Tour de France 2015 stage 20: Modane - Alpe d'Huez

[Finn84]

I think top points in 2010 (20,15,10,4,3) was good. However they awarded a lot of points in lower positions and also had "double points in last climb" in use regardless whether race finished on the climb or not.

Profiles like these had as many points on the final climb as finishes on Ventoux and Hautacam etc.

 

[TMP402]

Re: Re:

Froome only went about 10s faster than his 2013 time. His time on Toussuire was also very similar to 2012. I wasn't expecting such fast times because of how fast they went up CdF, setting that record.

Porte had one of the strangest Tours I can remember. Rather unforgettable except for the two most important stages of a GT, (i.e. the first and last MTFs). I do wonder if the rotating cast of domestiques was a strategy by SKY or something they lucked into or were forced into by illness/ form.

Must be strategy. Porte going from outside top 100 to 7th one day apart is not sickness.

Definite strategy. They also planned counterintuitively to use up Kennaugh and Roche on the earlier stages, which was a tactic with mixed success: clearly they "won" the first week battle, but a fresher Roche would have won them the TTT, and he was also often better than Koenig in the mountains, but not fresh enough to be the best Sky teammate on any mountain stage, unlike Poels, Thomas and Porte. On the other hand it allowed Rowe and Stannard to be fresh enough to do good work for Froome this final week.

Koenig was the weak link IMO and was never able to contribute much in the terrain he was picked for, having suffered more than Porte after the Giro. My abiding memory of his helping Froome was the WTF moment of him being on the front of the peloton after the first cobbled section on stage 4.

 

[spalco]

What a sad sad day for cycling, the yellow jersey on the penultimate day of the worlds biggest race digs deep to cut his losses only to be booed constantly then spat at on the final 14km climb... for what, ruined it for me.

Yeah, very good stage, excellent battle for victory and yellow jersey but shameful fans.

 

[Eagle]

Re: Re:

Froome only went about 10s faster than his 2013 time. His time on Toussuire was also very similar to 2012. I wasn't expecting such fast times because of how fast they went up CdF, setting that record.

Porte had one of the strangest Tours I can remember. Rather unforgettable except for the two most important stages of a GT, (i.e. the first and last MTFs). I do wonder if the rotating cast of domestiques was a strategy by SKY or something they lucked into or were forced into by illness/ form.

Must be strategy. Porte going from outside top 100 to 7th one day apart is not sickness.

Definite strategy. They also planned counterintuitively to use up Kennaugh and Roche on the earlier stages, which was a tactic with mixed success: clearly they "won" the first week battle, but a fresher Roche would have won them the TTT, and he was also often better than Koenig in the mountains, but not fresh enough to be the best Sky teammate on any mountain stage, unlike Poels, Thomas and Porte. On the other hand it allowed Rowe and Stannard to be fresh enough to do good work for Froome this final week.

Koenig was the weak link IMO and was never able to contribute much in the terrain he was picked for, having suffered more than Porte after the Giro. My abiding memory of his helping Froome was the WTF moment of him being on the front of the peloton after the first cobbled section on stage 4.

Did you guys miss Geraint Thomas riding flat out for 18 stages

 

[Asero831]

Movistar has been in the GC Top 4 for 7 consecutive GT now. Impressive

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

I think top points in 2010 (20,15,10,4,3) was good. However they awarded a lot of points in lower positions and also had "double points in last climb" in use regardless whether race finished on the climb or not.

Profiles like these had as many points on the final climb as finishes on Ventoux and Hautacam etc.

The St-Jean-Maurienne stage I think is fine with the bonus points, that final climb has a descent that goes almost all the way to the finish and is clearly a decisive climb; that Tarbes stage in 2009 however is simply a joke. 2010's joke double pointer was stage 16:

with over 60km remaining after the summit and 45 flat after the base of the descent, the likelihood of this stage proving decisive was very small.

