"Tour de Bore"

[l.Harm]

I couldn't understand why Greenedge didn't ride yesterday, anyone know? Sky brought the gap down to 5 mins or so, Lotto did a little bit, Greenedge not interested.. I mean, what are they here for?

Well, let their whole team work and got beaten once again?

 

[gingerwallaceafro]

Well, let their whole team work and got beaten once again?

Why not go home instead then?

 

[Old&slow]

So would Contador and Schleck have livened this up? Or would Conty be putting time into Sky on the mountains and time into Schleck in the TTs for an easy overall win, thereby causing everyone to be moaning about that instead? ie Sky assembled a really good team for the mountains but even that wasnt good enough when Bertie is around?

I don't think either would have been factors in this race. Schleck would lose 10 minutes in the two ITTs. The first third of the 1st ITT was more suited to Cont similar to the last one in 09 so likely he would have only lost a minute but he likely would lose 2-3 minutes on stage 19. The only stages he would have stood a chance on gaining would have been 11 and 17. Seven as well but I doubt he could have done much on that climb until the steep part at 500km so it would been a few seconds at best. But given his lack of awareness and poor attention span he certainly would have been involved in the stage 6 crash along with a few others and lost 10+ minutes. This year is unlike 2008 where he likely would have won if not excluded but rather this Tour is simply not one that would play to either riders strengths.

 

[Eric8-A]

There are some non British cycling fans out there too. And the stage was won by one of the top sprinters in the world, Andre Greipel. It's not ASO's fault that Cav can't get over a hill. Greipel has already won 3 stages, that's enough for a pure sprinter. Other fans don't want Cav to win 7 stages every edition.

And prior to the Tour, they were saying he slimmed down to climb better

 

[thehog]

You know it's a boring Tour when the coverage no longer shows the yellow jersey group.

 

[webbie146]

You know it's a boring Tour when the coverage no longer shows the yellow jersey group.

^this. What the hell was up with that? They barely showed any descending by Nibali/Wiggo..

 

[Bala Verde]

A french guy was winning...

predictable coverage

 

[webbie146]

A french guy was winning...

predictable coverage

Yea they showed about 5 minutes of Voeckler waving his arms up in the air... **** coverage
Finally some action and I can't even see it..

 

[thehog]

^this. What the hell was up with that? They barely showed any descending by Nibali/Wiggo..

I know. I think even the cameramen went to sleep.

 

[Hawkwood]

A French rider who is a public favourite, winning a stage in the French national tour, and people are surprised that the French production team who edit the footage focus on him? This reminds me of footage of Virenque some years ago when you might have been excused for thinking that the Tour was a one man time trial.

 

[Frosty]

^this. What the hell was up with that? They barely showed any descending by Nibali/Wiggo..

Disappointing but at the same time they all arrived together. May well have been a high speed chase but it would be more of a scandal if they had arrived a minute apart.

 

[broken chain]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ(Huh?,sorry I nodded off)

 

[Marco Pantani]

Congrats to Prudhomme for creating the worst ever Tour, at least in my memory. Ridiculous parcous, ridiculous Team Sky, embarrassing winner.

 

[rhubroma]

I think it's fair to say, after what we all witnessed, that this year's Tour was disigned for Sky to win, and specifically for Wiggins to win, given the London Olympics and the publicity Sky would do for cycling and all.

It's not sincere, but then again we've become accustomed to watching pro cycling for years.

 

[pkreed71]

A big "Thank you" for Cyclingnews for providing awesome coverage and saving me $30 USD that I didn't waste paying NBC Universal Sports for their coverage of such a boring Tour.

The Giro was SO much better than the Tour has been.

 

[DominicDecoco]

A big "Thank you" for Cyclingnews for providing awesome coverage and saving me $30 USD that I didn't waste paying NBC Universal Sports for their coverage of such a boring Tour.

The Giro was SO much better than the Tour has been.

No, it definitely wasn't. The first 7-10 stages of this Tour were above average - the last not so much. But That's already more than you can say about the whole Giro.

 

[theyoungest]

A big "Thank you" for Cyclingnews for providing awesome coverage and saving me $30 USD that I didn't waste paying NBC Universal Sports for their coverage of such a boring Tour.

The Giro was SO much better than the Tour has been.

The Giro was just as boring. Some of the intermediate stages in the Tour were actually more interesting than anything in the Giro. Clean cycling just isn't very exciting, I'm afraid. Certainly when the only two guys who are able to make a difference uphill (Contador and Schleck) are out.

 

[Escarabajo]

Garbage tour. Worst tour I have watched, and I've been watching since the 80s.

Complete trash.

+1.

Worst Tour that I have ever watched since the 80's. Just horrible. The director of the Tour is a complete idiot. He needs to design a better route. He is not the only one to blame, but he could have helped the cause.

 

[richwagmn]

+1.

Worst Tour that I have ever watched since the 80's. Just horrible. The director of the Tour is a complete idiot. He needs to design a better route. He is not the only one to blame, but he could have helped the cause.

+1000. One of the most forgettable TDFs of all time. Only bright spots were Voekler and Sagan.

Bring on the Vuelta.

 

[mombus]

no exaggeration at all... I have never been so depressed after the end of a tour. wiggins wins? what has cycling come to? at least give us some dopeheads who are fun to watch, not dopeheads who are spraying chloroform down your throat. this was truly horrible and an embarrassment to the event. everyone is on the sht, just let them all ride at this point. sorenson's bloody knuckles were the only thing that made me look at the tv today, a day that's supposed to be the most exciting of the race.

closing thoughts:

- wiggins is a clown
- nibali is an embarrassment to liquigas
- wiggins is pumped full of it
- froome is pumped full of it
- the only good thing about this entire month of riding is that everyone who finished ahead of van garderen will have beenfound to be pumped full of it and he'll be given the title.

bring on the vuelta, craving some real racing

 

[Escarabajo]

The Giro was just as boring. Some of the intermediate stages in the Tour were actually more interesting than anything in the Giro. Clean cycling just isn't very exciting, I'm afraid. Certainly when the only two guys who are able to make a difference uphill (Contador and Schleck) are out.

When have we ever watched clean cycling?

FWIW, the 80's was enterteining without the buffet of ...

 

[Ferminal]

Tour about 0.5/10 better than the Giro for me (gave the Giro a 4 I think?). On paper it was always going to fade in the second half and that's exactly what happened. That eight of the last nine stages have been won by the breakaway is a joke.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

I grew up a fan of LeMond, and his great Tour wins. That was followed by Indurain and a couple years of few mountains, but really long TT distances. Most of his Tour wins were quite dull, but he was a very humble champion, so I grew to like the guy. The most boring win for Mig was 1994.

This year's Tour is more boring than any of those.

The 2005 Tour however was the most boring of all, over after the prologue.

 

[Kopuliak]

Eh, I think that Tour de France organizers/directors just want to be sure, that 100th annual Tour de France will be best in last years and clearly better that TdF 99 year before, so they took it easy this year...

 

[Christian]

On Belgian TV they said today was the 6th HC climb and not one single attack on any of them. The only guy who could attack was not allowed to! The most interesting thing about the race was to watch Froome make a laughing stock out of Wigans

The only ones who somewhat saved the Tour was Jürgen Vandenbroeck who showed the most determination and fighting spirit IMO and the French riders, even though they were helped by Sky's complete disinterest and other teams' complete disability to chase