Tour de France: Stage 19, Bonneval - Chartres 53.5km

[FabulousCandelabra]

What I don't understand, is why design each tour differently, so that one year it favors a TT'er, and one year it favors a climber.?? Why don't they design the TdF so that a really great climber and a really great TT'er are most likely to finish the tour with the closest margin possible to eachother, to keep it exciting?

 

[Arnout]

I think mostly we need one or two great climbers that can't TT. And I don't mean Andy, as he has a certain style of racing I don't approve of and arguably doesn't help opening up the Tour.

We need some exceptional climbers that can't TT. When's the last time we had someone that was a better climber than everyone (on his day) but couldn't TT? I'm guessing Pantani and Jimenez. They always provided a spectacle.

Nowadays we either have Contador who beats everyone in TTs (but luckily likes to give a show in the mountains regardless) or riders that TT so good that it's enough for them to climb with the first 5. That might be a bigger problem than the parcours, which I think was quite balanced this year, only there were no riders to take advantage of it and the difference in contender team strength was too big.

The only thing Pinot shouldn't do is train his ITT. Let him win by climbing please.

 

[Ruby United]

Sponsoring pizza takeaways for my family tmrw in celebration

Briliant Froomey and Wiggo.

 

[Arnout]

What I don't understand, is why design each tour differently, so that one year it favors a TT'er, and one year it favors a climber.?? Why don't they design the TdF so that a really great climber and a really great TT'er are most likely to finish the tour with the closest margin possible to eachother, to keep it exciting?

They do try that though. In recent years we saw less ITT because mountain stages didn't give the same time differences as they used to. This year they sort of went back to the old format with two long ITTs (without TTT though), but with, in my opinion, quite a lot of very exciting stages with opportunity to attack before the last climb or opportunity to shake things up in some medium stages.

However, when there's a team with arguably the two best ITT'ers who happen to be the two best climbers too, and are in by far the strongest team, there's only so much a parcours can do.

 

[FabulousCandelabra]

That's a good point, it helps to have a whole team that is on another level entirely.

 

[roundabout]

I am not surprised that putting a singular major obstacle on a stage with 40+km to go and declaring it an exciting stage with an oportunity to attack didn't work.

But of course Sky are to blame or something.

 

[Arnout]

I am not surprised that putting a singular major obstacle on a stage with 40+km to go and declaring it an exciting stage with an oportunity to attack didn't work.

But of course Sky are to blame or something.

Nah, I think the Grand Colombier stage, stage 8, stage 18 etc were excellent. I admit there was a HC MTF lacking though, but other than that the route was quite diverse with a lack of second week flat stages which hampered many Tours in recent years.

But climbs like Grand Colombiere weren't used at all. Not the problem of the race, but of the riders.

 

[Dutchsmurf]

Why exactly is everyone saying the TT were over represented.
Looking at the TOp 10 i see.

1. The best TTler and the second best climber of the Tour
2.The second best TTler and the best climber
3. The third best climber and a Top 15 TTler
4. A Top 7 climber and a mediocere TTler
5. A Top 10 climber and a Top5 TTlist
6. A top 10 climber and a mediocere TTler
7. A Top 10 climber and a mediocere TTler (in this Tour)
8. A top 5 climber and a weak TTler
9. A Top 10 climber and TTler
10. A top 10 climber and weak TTler


So how exactly were the TTkm ove represented in this Tour again?
Please i wait for explanations

So according to you we might as well completely remove the ITT? According to your list it serves no purpose after all. The top 10 climbers end in the top 10 anyway.

 

[roundabout]

I'd rather sleep through a snoozefest in the second week, but have 4 "misplaced" 1st cat climbs be used to create selection for GC instead of "diversity"

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Which this Tour's parcours have not feautured in both examples.

This Tour's parcours imho had the potential to be the best for a long time and if it was not for the dominating nature of Team Sky it may indeed have turned out in that fashion but instead unfortunately it has transpired in another way.
But for people to complain about the parcours I find such complaints difficult to comprehend due to the reasons which Libertine stated, as Prudhomme and ASO got the parcours spot on and understood exactly what the race required to counteract the boring racing which Libertine has articulated and in another way indeed that may very well have been the case.

