Tour de France 2019

[houtdffan]

tour is starting in the southern Alps next year.

Wonder if stages 1 and 2 will be the only Alpine stages or will the tour add a couple of more, either stages 3 and 4 or if they will make two trips to the Alps. Did not make 2 trips to the Pyrenees in 1992

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

It seems I am in the minority by loving the super short mountain stage design last year. The biggest problem with the mountain stages in the Tour are the geography as the big mountains are separated by too much flat valley road that often means the domestiques catch back up on the descent and valley thus neutering most longer range attacks.

I do still think there is a place for the 240km 7 hour suffer fest up and down 4 or more cat 1 and HC climbs.

I don't mind them just not every year.

 

[barmaher]

For next year, I wouldn't be surprised if they went towards the Massif for the second weekend, the Pyrenees for the third weekend and to the Vosges / Jura for the final few days.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

It seems I am in the minority by loving the super short mountain stage design last year. The biggest problem with the mountain stages in the Tour are the geography as the big mountains are separated by too much flat valley road that often means the domestiques catch back up on the descent and valley thus neutering most longer range attacks.

I do still think there is a place for the 240km 7 hour suffer fest up and down 4 or more cat 1 and HC climbs.

The entire purpose of a short mountain stage is useless if you finish on an HC climb. Another problem is that the Tour now does half it's mountain stages under 140km so at some point some are bound to be decent by accident.

I am also not saying every Tour should have 3 7hour mountain stages, but I would like if the average mountain stage stayed around 180km. And you don't need 3 HC climbs to make a huge stage, it's placement that matters. For example Mur de Peguere+Prat d'Albis is 2 cat 1s that are gonna make most stages pretty great. There's huge climbs like Agnel+Izoard that really don't need much else. But one major issue that the Tour has is always sticking to the same climbs, including Alpe d'Huez meaning every single climb before Alpe d'Huez is neutered which sometimes are like 30% of the HC climbs in the entire race.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I maintain that Alpe d' Huez is one of the best MTFs in cycling. You often climb big mammoths beforehand which makes the riders tired in the bottom of Alpe d' Huez. Its basically the perfect finishing climb, 13-14 km is long enough to create good gaps, but the kicker is its steepest in the bottom. Sure, there's a decent amount of valley from Galibier or Croix de Fer (or Ornon, if you want an easier MTF), but the purpose of these climbs beforehand isn't necessarily to make the GC-riders attack on them, rather just tire them out which means the Alpe will be much more selective.

Funny story, I rode the Alpe at 55 min 2 days before La Marmotte in a small race, basically just a Alpe d' Huez TT. I finished 2 minutes down on my friend. 2 days after, I climbed Alpe in 1.25 min and finished almost an hour down on him. Thats why Val Thorens was so shitty as it was, for example, at why Alpe d' Huez can be brutal if the climbs beforehand are climbed relatively hard.

 

[Red Rick]

Re:

I maintain that Alpe d' Huez is one of the best MTFs in cycling. You often climb big mammoths beforehand which makes the riders tired in the bottom of Alpe d' Huez. Its basically the perfect finishing climb, 13-14 km is long enough to create good gaps, but the kicker is its steepest in the bottom. Sure, there's a decent amount of valley from Galibier or Croix de Fer (or Ornon, if you want an easier MTF), but the purpose of these climbs beforehand isn't necessarily to make the GC-riders attack on them, rather just tire them out which means the Alpe will be much more selective.

Funny story, I rode the Alpe at 55 min 2 days before La Marmotte in a small race, basically just a Alpe d' Huez TT. I finished 2 minutes down on my friend. 2 days after, I climbed Alpe in 1.25 min and finished almost an hour down on him. Thats why Val Thorens was so ****** as it was, for example, at why Alpe d' Huez can be brutal if the climbs beforehand are climbed relatively hard.

I'm not saying it's a bad climb. I just dislike the way it's often used. The Tour tends to do that with many of their best climbs.

I'm starting to come down from the idea that more climbing is always better, cause riders are very often more passive when fatigued. Optimizing the placement of the climbs is more important imo.

Lastly I also think I like having an ITT as a final GC stage much more than a big MTF.