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Tony Martin cries About the DL Prologue

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Re: Re:

Gigs_98 said:
Valv.Piti said:
hrotha said:
This prologue is perfectly fine by itself, but it does come against the backdrop of the constant reduction of time-trialing stages and kilometers, which I imagine is the real problem.

Exactly. 2 years in a row the Dauphine has skipped the flat ITT, not even a prologue? Its preposterous, it really is and considering every ITT either gets shortened, abandoned or made hilly, its a real problem as it is now. Just put a 30 km ITT in and everything is fine.
But Martin didnt complain about the lack of flat ITT's but about the fact that there is an uphill prologue. And if he complains about a problem which indeed exists by complaining about something completely different, it makes the whole comment even more stupid.

Basically what hrotha said - I think its a comment to the trend, not necessarily the ITT in itself. And I can understand it, I really can.
 
Re: Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
Valv.Piti said:
hrotha said:
This prologue is perfectly fine by itself, but it does come against the backdrop of the constant reduction of time-trialing stages and kilometers, which I imagine is the real problem.

Exactly. 2 years in a row the Dauphine has skipped the flat ITT, not even a prologue? Its preposterous, it really is and considering every ITT either gets shortened, abandoned or made hilly, its a real problem as it is now. Just put a 30 km ITT in and everything is fine.
Since ASO bought it out, the Dauphiné is just a Tour recce with UCI points. Hell, for a period, they were even making it exclusively that, such as in 2011-2 when they had carbon copies of Tour stages in there. So as long as the Tour is marginalizing the CLM, the Dauphiné will be too, and, like in 2012, when the Tour favours a time triallist, the Dauphiné will too.

ASO buying the Dauphiné has really harmed it as an independent spectacle I think, because now it's highly contingent on the Tour. It's always been a preparation race, but now it's thrown out any pretence to be anything more than a tune-up.

Good points!

I think Thibaut is the answer. If he has a good Tour, gets a 4th and smashes the ITT (top-3), the French will think to themselves that he actually has a real shot at Maillot Jaune and hopefully tune the route after that. He is better than the rider from his generation at that; Quintana, Aru, Majka, Chaves, Landa etc.

But its just speculating like a mad man. Who knows.
 
Re: Re:

Valv.Piti said:
Gigs_98 said:
Valv.Piti said:
hrotha said:
This prologue is perfectly fine by itself, but it does come against the backdrop of the constant reduction of time-trialing stages and kilometers, which I imagine is the real problem.

Exactly. 2 years in a row the Dauphine has skipped the flat ITT, not even a prologue? Its preposterous, it really is and considering every ITT either gets shortened, abandoned or made hilly, its a real problem as it is now. Just put a 30 km ITT in and everything is fine.
But Martin didnt complain about the lack of flat ITT's but about the fact that there is an uphill prologue. And if he complains about a problem which indeed exists by complaining about something completely different, it makes the whole comment even more stupid.

Basically what hrotha said - I think its a comment to the trend, not necessarily the ITT in itself. And I can understand it, I really can.

The comment was clearly directed at the prologue itself. If not this one then uphill prologues in general, and those are not a trend. If he was desperately waiting for an excuse to criticize the lack of TT mileage then he really took the wrong opportunity as nothing about today has anything to do with that.
 
Aug 31, 2012
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Re:

TMP402 said:
I want Echoes to weigh in.

Why are people even talking about the Dauphine, a stage race, so soon after Paris Roubaix? Fans these days. Back in the old days, we would talk about PR all year, letting only flat time trials interrupt that conversation
 
Re: Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
Valv.Piti said:
hrotha said:
This prologue is perfectly fine by itself, but it does come against the backdrop of the constant reduction of time-trialing stages and kilometers, which I imagine is the real problem.

Exactly. 2 years in a row the Dauphine has skipped the flat ITT, not even a prologue? Its preposterous, it really is and considering every ITT either gets shortened, abandoned or made hilly, its a real problem as it is now. Just put a 30 km ITT in and everything is fine.
Since ASO bought it out, the Dauphiné is just a Tour recce with UCI points. Hell, for a period, they were even making it exclusively that, such as in 2011-2 when they had carbon copies of Tour stages in there. So as long as the Tour is marginalizing the CLM, the Dauphiné will be too, and, like in 2012, when the Tour favours a time triallist, the Dauphiné will too.

ASO buying the Dauphiné has really harmed it as an independent spectacle I think, because now it's highly contingent on the Tour. It's always been a preparation race, but now it's thrown out any pretence to be anything more than a tune-up.

There was a near copy of the Toussuire Tour stage in 2006
 
Feb 6, 2016
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Re: Re:

SeriousSam said:
TMP402 said:
I want Echoes to weigh in.

