont live in those glory days anymore tho. Its super good on paper, but had they included a 60-70 flat ITT, this race would have been over now and it would have been 2012 all over again. We live in a different era - the era of Sky. They can neutralise all attack with their extremely potent doms. At least its somewhat open now.

Open, lol. The yellow jersey hasn't changed once in the last two weeks of a Tdf since 2011. A period where we went from 100 km of ITT in 2012 to 10 km last year. No difference at all.

This year's Tour is still more open than 2012 which was the point. At least Quintana has a little chance of winning

There was more chance of Froome attacking Wiggins and Wiggins bonking in 2012 than there is this year of Quintana taking 3 minutes on Froome, who genuinely seems to be peaking in week 3 and Rio

 

[Gigs_98]

Long TT's can be good and often lead to interesting racing but it's always a little bit risky. Of course it's more unlikely to see long range attacks if the time gaps are small but an open but conservative race is still better than 2012 since you at least don't know the winner. The tdf 2011 and the giro this year were both very open and boring for a long time but as soon as the time gaps did open up the race became great. 2012 is of course another extreme example how lots of TT'ing can go wrong and actually races like the giro 2015 are a good example too. The race was extremely close before the TT and those 2 weeks were probably the best first two weeks of a gt I have ever seen. Thanks to some factors like Contador's mechanical, Landa's crash and then Contador fading the race was still interesting in the last week but otherwise it would have been completely over after 14 stages.
Now let's look at this year. If there had been another long TT the riders would still have more or less the same positions in the gc, but Froome would already be 4 or 5 minutes in front and the riders who only ride for podium and don't really care for the win have another reason why they shouldn't attack. The problem is mainly that teams like Sky can completely dominate the race and since Contador has crashed out, Nibali isn't riding for gc and Aru (who isn't as good as the other ones but usually attacks a lot) is in bad shape there is only one rider left who wants to try to demolish the sky train, and I guarantee if Quintana would attack, OBE, Trek and BMC would be the first team to chase him.

To come back to the topic I have to say though that this tour could still be worse. If Froome hadn't attacked on a descent and in the cross winds and had the Ventoux incident not happened we would have even less to talk about and at least those three stages won't be forgotten very soon. Moreover there is still one week to come and tours like 2011 also count as good editions although nothing happened in the first two weeks. The worst gt I have ever watched was the giro 2012 although thats probably only because I watched hardly any stages of the tdf that year and Eurosport only showed about the last 5 kilometers of the Stelvio stage because of Handball

 

[carton]

Re: Re:

*To give every lightweight climber not named Christopher a chance*

I think that is at the heart of the problem. Lightweight climbers generally do not make exciting racers (there are exception of course, like Pantani, but they are few and far between). They generally can't gain time on anything other than high mountain stages, and even then they can't go on gentle gradients or too early, because they suffer more in the wind than heavier, more powerful riders. So you get them just waiting for the hardest one or two stages in the race, or trying to snatch a few seconds in the last 3km.

Look at how much better the Vuelta was last year, with Dumoulin hanging around, forcing the climbers to go from further out and having to try to take time in more unorthodox ways. There was significant GC action on about 60% of stages.

I kind of agree with you, but again, I think it has to do with the riders as much as the parcours. Dumoulin took a minute off Froome two days' ago even though he was much fresher. Dennis, Cancellara and Martin did nothing of note. Maybe on a pan-flat 60km ITTs things might change, but I doubt he'd fare much better than Wiggins when he took 1'16" of his teammate over 53km in Chartres. And that would be generous, He got pipped by 12" by Martin at Mont St. Michel when he wasn't on domestique duty. Maybe if you put in two 90's-style 60km ITT (was it ever that much?) you might give Tommy a chance, but I really doubt it. Not unless Froome is out of the picture. And you couldn't put in a TTT there, Sky would just go out and buy Dennis and Durbridge tomorrow.

On the route I agree with you about lightweight climbers not being that exciting except in certain stages, but as I explained I'm not sure more TTs would make it more competitive as long as the Dawg is in this form. Yep, he might be great on the climbs as well, but as much as Sky has a chokehold on those at the moments time trials are less controlable by their nature. They're also inherently more exciting to see out because of the potential for surprise. I'd advocate ASO putting some TT miles back in, though, after the last two Tours, just to see what happens. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

[SeriousSam]

Re: Re:

In the 2012, Wiggins reached his best ever TT form. He crushed every single important time trial throughout the year, from the week long stage races to the Tour, to the Olympic ITT.

The Tour had a prologue and two long flat time trials. How much time did he gain in total over his domestique Froome? 2 Minutes.

