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Tour de France 2021 route rumors

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The idea is also to densify the stages with courses of 150 km where we usually put 200.

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Well, I certainly don't like that quote, but how can you blame the ASO, when even the riders feel like they should protest a very long sprint stage because it's useless. (I know that was a very, very long stage stuck between hard mountain stages, but still.)
 
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yes, this trend seems to get worse. What is the problem as well with this trend. When I'm was watching cycling end of the 90's early 20's, a 160/170 stage was considered as really short (between all those 200+) and there are indeed some examples of the course exploding early. However, 160/170 seems already a normal length nowadays and stages has to be 120km to be calles short. In no time, riders, jornalist, the audience will get used by the new normal and in some years from now 170 will even be seen as a rather long mountain stage.
 
Perhaps all old news to you eager rumour followers, but from a fresh Prudhomme interview

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The 2020 Tour was largely reserved for climbers. Will the 2021 one be more balanced?

It is the place of the Grand Départ which decides many things. With Nice in 2020, we had the opportunity to climb from the 2nd stage with the Col du Turini. With Brest, the Armorican massif is not the Alps. The first week will be more classic. But we found some very interesting bumps and bumps in the course, you’ll see.


What exactly can we expect during the first 10 days?

We’re going to play with the wind a lot and see if there are any edges. For two years, we have seen that this moves the peloton and puts on a show. There will be 4 or 5 stages where the wind can crack things. The wind is uncertainty. And uncertainty is suspense. The idea is also to densify the stages with courses of 150 km where we usually put 200.


Is it nice to see so many requests when Rennes, via its elected ecologists, had not wished to organize the Grand Départ?

We have already officially received an application from Rennes to be a stopover city! But it arrived when we had finalized the route and chosen other cities. We had to make choices and a balance between traditional towns and new towns. Landerneau and Pontivy will welcome us for the first time. And Brest will become the first city, outside Paris, to host a 4th Grand Départ. We will also be in Lorient and Mûr-de-Bretagne. The first two stages will be for the punchers, the next two more for the sprinters.


depending on wind to have entertaining stages? I don't know, but that doesn't sound to promissing. I mean, those stages normally belong to the best of the whole tour, but with all recent visits to Brittany in the tour, people talked about wind, but there barely was.
 
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At this point, how long till people will start questioning whether monuments really need to be over 200 km? Thank god Milan and Sanremo are so far apart they can't really shorten the route.

Anyway, with the Tour it might actually have something to do with the whole stages being televised. Maybe they saw that their ratings drop on long stages because people aren't willing to watch a 200 km flat stage in full and only end up turning in for the first and the last 50 kilometres while on 150 km stages people more often just watch the whole thing.

Edit: Another thing I'm worried about reading that Prudhomme interview, is that they think echelons appear just whenever a race takes place in a flat region. That's not the case. In the Tour almost all echelon stages take place in the south east of the country when the race is going from the Pyrenees to the Alps or the other way around. Then you sometimes have echelons in the north of France (but the race doesn't go there as often) and of course occasional echelons elsewhere. After all there is a chance for wind guts everywhere. But that route of the first weeek does not look like it's in a region famous for strong wind so I genuinely wonder whether Prudhomme himself really doesn't know that when he talks about wind in the first ten stages. The two stages after the Ventoux are the ones I would look forward to when it comes to crosswind, but that's apparently not what Prudhomme referred to.
 
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At this point, how long till people will start questioning whether monuments really need to be over 200 km? Thank god Milan and Sanremo are so far apart they can't really shorten the route.

Anyway, with the Tour it might actually have something to do with the whole stages being televised. Maybe they saw that their ratings drop on long stages because people aren't willing to watch a 200 km flat stage in full and only end up turning in for the first and the last 50 kilometres while on 150 km stages people more often just watch the whole thing.