Why are people even talking about the Dauphine, a stage race, so soon after Paris Roubaix? Fans these days. Back in the old days, we would talk about PR all year, letting only flat time trials interrupt that conversation

Not the Bore de France time trials, though, which are a pale imitation of Paris-Roubaix; it is a disrespect bordering on sacrilege to have a flat race which does not include the Arenberg Forest. We might talk about the GP Eddy Merckx, but only if it was won by a suitably obscure Belgian ex-cyclocross semi-pro who might come 127th in Paris-Roubaix.
 
I thought it was a fun prologue. But even more than the whole lack of flat time trialing, which I think is another issue, Tony had a point about the 10kph thing. The last km of that climb was over 15%. I haven't seen the splits, but it possibly would've been faster for many of the guys to shoulder the bike and run. I enjoy steep climbs as much as the next guy, but there is a point over which it gets stoopid steep, IMHO. I don't know exactly what that point is, but I have a feeling we're inching closer to it.
 
Jun 5, 2016
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The pendulum of cycling swings back and forth. 15 years ago everyone was a fan of long time trials and grindy mountains. Now it's all about mountain time trials and supersteep climbs. In 15 years' time we'll be having long time trials and grindy mountains again, and we'll all be ranting about how boring cycling used to be in 2016.

The average cycling fan has the memory of a goldfish.
 
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Homo Helveticus said:
The pendulum of cycling swings back and forth. 15 years ago everyone was a fan of long time trials and grindy mountains. Now it's all about mountain time trials and supersteep climbs. In 15 years' time we'll be having long time trials and grindy mountains again, and we'll all be ranting about how boring cycling used to be in 2016.

The average cycling fan has the memory of a goldfish.

What's CLM again?
 
Re:

Homo Helveticus said:
The pendulum of cycling swings back and forth. 15 years ago everyone was a fan of long time trials and grindy mountains. Now it's all about mountain time trials and supersteep climbs. In 15 years' time we'll be having long time trials and grindy mountains again, and we'll all be ranting about how boring cycling used to be in 2016.

The average cycling fan has the memory of a goldfish.

I thought people whined about how much better it was "Back in the good old days!" and how boring it has become.
 
Jun 16, 2014
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QUESTIONABLE PROLOGUE
160605_dauphpro
Steeper, more spectacular, more dangerous. The prologue today in the Dauphine was over the limit, in my view, for both the riders and the fans. And to get this issue out of the way directly: this has nothing to do with my always wanting to win. It is clear to me that I won’t be in the mix to win a mountain time trial. But it doesn’t always have to be a totally flat 8 kilometer course. I am open to innovation and new ways to make our sport more attractive to the fans.

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. And that with 3.9 kilometers. Of course we are pros and somehow we climb “every” mountain. But we do it with aggression, dynamic, speed, aesthetic, none of which came into play today. The winner, Alberto Contador, had a 20 average. The average gradient was 10 percent, but at times it was up to 20.

I think that it was not just unattractive for the fans to see how the riders forced themselves along, but the results were also not beneficial for suspense in the race’s results. There are already large time gaps and an preliminary decision has already been made.

That is my personal opinion. There are others. The climbers surely see it differently. I just feel that here must be a balance in the battle for more spectacle for the fans. We definitely did not have that today.

This is what Tony had to say on it on his website (http://www.tonymartin.de/en/)

Not a very good argument if you ask me. The argument about this MTT not being aesthetically pleasing is a bit odd: surely it is not much different from what we see on a regular mountain stage? Contador's style is still great, Froome's is just as ugly.

And as to the time gaps, this does set the race up for some nice early attacks, so it might even result in more action rather than deciding the GC in advance.
 
Ofcourse if they did this every time it would be nonsense, but it's a one time thingy and I also hope they keep using diversity.
Imo there are too few long flat TT's lately. They pretty much always add some climbs, which isn't always neccesary.
 
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Re: Re:

RedheadDane said:
Homo Helveticus said:
The pendulum of cycling swings back and forth. 15 years ago everyone was a fan of long time trials and grindy mountains. Now it's all about mountain time trials and supersteep climbs. In 15 years' time we'll be having long time trials and grindy mountains again, and we'll all be ranting about how boring cycling used to be in 2016.

The average cycling fan has the memory of a goldfish.

I thought people whined about how much better it was "Back in the good old days!" and how boring it has become.
Perhaps with races organized by Zomegnan, but with every other race everyone goes crazy every time they add a new mountain. Climbs are exciting but if we continue like this there'll be no race left in the calendar with as much as 100 m of flat. Of course I'm exaggerating but I'm sure you see what I mean.
 

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