"Tour de Bore"

[rhubroma]

I don't know how you calculate the 15 min. But the 2 minutes in 10 km @ 8% isn't just 2 minutes. It's the difference between lead group and also rans. Which changes the riders position in the team. That in itself can make a big difference, as I'm sure you'll agree. Comming from the track as Wiggins it is not surprising that he improves on the road as he focuses more on that. Besides, not all riders are stars from the beginning. Some improve gradually over time. CAS and Mørkøv come to mind as an example of riders who gradually improves season after season.

Well in this era that does indeed seem to be the case. That we don't have champions winning their first Tour anymore (or at least placing high-up on GC), can only come down to PEDS.

It's harder to break through today, it's true, though this only demonstrates how far we have come from "cleaning up" the sport.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

That is because there was lots of TT and little climbing which suits your boy, martin.

This tour has depressed me!

it hasn't been a good tour, but im sure you'd suggest lastyear's tour was great for your own reasons. It was pretty bad also, despite two very good stages it was a pile of garbage actually. This tour has just been a facepalm from the start. Can't remember a tour I have been so uninterested in.

 

[SilentAssassin]

I love enjoying the tour but this is the first time in a long time that I have fast forward the mountain stages.

Contador and Andy will lay the smack down next year and the tour will be great to watch again.

 

[DominicDecoco]

Prologue to Stage 8 made no GC relevance in this year's TDF. After Stage 9 this TDF was over. Somehow I found much more excitement in this year's Giro. At least organizers cared about well designed mountain stages, not collecting money from towns in valleys and Pau...

5 riders looking at eachother up a 15 km long mountain is just as depressing as what we've witnessing in the last week of the Tour - Close GC or not.

 

[McLovin]

By the way Prudhomme doesn't design stages. Peschaux is the chief route designer, not Prudhomme

You're right.
http://www.bicycling.com/tour-de-france/tour-features/final-word-tour

"When he is not at the races, he is making them, visiting the sites of each stage and building them from start to finish. “It took me three days for this year’s stage to Boulogne-sur-Mer,” Pescheux says. “I drove every inch of the course with maps. I examined every turn and every climb. And then I put the whole thing together.”

Nice job. Too bad for his tastes.

 

[Escarabajo]

By the way Prudhomme doesn't design stages. Peschaux is the chief route designer, not Prudhomme

LOL.

So I have people under by supervision and whatever they send to the clients I don't approve. They can just do whatever they please. They can draw monkeys for all I know and it is OK because I don't see it.

 

[Ferminal]

The Tour woke up, racing for the first time since..?

 

[Dutchsmurf]

The Tour woke up, racing for the first time since..?

Alpe d'Huez last year?

 

[McLovin]

The Tour woke up, racing for the first time since..?

Great. Looking forward for the mountains!!!!!

 

[Magnus]

The Tour woke up, racing for the first time since..?

The first 30 and the last 5 km of the stage yesterday?

 

[Ferminal]

The first 30 and the last 5 km of the stage yesterday?

Stage 6...

 

[roundabout]

I must have watched a different last 5km yesterday

 

[Magnus]

Stage 6...

Stage 6?

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

The course designs are very, very conservative. Pescheux takes zero chances at all, and doesn't risk anything that would make the race different than what we've seen now for some time.

The most boring Tour to me was 2005, though 2004 and 1994 come close. This year is almost as uninteresting, but not quite.

 

[Magnus]

The course designs are very, very conservative. Pescheux takes zero chances at all, and doesn't risk anything that would make the race different than what we've seen now for some time.

Besides mountain stages before the first weekend I think the routes have been pretty varied lately.

The most boring Tour to me was 2005, though 2004 and 1994 come close. This year is almost as uninteresting, but not quite.

I think '94 was pretty cool with Indurains raid on Hautacam, brake through by Virenque and Pantani, Poli on Ventoux (and as a Dane three danish stage victories makes it a bit special too). Of course Rominger not living up to the promise of '93 was disappointing. Of course a route like '94 would make for an unheard of amount of moaning about the number of sprint stages in the first half of the race.
Agreed on '04 and '05.

 

[BillytheKid]

I don't by it. Some very good stages. The TdF will always have a different flavour than the other GTs. Armchairs cyclists.

Great final today. Just Great.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Besides mountain stages before the first weekend I think the routes have been pretty varied lately.

We'll call it a gentleman's disagreement. Compared to Giro's or Vuelta's of late, I find most Tour courses similar from year to year. What seems to change most are towns, scenery. I guess that's different. A more refreshing change would be to go back to years like 1986, 1979, 1976. I do not advocate going back to olden days of 300km stages over dirt passes.

I think '94 was pretty cool with Indurains raid on Hautacam.

That was impressive. Though LeBlanc was there too and won the stage, that was one of the few times we saw Mig go for it and push it hard in the mountains. Rominger crashed on something like stage 5, and was never the same after that. Mig's wins in 92, 94 and 95 were rather dull dominance, and those were years when everyone was charged to the gills. But he was a class rider and humble champion. Can't say the same about the winner in '04 and '05. Worst Tours in memory.

 

[Magnus]

We'll call it a gentleman's disagreement. Compared to Giro's or Vuelta's of late, I find most Tour courses similar from year to year. What seems to change most are towns, scenery. I guess that's different. A more refreshing change would be to go back to years like 1986, 1979, 1976. I do not advocate going back to olden days of 300km stages over dirt passes.

It would be cool to see Granon and Puy de Dôme again (though I don't think the latter is going to happen due to nature reservation).
The 177 km of ttt and 165 km of itt in the '79 tour makes you think twice if this years TdF was ideal for Team Sky.

What i like about the last 5 years TdF routes is the use of Vosges/Jura/Massif central and the variation and placing of tt/ttt's, altering prologue/short tt/road stage as first day, occasional mountain stage in the last day, occasional cobbles. But of course there haven't been a 10 times mtf stages TdF.

 

[SilentAssassin]

Down hill finishes...they must eliminate down hill finishes.

 

[markjohnconley]

TTT, i may be the sole voice but I missed it badly, a great spectacle!

 

[Magnus]

Down hill finishes...they must eliminate down hill finishes.

Why?
The Gap and Pinerolo stages last year was awesome.

 

[thehog]

Why?
The Gap and Pinerolo stages last year was awesome.

Tight, technical and no longer than 5kms. Perfect.

 

[Ferminal]

Why?
The Gap and Pinerolo stages last year was awesome.

Yep, I guess Amaury's tendency to have 30km flat/false flat after climbs gives descent finishes a bad name.

 

[auscyclefan94]

It is continuing.

 

[doperhopper]

Down hill finishes...they must eliminate down hill finishes.

or choose long technical downhill and put soap water and oil on it... that may help Nibs-like descenders