Maybe double points is too much, but then the Vuelta in 2010-11 and the Giro up until 2010 had a separate "MTF category" which paid bonus points (1,5x as many as a cat.1 climb other than the Cima Coppi) which might work, however the problem was that the MTF points would sometimes be given out for some rather meagre climbs OR not given out for normal uphill finishes; in 2011 in the Vuelta no points were given for San Lorenzo de El Escorial. It would have been cat.3 anywhere else in the race but because they finished there and didn't want to give big mountain points out, they didn't categorize it. The Giro in 2008 gave the 3km ramp into Pescocostanzo full MTF points despite coming just 10km or so after the cat.2 Pietransieri which dwarfed it.

Or maybe double points is fine, but the overinflation of HC climbs' points (I understand the reasoning, to prevent the GPM being won in the Fabian Wegmann/Matt Lloyd Giro method of winning all the cat.2 and .3 climbs) when in conjunction with the double points needs to be revised when the course is being looked at in its present format with short mountain stages, one-climb MTF stages and few real multi-mountain odysseys.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re: Re:

Froome won the Tour in Zeeland, without it he would have been 9 seconds behind

Perhaps, but without the first 10 stages, Pauwels would have won the Tour by 1 minute and 54 seconds.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Re: Re:

Froome won the Tour in Zeeland, without it he would have been 9 seconds behind

Perhaps, but without the first 10 stages, Pauwels would have won the Tour by 1 minute and 54 seconds.

Wow that's some good info! Too be fair I've been impressed with MTN this Tour, hopefully a real breakthrough for them.

 

[bassano]

Re: Re:

Froome won the Tour in Zeeland, without it he would have been 9 seconds behind

Perhaps, but without the first 10 stages, Pauwels would have won the Tour by 1 minute and 54 seconds.

Totally useless information, I do not really understand why you are replying that nonsense to interesting info on which I say only it is a pitty because Quintana could won it
Pauwels would never gain time if he was in GC close to top, quintana gained all by himself

 

[Pippo_San]

Re: Re:

Froome won the Tour in Zeeland, without it he would have been 9 seconds behind

Perhaps, but without the first 10 stages, Pauwels would have won the Tour by 1 minute and 54 seconds.

Totally useless information, I do not really understand why you are replying that nonsense to interesting info on which I say only it is a pitty because Quintana could won it
Pauwels would never gain time if he was in GC close to top, quintana gained all by himself

It was clearly to say that you can speculate as much as you want.
Without Zelande and with a bit more luck probably Nibs would've won.
You can't tell.

 

[Hayabusa]

Re: Re:

Froome won the Tour in Zeeland, without it he would have been 9 seconds behind

Perhaps, but without the first 10 stages, Pauwels would have won the Tour by 1 minute and 54 seconds.

Totally useless information, I do not really understand why you are replying that nonsense to interesting info on which I say only it is a pitty because Quintana could won it
Pauwels would never gain time if he was in GC close to top, quintana gained all by himself

If the echelon never happened you can not say for sure that Quintana would have won, that is a fact and the point being made that flew over your head.

Tactics and outcomes of all following stages would have been different so no telling who would have won. It is all speculation.

 

[ILovecycling]

Great win for Pinot, really happy for him after all those attempts! Chapeau Thibaut!
Great ride by Nairo, very good time on Alpe, pity it didnt work out on Fer cuz of LRP, but good try.



But after all Congrats to Froome and esp Sky who deserves big credit.Froome proved the strongest GT rier in this Tour, desrved win.Hats off for how he handled this!Fair and aquare.

 

[djpbaltimore]

If Quintana hadn't been so far behind due to the echelons, he likely would not have been on the attack so early. I think his CdF attack really softened Froome up before the final climb. Waiting for the final climb may only have netted him 30s like on Stage 19, not 1:20. As others have said, tactics would've played out differently with different race contexts.

 

[samhocking]

If what Porte has said is true, i'm not surprised Sky have ridden so defensively the last few days.

