"Tour de Bore"

[Dekker_Tifosi]

We had the same this year, only minus the long range attack of ASchleck.

BUT we had racing in the mountains, while last year there was NONE in the THREE Pyrenees stages last year.

I don´t get how anyone can rate last years tour higher, especially if we just remind all ourselves annoyance in the Schleck depreciation thread.

exactly, last year had maybe 2 stages of excitement. This year a lot more racing

 

[roundabout]

I suggest a 6km prologue and 20 flat stages. Then there will be racing every day.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

exactly, last year had maybe 2 stages of excitement. This year a lot more racing

At least one who shares my point of view.

Exactly: There was the Schleck stage and the Rolland stage. That´s it. Ahh, and we had EBH winning a high mountain stage.

I don´t see any evidence that last year was at least better by an inch.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

I suggest a 6km prologue and 20 flat stages. Then there will be racing every day....

.... and tiny time gaps.

 

[roundabout]

At least one who shares my point of view.

Exactly: There was the Schleck stage and the Rolland stage. That´s it. Ahh, and we had EBH winning a high mountain stage.

I don´t see any evidence that last year was at least better by an inch.

And this year?

A ride on the Sky train in the Vosges. Good last 15 km on the stage to Porrentruy. Almost nothing on the climbs on stage 10. Evans dangling within sight of Rogers on the Glandon and a short burst of action on the last climb. Nothing on the "wall" of Peguere. No increase of tempo until Aspin and 1 attack on the Peyresourde. And a boring stage the next day until about the last km of the Peyresourde.

There weren't any really bad stages, but despite a certain selection produced they weren't really exciting for long periods of time like the 2 Alps stages of 2011.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

And this year?

A ride on the Sky train in the Vosges. Good last 15 km on the stage to Porrentruy. Almost nothing on the climbs on stage 10. Evans dangling within sight of Rogers on the Glandon and a short burst of action on the last climb. Nothing on the "wall" of Peguere. No increase of tempo until Aspin and 1 attack on the Peyresourde. And a boring stage the next day until about the last km of the Peyresourde.

There weren't any really bad stages, but despite a certain selection produced they weren't really exciting for long periods of time like the 2 Alps stages of 2011.

Wouldn´t say you are wrong, but at this TdF i hadn´t the feeling i had at the TdF 2011 & Giro 2012: To throw my TV out of the window b/c of annoyance. The worst stage being the "strike" on stage 16 of the Giro. Thanks god JRod lost the Giro there. The profile would have suited him to gain the 16 seconds...

Since i didn´t expect much of this TdF (too less MTF, best riders not there, bad route design), it´s a positive surprise.

Better have "average" stages (like this TdF) at the mountains than no racing at all...

 

[luckyboy]

From what I remember of the Giro it was a lot more interesting than this Tour, last year's Tour was too.

This race was over before the first rest day. Aside from the final few km of La Toussuire and Nibali's couple of attacks on the Peyresourde the mountains were abject GC-wise. Well, the whole race was. There was no GC battle at all.

There were other good moments, breakaway battles and so on, but there are at every Grand Tour.

This Tour has had me questioning why Grand Tours need to be this long, something I would've called heresy not long ago. Seriously, parts of it have been interminable. Three days can be just chopped out without anyone noticing, or at least shift a few sprint stages about so it doesn't seem so obvious.

I don't really have any ideas about how to improve routes at this time of the morning but this was ridiculously lop-sided. If the Vuelta had another 25-30km flat TT and swapped 2 MTFs for downhills then that would be a well-balanced race. Still, it looks a lot more promising in terms of parcours than the two GTs so far. Interesting first week stages woo!

Libertine's posts have been pretty much spot on. Somebody posted about how we might end up with a peloton of Leipheimers with everyone just staring at their SRM and everyone just riding up climbs at threshold with no attacks. Had that thought earlier today. Power meters have to go during races.

 

[Mshengu]

Maybe the riders have contributed to the lack of excitement. It was only the most desperate riders that attacked in this tour to win stages, non of the favorites except Nibali tried. Last year was way too exciting than this year. We will forget this tour like that of Carlos Sastre

 

[auscyclefan94]

I think it is a combination of:
-Sky being so dominant.
-Other teams being far weaker that those team's leaders couldn't then attack Wiggins without being chased down by Sky.
-Prudhomme's poor route which brought nothing.
-Many favourites being off form and/or knocked out because of crashes.
-Wiggins being very strong this year.
-Some riders not willing to take a chance.