I think the main thing is, they tried something different. I think they probably needed to ramp up the difficulty of the mountain stages they had, so that they would balance the TT mileage. It seems that for the most part the recent answer has been subtraction (reduce the TT mileage to prevent it being totally biased against the meagre mountain stages), rather than addition (stay with a proper amount of ITT mileage, but balance this by increasing difficulty of mountain stages). Note that this does not need to be done with freakishly difficult MTFs. Why, this is, for my money, the best designed stage since Prudhomme took over the Tour:

It does everything right; it puts pain in the legs early, with two difficult climbs straight off the bat, which makes the fight to get in the early break incredibly intense; it has a flatter - but crucially not flat - middle section to allow the break to consolidate advantage; there is great continuity with very little respite in the second half of the stage; and the final climb is short enough to make attacking on the penultimate one not only a possibility but a genuine good option. No freak MTF at 10%+, no dirt roads, nothing like that. Hell, I love the Zoncolan, Angliru etc... but my favourite climb is Fedaia. Less steep, still brutally difficult, and much better to place in a long, difficult multi-climb stage. Nope, Le-Grand-Bornand needed none of that... just good stage design.

I feel that was where this Tour went wrong. There was no truly difficult multi-climb stage that wasn't going to be an all-for-the-last-climb special. The Foix stage and the Grand Colombier stages were particularly galling.

But the thing is, increasing the time trial mileage DOES give the climbers more of a deficit to claw back, so they have to attack more and attack earlier; not just out of desperation cos they've failed to take every opportunity presented to them like Andy Schleck on Izoard last year. It was a good idea by the ASO, but they didn't reckon on the strength of Sky, or that the gaps would simply be TOO large; so large that they dissuaded people from attacking as, rather than going for the dramatic long range attacks, riders were looking at the parcours, looking at the strength of Sky, and deciding it was futile. But at least they tried something. OK, it didn't work this time. Next time try something else. Maybe in a few years they can go for something like this gain and it will work better, because the top guys have to think for themselves a bit more, or because the top guys aren't on one superteam.

 

[roundabout]

In 2012 that stage would have finished in Annecy.

 

[woodburn]

The strongest rider in the field won the race. Simple as that. Even one TT and more MTF I don't doubt Wiggins is first and Froome is second.

Credit to them. I think the time gaps, however, indicate the rest of the field either by strength or crash didn't have the goods and aren't close to that level.

The only hope would be Contador.

The big loser in all of this is Andy. He now has someone that will crush him in the TT and can climb well enough that he's really going to have to make drastic improvements to win another Tour.

 

[movingtarget]

The strongest rider in the field won the race. Simple as that. Even one TT and more MTF I don't doubt Wiggins is first and Froome is second.

Credit to them. I think the time gaps, however, indicate the rest of the field either by strength or crash didn't have the goods and aren't close to that level.

The only hope would be Contador.
The big loser in all of this is Andy. He now has someone that will crush him in the TT and can climb well enough that he's really going to have to make drastic improvements to win another Tour.

Yes, all this race has proved is that Schleck now has more rivals than he had before with better TT skills. I am not convinced he will ever win the Tour, on the road I mean. There is also more improvement in riders like VDB who would have finished closer without his mechanical incident, Nibali, Pinot, Rolland and Van Garderen. Although many people had thought that Evans had also missed his chance but he finally got the win. But Evans is a different sort of rider to Schleck. Schleck has never capitalised on his talent while Evans used his consistency and mental strength, the things that Schleck often lacks. While Gesink is probably at the crossroads of his career.

 

[greenedge]

Congrats to Wiggins an astonishing ride.

LLS and Froome also did well.

Cadel had completely given up, at least he had previously fought to wrest the MJ off Wiggins.

