Tour de France 2017 Stage 11: Eymet > Pau 203.5km

[Alexandre B.]

The hate on this race is over the top.

 

[rick james]

any chance of wind?

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

The hate on this race is over the top.

This is the one event in the sport we love that everyone watches or hears about, and organisers are willingly butchering it, damaging the sport. Posting a bit on a forum only visited by bigger than average cycling fans is something I could hardly call over the top.

 

[Bye Bye Bicycle]

You know whats sad? This time tomorrow kittel will have a stage to freakin Pau on his palmares

So what? In anti-clockwise TdFs Pau often gets a sprint finish.

This hate for sprint stages here is beyond irrational. Thank god that races are designed by professionals, not by forum experts in constant need of entertainment.

 

[Brullnux]

You know whats sad? This time tomorrow kittel will have a stage to freakin Pau on his palmares

So what? In anti-clockwise TdFs Pau often gets a sprint finish.

This hate for sprint stages here is beyond irrational. Thank god that races are designed by professionals, not by forum experts in constant need of entertainment.

Considering professional sport is, at its heart, entertainment, the one thing it should offer is entertainment. If it fails at that, it is a failing model. Ergo, the Tour De France is failing and the professionals are useless.

Anyway, the hate is not for sprint stages, but for the outrageous number of them.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

What makes this extra awful is if they just headed a few KM in a couple of directions they could have had at least some sort of hill, or even an uphill finish, to see if anyone on GC watned to come out and play, or at least someone going for a breakaway win.

 

[spalco]

Well, if someone's a Kittel fan this is probably awesome. (if Cavendish was still in the race I wouldn't mind as much also).

But this is a bit absurd, there's no bump anywhere that at least puts a little doubt in whether the sprinters will make it, and there hasn't even been a halfway credible breakaway attempt on any of these stages.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

What makes this extra awful is if they just headed a few KM in a couple of directions they could have had at least some sort of hill, or even an uphill finish, to see if anyone on GC watned to come out and play, or at least someone going for a breakaway win.

They don't even need to leave Pau. They could just do most of a lap of the Circuit de Pau motor racing street circuit, which would give you a finish a little like Tropea - still for the sprinters, not necessarily worth categorizing, but just that little bit more interesting because you can't just line them out from 10km to go.

 

[carton]

Re:

What makes this extra awful is if they just headed a few KM in a couple of directions they could have had at least some sort of hill, or even an uphill finish, to see if anyone on GC watned to come out and play, or at least someone going for a breakaway win.

Yep. Something. But I agree with Alexandre that the we're piling on this stage too much. It will get better on Thursday.

Also, at this point, if a few hitters make a break for it, I don't think Quickstep will find a lot of help to bring them back. Particularly if the likes of Dege, EBH, GvA and Kristoff make that break. They'll most likely save their powder for Rodez or Le-Puy-en-Velay. But there's some hope.

 

[Bavarianrider]

If you guys had any knowledge of this race's history you'd know that this years tour really doesn't have an unusual amount of flat stages at all. There were dozens of Tours with a lot more fat stages and a lot less mountain/hilly stages.

 

[jens_attacks]

hey kim if you read the forumz, nuke pau

 

[DFA123]

If you guys had any knowledge of this race's history you'd know that this years tour really doesn't have an unusual amount of flat stages at all. There were dozens of Tours with a lot more fat stages and a lot less mountain/hilly stages.

Times have changed though. Teams and domestiques in particular weren't so strong as they are now, leadout trains weren't so dominate. Breakaways have almost no chance on completely flat stages, even if only one team decides to chase them down. Especially with power meters and race radios co-ordinating together to time the chase.

Also, just because they did it in the past, doesn't mean it was great then. Having so many sprint stages is dull; it's always been dull. It's ludicrous to stick with it just because it was done like that in the past. Grand Tours have been constantly evolving over the decades in an effort to become ever more entertaining; yet the Tour route this year seems to be a massive backwards step.