 

[woodburn]

One reason for Wiggins to able to climb well was that there were very few proper mountain stages. There were only 3 MTF and only one of it was a Hors category climb. Another MTF would have resulted in a more closer and more exciting race, without the foregone conclusion after the 1st ITT with perhaps Wiggins winning by a lesser margin.

I don't believe that. Harder mountain stages would have made for bigger time gaps for Froome and Wiggins.

What makes you think the others could have hanged with Sky in tougher stages when they couldn't hang in easier stages?

This says more about the talent of the climbing specialists than anything. With no Contador or Schleck and the crashes, there was not enough class to properly attack and succeed.

 

[movingtarget]

I don't believe that. Harder mountain stages would have made for bigger time gaps for Froome and Wiggins.

What makes you think the others could have hanged with Sky in tougher stages when they couldn't hang in easier stages?

This says more about the talent of the climbing specialists than anything. With no Contador or Schleck and the crashes, there was not enough class to properly attack and succeed.

Late attacks just played into Sky's hands. They rode each stage like a team time trial using up riders as they went. They were the best team and had the best time trial riders. It was perfect for Wiggin's strengths. Next year is supposedly a very different route and those tactics probably won't work. If Wiggins can conserve his losses in the mountains he will pick up big time again in the TT if he can reproduce this kind of form. Hopefully everyone is fit and well next year for what should be a much more exciting race.

 

[Boeing]

maybe they should nationalize teams

 

[BroDeal]

maybe they should nationalize teams

Hasn't that pretty much already happened?

We have Team Britain, Team Australia, Team Russia, Team Luxembourg, Team Columbia, and Team Germany (also known as Jens Voigt). The Canadians are trying to get Spidertech to the World Tour level.

The other trade teams have strong biases to hire mostly riders from the countries they are based in. For all intents and purposes Garmin is Team America. Movistar is team Spain. The French have spread their talent across too many crappy teams. The Belgians have their teams, and the Italians have theirs.

BMC is one of the few teams that has a truly international makeup. RSNT could be considered as well, but the team was set up for the Shreks. Saxo could be another one.

 

[the asian]

You see. While this year, there was racing with the start of the first mountain stage.

And if you (like many others) decide excitement on time gaps, then well... the Giro 2012 must have been one of the best ever, while all those great GT´s of the 80´s must have been crap.

You can´t have GT´s decided by seconds all the time, unless you cut every stage to 100 km and flat. I hope nobody wants that (at least those who remember the greaties 80s)...

The 2011 Tour will be remembered for the stage to Galibier & the stage to stage to Alpe'd Huez. The 2012 Giro will be remembered for De Gendt's ride up to Stelvio.
The 2012 Tour will be remembered for sky dominance & Wiggins smashing ITT.
There weren't any memorable road stages.
I don't decide excitement purely on time gaps, but a race where the result is a foregone conclusion after the 1st week brings no excitement.

 

[cprior]

Power meters have to go during races.

^^^ This !

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

The 2011 Tour will be remembered for the stage to Galibier & the stage to stage to Alpe'd Huez. The 2012 Giro will be remembered for De Gendt's ride up to Stelvio.
The 2012 Tour will be remembered for sky dominance & Wiggins smashing ITT.
There weren't any memorable road stages.
I don't decide excitement purely on time gaps, but a race where the result is a foregone conclusion after the 1st week brings no excitement.

Everybody has his opinions. I just hope the new age guys (i don´t mean that insulting, you just don´t know better) are a minority & organizers won´t listen to them. Otherwise we soon have Tour of Polands at the TdF. There you have everything: Tiny time gaps, undecided GCs until the final km, "exciting" racing.

I guess for you all the GT´s pre 1989 were crap, since they were decided by many minutes... Omg, what has pro cycling become?...

As Dekker said: Last years tour had exactly two stages. Funny it´s those which you mentioned. If no Giro 2012, then the 2011 tour would be easily the worst ever GT. I don´t have a short memory (as some others seem to have): The Schleck thread was full of despising posts about the non racing that happened during 2 1/2 weeks in 2011.

And the Giro 2012 had non attacking stages until estm. 1.000 meters from the finish line + one stage which could have made an impact on GC were riders basically went on strike. And, again funny here, your post just shows the lone exciting stage of 2012. You are cherry picking.

