Re:
Considering the chance to crash it is safer. Yes, fans might be a problem, but from what I saw, they were well behaved. Certainly Alpe d'Huez or some other mountains during the Tour are worse. Maybe if it were a Tour prologue, organizers should take better precautions regarding fans.
Unlike in the flat prologues, where half of the peloton is competitive for the win...
And if time limit was applied, maybe some riders would ride harder to actually catch it, although I don't deny it would be hard for them. I do believe some sprinters took it a bit easier, since they have a chance to win today.
And for the end I would like to add they have the option of 34x32 (at least those on Shimano, but I think it is the same for SRAM in Campagnolo), which at the cadence of 60 rpm would make you go 8 km/h, so maybe except for those 2 minutes or whatever it took them to do that steep sections, no way they would be undergeared.
TONY MARTIN
more dangerous
Considering the chance to crash it is safer. Yes, fans might be a problem, but from what I saw, they were well behaved. Certainly Alpe d'Huez or some other mountains during the Tour are worse. Maybe if it were a Tour prologue, organizers should take better precautions regarding fans.
TONY MARTIN
But this course was simply excessive. Some 15 riders would be competitive on this profile and could ride for the win. The rest had to fight to survive. If the 25 percent time limit had been applied, as is usual in a time trial, then the tour would already be over for 30 riders, because they would have finished outside the time limit.
Unlike in the flat prologues, where half of the peloton is competitive for the win...
And if time limit was applied, maybe some riders would ride harder to actually catch it, although I don't deny it would be hard for them. I do believe some sprinters took it a bit easier, since they have a chance to win today.
And for the end I would like to add they have the option of 34x32 (at least those on Shimano, but I think it is the same for SRAM in Campagnolo), which at the cadence of 60 rpm would make you go 8 km/h, so maybe except for those 2 minutes or whatever it took them to do that steep sections, no way they would be undergeared.