 

[greenedge]

The problem with the first is that it increases GC 'dead time' by replacing a TT with another interminable sprint stage (flat stages are pretty much never important for GC anymore; once upon a time they could be, but now their only contribution tends to be crashes, unless you give the riders an obstacle course like Middelburg 2010); the problem with the 2nd is that if the climb is too difficult riders then ride conservatively because they don't want to be wasted on that climb, because now losing 5 minutes could be the difference between 3rd and 13th, whereas before it may have been 3rd and 6th. And the other thing is that the UCI's points system encourages this defensive, consolidating riding - if you're in 6th place, it's more in your interests to just sit at the same pace and come 6th, than to risk an attack, blow up and drop down to 10th, because the placement is directly linked to your earning potential.

Mont St Clair on stage 13 was fine, made it exciting and still ended up in a sprint- but all the others were not, GC wise.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

So according to you we might as well completely remove the ITT? According to your list it serves no purpose after all. The top 10 climbers end in the top 10 anyway.

Well, with times from the Time Trials, including the prologue, removed, the top ten of the tour would be:

Wiggins
Nibali @ 23"
Froome @ 1'16"
Van Den Brouck @ 2'23"
Rolland @ 4'05"
Pinot @ 6'17"
Van Garderen @ 7'21"
Zubeldia @ 7' 34"
Evans @ 8'04"
Brajkovic @ 8'19"

So although Pinot would have got the U25 prize, and the gaps would have been smaller, the same riders would have been in the top ten, and the same three would have been on the podium, so yeah, the ITTs did serve little purpose. If they had a psychological effect, it should have been to make others more determined to do what damage they could to W&F on the mass start stages, something they singularly failed to do.

 

[Dutchsmurf]

Well, with times from the Time Trials, including the prologue, removed, the top ten of the tour would be:

Wiggins
Nibali @ 23"
Froome @ 1'16"
Van Den Brouck @ 2'23"
Rolland @ 4'05"
Pinot @ 6'17"
Van Garderen @ 7'21"
Zubeldia @ 7' 34"
Evans @ 8'04"
Brajkovic @ 8'19"

So although Pinot would have got the U25 prize, and the gaps would have been smaller, the same riders would have been in the top ten, and the same three would have been on the podium, so yeah, the ITTs did serve little purpose. If they had a psychological effect, it should have been to make others more determined to do what damage they could to W&F on the mass start stages, something they singularly failed to do.

And with those smaller gaps, who knows what someone might have tried. Nibali with 30 seconds back and no more ITT to come would have tried something for sure. Now he was 2 minutes back with another ITT to come. Everyone knew there was no way he would make up the time needed, so he raced mostly to keep his position.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

And with those smaller gaps, who knows what someone might have tried. Nibali with 30 seconds back and no more ITT to come would have tried something for sure. Now he was 2 minutes back with another ITT to come. Everyone knew there was no way he would make up the time needed, so he raced mostly to keep his position.

Try something? He got dropped by them on the last mountainous stage.

 

[Dutchsmurf]

Try something? He got dropped by them on the last mountainous stage.

I meant earlier in the race.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I meant earlier in the race.

Which he tried several times. As I've already said, of course there was some psychological effect of his dominance in TTs, but by no means was this a tour where a time trialist managed to limit his losses in the mountains: there weren't any. He was at least as good as anyone he needed to beat in the mountains, every single time the race went into the mountains, and beat the field there as well as against the clock.

Nibali had the incentive of chasing second place, surely more prestigious than third, if he were stronger than F&W: he tried, and failed.

I'm no particular fan of Wiggins, but facts are facts.

 

[Dutchsmurf]

Which he tried several times. As I've already said, of course there was some psychological effect of his dominance in TTs, but by no means was this a tour where a time trialist managed to limit his losses in the mountains: there weren't any. He was at least as good as anyone he needed to beat in the mountains, every single time the race went into the mountains, and beat the field there as well as against the clock.

Nibali had the incentive of chasing second place, surely more prestigious than third, if he were stronger than F&W: he tried, and failed.

I'm no particular fan of Wiggins, but facts are facts.

He sure tried, but he would have tried it in a different way without the ITT. And not only that, but Sky would have had to actually attack themselves too without the ITT. It might not change the result, but it would have changed the way the result got achieved.