Here are the good (but surely not epic; i give you that point because you are right here) stages of 2012: 7, 8, 9 (yes people still mentioned Canc & Martin, so no boring TT like in the Armstrong-Days), 11, 16, and 17. That´s six stages. Double as much as Tdf-11 & Giro-12 combined...

Decided after Week 1? Deep in week two there was a poll here saying 70% that Froome will win (ok, actually i am honest i voted easily for Wiggins), well even Rijs thought that. Anyway, if the tour was decided after week one, how comes the poll didn´t say 100% Wiggins?

Seems you didn´t see & followed the stories of this tour...

 

[the asian]

Everybody has his opinions. I just hope the new age guys (i don´t mean that insulting, you just don´t know better) are a minority & organizers won´t listen to them. Otherwise we soon have Tour of Polands at the TdF. There you have everything: Tiny time gaps, undecided GCs until the final km, "exciting" racing.

I guess for you all the GT´s pre 1989 were crap, since they were decided by many minutes... Omg, what has pro cycling become?...



As Dekker said: Last years tour had exactly two stages. Funny it´s those which you mentioned. If no Giro 2012, then the 2011 tour would be easily the worst ever GT. I don´t have a short memory (as some others seem to have): The Schleck thread was full of despising posts about the non racing that happened during 2 1/2 weeks in 2011.

And the Giro 2012 had non attacking stages until estm. 1.000 meters from the finish line + one stage which could have made an impact on GC were riders basically went on strike. And, again funny here, your post just shows the lone exciting stage of 2012. You are cherry picking.

Here are the good (but surely not epic; i give you that point because you are right here) stages of 2012: 7, 8, 9 (yes people still mentioned Canc & Martin, so no boring TT like in the Armstrong-Days), 11, 16, and 17. That´s six stages. Double as much as Tdf-11 & Giro-12 combined...

Decided after Week 1? Deep in week two there was a poll here saying 70% that Froome will win (ok, actually i am honest i voted easily for Wiggins), well even Rijs thought that. Anyway, if the tour was decided after week one, how comes the poll didn´t say 100% Wiggins?

Seems you didn´t see & followed the stories of this tour...

Those days the main GC guys attacked. After 1990, most of the good TTers who become team leaders haven't attacked much. Indurain, Cadel, now Wiggins never attacked, either because they didn't need to because of their superior TT skills or because they were incapable. Even Alberto didn't attack too much in 2010, because he knew he would beat Schleck in TT. Armstrong usually chose one stage to attack, to show off.
A course with 100 Km TT and not enough mountain stages and MTFs only results in conservative racing with not much attacking.
If you want to call this years' tour an exciting race with plenty of attacks that kept you on the edge of your seat, that's your opinion and it's fine by you but I wish to politely disagree.

On the comments, and polls people may have been hoping for a Froome victory, but it was never realistic with Wiggins been the team leader.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Those days the main GC guys attacked. After 1990, most of the good TTers who become team leaders haven't attacked much. Indurain, Cadel, now Wiggins never attacked, either because they didn't need to because of their superior TT skills or because they were incapable. Even Alberto didn't attack too much in 2010, because he knew he would beat Schleck in TT. Armstrong usually chose one stage to attack, to show off.
A course with 100 Km TT and not enough mountain stages and MTFs only results in conservative racing with not much attacking.
If you want to call this years' tour an exciting race with plenty of attacks that kept you on the edge of your seat, that's your opinion and it's fine by you but I wish to politely disagree.

On the comments, and polls people may have been hoping for a Froome victory, but it was never realistic with Wiggins been the team leader.

There you have it. Evans was boring, so was the Schlecks (besides that one desperate stage). Now enter Froome and Pinot, VDB & Nibali. A whole different story. It wasn´t like i exploded out of my seat, but at least there was racing this year. A total different story than the cowardly backward racing by Schlecks last year, and much more than expected b/c you are right here: too much TT´s compared to MTF´s and mountain stages in general.

Even if it was never realistic, and hope played a role in the poll: 70% + Rijs didn´t ground their opinion on hope solely. I don´t buy that. And even if, for 70% of people, the tour wasn´t decided after week one, as you said.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

A course with 100 Km TT and not enough mountain stages and MTFs only results in conservative racing with not much attacking.

If you take the 2011 Giro as having less TTing and more MTFs (I think that is the case) I would argue the race was never really that animated, as has been mentioned, until the last few KMs. There is always going to be a balance between the course and how the riders choose to race on it. WT points, pressure from sponsors and the ability to sign (better) contracts may all play a part (as well as Clinic considerations) for a more conservative race.