 

[del1962]

Re: Re:

The post-charteau era in the KoM has worked.

All years but Voeckler it was one of the three strongest climbers that won the KoM

What happens tomorrow. Seems a bit harsh to let the 2nd placed rider wear it into Paris and then take it away1

Last year Quintana won White and KOM. He wore KOM and nobody wore white.

You mean 2013 and Talansky wore white

 

[deValtos]

Re:

If what Porte has said is true, i'm not surprised Sky have ridden so defensively the last few days.

Also goes to show that you should attack when you're feeling good as Froome did on stage 10.

We've seen many GT's where nothing decisive happens on the first big MTF, yet they can't all be at the same level ... so someone misses an opportunity but we don't never know who.

You might need that time later on.

 

[samhocking]

I agreet. Team tactics change even in the middle of a race, so to simply look at time gaps and say 'if this didn't happen' is to look at GT racing much too simply.

 

[wwabbit]

Re: Re:

You mean 2013 and Talansky wore white

Just to end all doubts:

 

[Netserk]

Re: Re:

The post-charteau era in the KoM has worked.

All years but Voeckler it was one of the three strongest climbers that won the KoM

Only problem is that most years it has been won almost accidentally. Only Samu and Voeckler really targeted it.

I think they need some kind of compromise, because they were giving way too many points away in the 2000-2010 era which meant once the era of the KOM points-gathering specialists like Rasmussen and Virenque was over we got a few weak ones, but giving 50pts for an HC summit and only 5 for a cat.2 is really an egregious difference that makes it hard to really target, because the GC guys will always have the huge advantage due to current parcours trends, especially if ASO continues the policy of Unipuerto stages like the PSM one. There really need to be more difficult climbs mid-stage for the current points to really work, so that people like Bardet and Purito might actually believe they can beat the GC guys for the jersey today.

If the GC leader had won the GPM due to an epic raid along the lines of Schleck's odyssey in 2011 or Floyd's comeback tale in 2006 that's one thing, but Froome hasn't needed to pick up points anywhere really; he held the jersey for a week based almost entirely on that PSM stage win. I don't resent that Froome won the GPM, since he was the strongest climber in the race until the last two days, which you might have expected from the GC winner in a race which had very few time trial kilometres. I do resent that he won it only scoring points on a small number of climbs.

ASO like to tilt things towards the favourites though, their reform of the points jersey was to make it easier for sprinters, and the reform of the KOM makes it too easy for GC guys to luck into without trying for it. It's generally wound up on good shoulders for it, but we've lost out on any kind of battle for the jersey. At least with Voeckler you had him properly fighting to keep it.

Surely Majka targeted it as much as they did?!

 

[pastronef]

Re:

Froome was the strongest because he rode the TdF 1 minute and 9 seconds faster then Quintana.

I think we have a winner here

 

[DBotero]

I'm really happy for Froome winning this Tour.Kinda surprised by this bad performance today,but Poels and Little Richie were amazing,great support.Superb ride for Quintana he really gave his all today.Alejandro also today really impressive and he got his fully deserved podium.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

If what Porte has said is true, i'm not surprised Sky have ridden so defensively the last few days.

Which is?

 

[TMP402]

Serpa and Quintana met last night. Hence former team pursuiter Serpa being oddly attuned to Quintana's attacks.

https://instagram.com/p/5iKNQaFmNM/

 

[JackRabbitSlims]

congrats
chris froome

great ride by pinot

i feel for quintana
but he will be back

great stage to watch live
pity it was the final (real) one of the tour

 

[samhocking]

Re: Re:

If what Porte has said is true, i'm not surprised Sky have ridden so defensively the last few days.

Which is?

That Froome's been sick for the last week or so. He sounded pretty blocked up 4 days ago, but he suffers from EIA, so it's difficult to tell with him if he's sick or not as he always sounds full of cold after the stage while coughing his guts up.