Edit: Another thing I'm worried about reading that Prudhomme interview, is that they think echelons appear just whenever a race takes place in a flat region. That's not the case. In the Tour almost all echelon stages take place in the south east of the country when the race is going from the Pyrenees to the Alps or the other way around. Then you sometimes have echelons in the north of France (but the race doesn't go there as often) and of course occasional echelons elsewhere. After all there is a chance for wind guts everywhere. But that route of the first weeek does not look like it's in a region famous for strong wind so I genuinely wonder whether Prudhomme himself really doesn't know that when he talks about wind in the first ten stages. The two stages after the Ventoux are the ones I would look forward to when it comes to crosswind, but that's apparently not what Prudhomme referred to.
Makes me so *** pissed that people in charge are so intensely clueless about what they're doing.
 
Lots of revisionism of history happening - Let's go back to the 250KM stages where especially in Italy, they played ' the piano' for the first 180 kms to 200kms and rode so slowly it was no test of endurance, and then sprinted home the last 60 or 80 kms - Ride like this in the past, especially on flattish stages and it's not testing endurance.

I am happy that the TDF mix up their courses from year to year - Ultimately the most talented and versatile riders will triumph.
 
Lots of revisionism of history happening - Let's go back to the 250KM stages where especially in Italy, they played ' the piano' for the first 180 kms to 200kms and rode so slowly it was no test of endurance, and then sprinted home the last 60 or 80 kms - Ride like this in the past, especially on flattish stages and it's not testing endurance.

I am happy that the TDF mix up their courses from year to year - Ultimately the most talented and versatile riders will triumph.
alt_11.jpg
 
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Lots of revisionism of history happening - Let's go back to the 250KM stages where especially in Italy, they played ' the piano' for the first 180 kms to 200kms and rode so slowly it was no test of endurance, and then sprinted home the last 60 or 80 kms - Ride like this in the past, especially on flattish stages and it's not testing endurance.

I am happy that the TDF mix up their courses from year to year - Ultimately the most talented and versatile riders will triumph.
We are the ones complaining about long stages being canceled from cycling, about all stages becoming the same 150 km monotony, and then you criticize us for being against mixing things up? The ASO stopping to mixing things up is the exact thing we are complaining about. I don't think anyone here is saying every tour stage has to be 250 km long, but if the race organizers want to get rid of the endurance aspect of the sport, that's a huge shame. Why can't there just be both 150 and 250 km long stages? Cause while short stages absolutely have their right to exist, you can't argue against the fact that many of the best races in recent history were a lot longer than 150 km.
 
We are the ones complaining about long stages being canceled from cycling, about all stages becoming the same 150 km monotony, and then you criticize us for being against mixing things up? The ASO stopping to mixing things up is the exact thing we are complaining about. I don't think anyone here is saying every tour stage has to be 250 km long, but if the race organizers want to get rid of the endurance aspect of the sport, that's a huge shame. Why can't there just be both 150 and 250 km long stages? Cause while short stages absolutely have their right to exist, you can't argue against the fact that many of the best races in recent history were a lot longer than 150 km.
Then they proceed to make ultra short stages finishing on the hardest climb of the race, only the MTF give action, and say *** it and claim it worked either way.
 
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Edit: Another thing I'm worried about reading that Prudhomme interview, is that they think echelons appear just whenever a race takes place in a flat region. That's not the case. In the Tour almost all echelon stages take place in the south east of the country when the race is going from the Pyrenees to the Alps or the other way around. Then you sometimes have echelons in the north of France (but the race doesn't go there as often) and of course occasional echelons elsewhere. After all there is a chance for wind guts everywhere. But that route of the first weeek does not look like it's in a region famous for strong wind so I genuinely wonder whether Prudhomme himself really doesn't know that when he talks about wind in the first ten stages. The two stages after the Ventoux are the ones I would look forward to when it comes to crosswind, but that's apparently not what Prudhomme referred to.

They should have the Grand Départ just around my corner, I swear it's one of the windiest places there are in Europe. I am giving a guaranty! And then you can go on having a very nice, windy route.