 

[the asian]

If you take the 2011 Giro as having less TTing and more MTFs (I think that is the case) I would argue the race was never really that animated, as has been mentioned, until the last few KMs. There is always going to be a balance between the course and how the riders choose to race on it. WT points, pressure from sponsors and the ability to sign (better) contracts may all play a part (as well as Clinic considerations) for a more conservative race.

You mean the 2012 Giro?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

In terms of the racing of individual stages, the 2012 Tour was better than 2011. The 2011 Tour had precisely two memorable stages. But here's the kicker - in a decade's time, two exciting stages and nineteen crappy ones will make it more fondly remembered than a bunch of average stages.

The other thing was, unlike the 2011 Giro, which at least had Zoncolan and that phenomenal stage to Rifugio Gardeccia, there wasn't anything spectacular within the dominance; it was just calculated, efficient dominance. Bob Stapleton style - no panache or excitement allowed, because that might cause unpredictability. The only person who could have done anything about it was Froome, who had his wings clipped. Nobody believed they could contest Sky for it. In 2009, we had one of the worst Tours of all time... in week 2 we were reduced to feigning excitement as Pellizotti outsprinted Egoi Martínez at the top of category 2 climbs. But even then, you had an interesting battle for the maillot vert going on.

This year, Fabian Cancellara held the maillot jaune unopposed for a week, until the first climbing stage, whereupon Bradley Wiggins took it, and held it almost unopposed for the rest of the race. Peter Sagan took the maillot vert on stage 2, built up a bit of a lead in week 1 and held it almost unopposed for the rest of the race. Tejay van Garderen took the maillot blanc on the prologue, held it unopposed for a week, lost it on Planche des Belles Filles, took it back in the TT then held it unopposed for two weeks.

The mountains jersey has literally been the only fight in the second half of the race.

 

[the asian]

In terms of the racing of individual stages, the 2012 Tour was better than 2011. The 2011 Tour had precisely two memorable stages. But here's the kicker - in a decade's time, two exciting stages and nineteen crappy ones will make it more fondly remembered than a bunch of average stages.

The other thing was, unlike the 2011 Giro, which at least had Zoncolan and that phenomenal stage to Rifugio Gardeccia, there wasn't anything spectacular within the dominance; it was just calculated, efficient dominance. Bob Stapleton style - no panache or excitement allowed, because that might cause unpredictability. The only person who could have done anything about it was Froome, who had his wings clipped. Nobody believed they could contest Sky for it. In 2009, we had one of the worst Tours of all time... in week 2 we were reduced to feigning excitement as Pellizotti outsprinted Egoi Martínez at the top of category 2 climbs. But even then, you had an interesting battle for the maillot vert going on.

This year, Fabian Cancellara held the maillot jaune unopposed for a week, until the first climbing stage, whereupon Bradley Wiggins took it, and held it almost unopposed for the rest of the race. Peter Sagan took the maillot vert on stage 2, built up a bit of a lead in week 1 and held it almost unopposed for the rest of the race. Tejay van Garderen took the maillot blanc on the prologue, held it unopposed for a week, lost it on Planche des Belles Filles, took it back in the TT then held it unopposed for two weeks.

The mountains jersey has literally been the only fight in the second half of the race.

Pretty much sums it up all!

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

You mean the 2012 Giro?

Aarrrh. I got my Giros mixed up on another thread as well... Yes, you are quite correct.

 

[the asian]

Aarrrh. I got my Giros mixed up on another thread as well... Yes, you are quite correct.

It wasn't much animated, and it was a boring Giro compared to 2011 & 2010, but at least we had one memorable stage, and a close GC battle.
This Tour we neither had any memorable stages, nor a close GC battle.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

a.) In terms of the racing of individual stages, the 2012 Tour was better than 2011.

b.) The 2011 Tour had precisely two memorable stages. But here's the kicker - in a decade's time, two exciting stages and nineteen crappy ones will make it more fondly remembered than a bunch of average stages.

a.) Agree 100%.

b.) Disagree. At least me, i´ll always remember the wasted time of watching the pyrenees stages of 2011. The two last mountain stages can never ever wash that farce away. And if i look further at things, it might have been great that AC and AS didn´t show up this year. Otherwise we might had to witness the 4th year in a row when they look hard at each other. What a mess it always was in retrospective.