If you want someone to challenge Froome at the Tour, whatever the solution, flat time trial kms isn't it.

 

[Eshnar]

Re: Re:

If you want someone to challenge Froome at the Tour, whatever the solution, flat time trial kms isn't it.

If you just want someone to challenge Froome, putting 8 ITTs and only one mountain stage of the likes of Lac de Payolle does seem the best option actually. I would go as far as to say he would not win such a Tour.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re: Re:

If you want someone to challenge Froome at the Tour, whatever the solution, flat time trial kms isn't it.

If you just want someone to challenge Froome, putting 8 ITTs and only one mountain stage of the likes of Lac de Payolle does seem the best option actually. I would go as far as to say he would not win such a Tour.

How about 21 flat stages with time bonuses?

 

[Eshnar]

Re: Re:

If you want someone to challenge Froome at the Tour, whatever the solution, flat time trial kms isn't it.

If you just want someone to challenge Froome, putting 8 ITTs and only on mountaint stages of the likes of Lac de Payolle does seem the best option actually. I would go as far as to say he would not win such a Tour.

How about 21 flat stages with time bonuses?

That would work as well. 100%.

 

[PremierAndrew]

Re: Re:

If you want someone to challenge Froome at the Tour, whatever the solution, flat time trial kms isn't it.

If you just want someone to challenge Froome, putting 8 ITTs and only one mountain stage of the likes of Lac de Payolle does seem the best option actually. I would go as far as to say he would not win such a Tour.

It would be worryingly close between him and Dumoulin

 

[SeriousSam]

I do wonder how Major Tom would've fared at the time trial if it had been necessary to climb Arcalis 3 minutes quicker and keep up at Mont V.

 

[Fernandez]

Re:

Does anything beat the borefests that were the Indurain years?

This year doesn't come close, even though it looked over by the end of last week.

Indurain years borefest? Maybe its because Im spanish, but I think you dont remember well Induarain years. In those times there were no teams involved, Indurain won his Tours by himself. People use to remember those years like Indurain crushing his rivals in TTs and then defending in the mountains, and it was way more than that. Sure he was a monster in TTs, but Indurain also won them by descending, climbing or even in flat stages. So please, stop that thing of Indurain winning his Tours in TTs because its not true. Indurain was a monster of a complete rider and his team played a minor role in his wins.
And the contenders he had to ride against? Look at the names and then we talk.

 

[SeriousSam]

Yeah, so Indurain was the Sky train all by himself. Crushing the time trials, invulnerable with his massive sustainable power in the flat.

Dominance is always boring. At least Indurain refrained from performing the circus tricks that Lance and Chris were and are fond of.

 

[saganftw]

maybe its just selective memory,but i dont remember indurain years and armstrong years to be as boring as SKY era because when it eventually came to the very best armstrong nor indurain had 3 guys in front of them...even with guys like heras and landis i dont remember them having so much control over how the stage was raced - the results were the same,but the racing was there even tho it was dominated by one man on the paper

funny thing my dad feels the same way

 

[Fernandez]

I dont remember something similar to a Banesto train. But sure I remember Indurain being attacked from everywhere and everytime and him closing the attacks the most of the times. I remember him winning his first Tour descending Tourmalet and cruising a very far attack with Chiapucci. I remember him closing a gap of one minute with Bugno in a single descent. I remember him destroying his rivals many times pacing a monster rythm up the mountains. I remember him fighting the entire peloton in the way of Liege in Tour95. I remember him fighting in an all out fight against Berzin and Pantani in the way of Aprica with the Mortirolo in the middle. I remember many situations that dont carry to say that Indurain years were boring.

 

[bajbar]

The problem is, Froome is a rider without weaknesses. First, the idea of beating him were cobbles. Not any more since 2015. Downhills. Nope. Bad 3rd week - this we are yet to see. Crosswinds - again, he is the best. The best in the TTs (Contador comes close), best in the mountains (not 100% certain, Quintana and Contadro in top shape are equal or better), best team. You cannot create a route that would not suit him. The only weak point is he doesn't like rain and cold weather. But you cannot control the weather and hoping for cold temperatures (at leats a lot of it) in July is... well, unreal.

 

[The Hitch]

For me this will always be the 2012 Giro. No other gt can come close

 

[IndianCyclist]

Entertainment value is not w.r.t what the main favorite does but what the other contenders do. Indurain and Armstrong eras were completely different in that one could go bonkers in a stage and yet be ok the next day. Nowadays it is not feasible. Besides which today's mentality is to wait for weakness of the main favorite becos if one attacks early, it is difficult to recover.