The televising of the whole stage is definitely a reason for shortening the stage's lengths.
 
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This forum tends to seriously overrate this stage. In 2015 you had a similar stae and it was one of maybe 2 or 3 where nothing happened.

Edit: Another thing I'm worried about reading that Prudhomme interview, is that they think echelons appear just whenever a race takes place in a flat region. That's not the case. In the Tour almost all echelon stages take place in the south east of the country when the race is going from the Pyrenees to the Alps or the other way around. Then you sometimes have echelons in the north of France (but the race doesn't go there as often) and of course occasional echelons elsewhere. After all there is a chance for wind guts everywhere. But that route of the first weeek does not look like it's in a region famous for strong wind so I genuinely wonder whether Prudhomme himself really doesn't know that when he talks about wind in the first ten stages. The two stages after the Ventoux are the ones I would look forward to when it comes to crosswind, but that's apparently not what Prudhomme referred to.
If i remember most of former Berry (Indre & Cher) tends to be quite exposed. There was that 2013 stage to Saint-Amand-Montrond... I think the best region for potential echelons may be Artois in northern France if you go roughly North-South. Weather can be quite weird sometimes, like when you got an echelon stage to Albi last year.

Chamrousse via Luitel
Plan Bois - Croix de Fry, downhill finish to La Clusaz (or even MTF at Croix de Fry, it seems to be enough room there)
Madeleine north, descend, then St.Francois Longchamp finish. Or Chaussy - Longchamp.
And in the Pyrenees you of course have Pailheres - Plateau de Bonascre
Granon could also very well be used again. And if Galibier and Croix de Fry/Madeleine/Izoard is added first, I'm pretty sure at the field would blow completely apart at Granon.
Dauphine tried Plan Bois and it ended in protests. It needs to be resurfaced like Spandelles. I think similar problem is with Luitel. It was a very popular option in the 80's but fell into disuse.
 
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We are the ones complaining about long stages being canceled from cycling, about all stages becoming the same 150 km monotony, and then you criticize us for being against mixing things up? The ASO stopping to mixing things up is the exact thing we are complaining about. I don't think anyone here is saying every tour stage has to be 250 km long, but if the race organizers want to get rid of the endurance aspect of the sport, that's a huge shame. Why can't there just be both 150 and 250 km long stages? Cause while short stages absolutely have their right to exist, you can't argue against the fact that many of the best races in recent history were a lot longer than 150 km.

Nah - The criticism by posters is that you fail to test endurance if you don't have a quota of longer stages - My risposte is that in the glory day's of the past we can tend to look through 'rose colored glasses' and fail to acknowledge that often these longer stages on flattish parcours are ridden like a club ride, except for the last 60 kms, which hardly tests endurance - So in other words, length doesn't necessarily impact on endurance - I have posted that I've been happy with the last few routes of the TDF because they mix things up - Even if the rumoured 50 km ITT is on the menu, at least it's different from the last 3 or 4 editions - If only the Giro would mix up their parcours.
 
Newest update from Velowire has the Andorra stage finish in Andorra la Vella. Maybe with Envalira as the last climb.

Dauphine tried Plan Bois and it ended in protests. It needs to be resurfaced like Spandelles. I think similar problem is with Luitel. It was a very popular option in the 80's but fell into disuse.
Luitel is not a problem as long as you descend the road from Chamrousse. - For me, the best use is Laffrey - Luitel - Chamrousse (N).
 
Yep. GT winner should be the best overall rider. Not the best climber and especially not the best 1km uphill sprinter

GT winners are rarely the best overall rider. You'd probably have to get 10 minute bonuses on flat sprint stages, and have some classic like stages in the GT for that ( cobbles, long hilly stages like LBL design). Climbing and time trialing are only two aspects of the sport. A route with lots of time trialing just gives you the best time trialist who doesn't die in the mountains as the winner.
 
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