 

[Brullnux]

If you guys had any knowledge of this race's history you'd know that this years tour really doesn't have an unusual amount of flat stages at all. There were dozens of Tours with a lot more fat stages and a lot less mountain/hilly stages.

Doesn't make it good.

 

[Son of Amsterhammer]

Can someone put a stage 12 thread up? That looks to be a great stage. Let's prepare for it, time machine style.

 

[Catwhoorg]

With the casualties so far in the race, this is Kittel all the way

 

[klintE]

I can't watch it tomorrow.
There is one thousand eight hundred and ninety one episode of my favorite soap opera at the same time.

 

[sir fly]

The roads are more exposed closer to Pau, but it's just not windy enough.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Pretty unrelated, sort off, was just reading a book on Tour de France. What really caught my attention was the day Merkcx lost the jersey in '76, the climbs they did that day - St. Martin, Couillolle, Champs, Allos and Pra Loup. What a monster day. Then I remembered the shitty stage they made in '15 featuring the last two climbs and thought to myself if ASO geniunely had become worse stage makers, making the once great TdF a weak race where you are allowed to rest up half of the days and not making this a proper endurance event. This is 3rd rest day in a row!

 

[Ikbengodniet]

Re:

Then I remembered the ****** stage they made in '15 featuring the last two climbs and thought to myself if ASO geniunely had become worse stage makers, making the once great TdF a weak race where you are allowed to rest up half of the days and not making this a proper endurance event. This is 3rd rest day in a row!

Yet most riders look exhausted, riders getting sick and finishing almost out of time limit on every mountain stage.

 

[SHAD0W93]

I wonder why other sprinter teams don't do to Kittel and Etix like they did with Cav on HTC and Quickstep making them do all the work then swap the front. Kind of like Giant with Kittel.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Re: Re:

Then I remembered the ****** stage they made in '15 featuring the last two climbs and thought to myself if ASO geniunely had become worse stage makers, making the once great TdF a weak race where you are allowed to rest up half of the days and not making this a proper endurance event. This is 3rd rest day in a row!

Yet most riders look exhausted, riders getting sick and finishing almost out of time limit on every mountain stage.

The time limit isn't a big deal these days anymore. Either you are sick or you flat out just doesn't belong in the Tour in your current stage.

The event needs to be harder. These time trials are a completely joke.... the 5 mountain ranges visited? Yeah right, splendid marketing trick.

 

[Ikbengodniet]

Re: Re:

Then I remembered the ****** stage they made in '15 featuring the last two climbs and thought to myself if ASO geniunely had become worse stage makers, making the once great TdF a weak race where you are allowed to rest up half of the days and not making this a proper endurance event. This is 3rd rest day in a row!

Yet most riders look exhausted, riders getting sick and finishing almost out of time limit on every mountain stage.

The time limit isn't a big deal these days anymore. Either you are sick or you flat out just doesn't belong in the Tour in your current stage.

The event needs to be harder. These time trials are a completely joke.... the 5 mountain ranges visited? Yeah right, splendid marketing trick.

I agree the route is a joke yet it ain't easy at all. Make it much harder and you will get the 90ies back.

 

[cipurian]

Can't wait to watch this stage, hopefully it can be as exciting as it was today.

 

[Finn84]

Visiting all 5 mountain ranges sounds cool but at the same time it made Alps and Pyrenees easier which was really bad move. Much better would be that Alps and Pyrenees stay in the route every year (as they do) and then rotate between three others.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re:

Visiting all 5 mountain ranges sounds cool but at the same time it made Alps and Pyrenees easier which was really bad move. Much better would be that Alps and Pyrenees stay in the route every year (as they do) and then rotate between three others.

You could make an extremely mountainous tour route without both alps and Pyrenees. There are so many hard climbs in the smaller mountain ranges in france but the aso just doesn't use them. The only mountain range used properly this year was the jura