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Tour Down Under - Stage 1: Mawson Lakes - Angaston, 138km

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auscyclefan94

auscyclefan94

Jun 16, 2009
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tdu-stage1.PNG

TDU11_PROFILE_stage1_FINAL.jpg


Tuesday 18 January 2011

Start Time: 11am (The Boulevard, Mawson Lakes)

Skoda King of the Mountain: Black Top Road

Jayco Sprint Locations: Sandy Creek and Lyndoch

Feed Station: Angaston

Finish Time: 2.29pm


Weather Forecast: 25oC Sunny with initial cloud. Wind will likely be a tail to crosswind for most of the day.

Preview of Course

Highlights of Stage 4 2009 (Angaston)
Past Winners
2006: Simon Gerrans
2008: Mark Renshaw
2009 Allan Davis
http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/
 
M

Monte Zoncolon

Dec 17, 2010
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Just a personal opinion. The Tour Down Under lacks distance. The stages comparatively are short. There is no individual Time Trial. There are no decent climbs. Its a tour for the sprinters. Could the race organizers not get their act together, and include an individual TT, longer stages and some decent climbs, for better racing, and a better spectacle.
 
auscyclefan94

auscyclefan94

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At least last year the Stirling stage and the Wilunga stage were exciting. I doubt those two stages will be that exciting this year. Maybe a finish up Mount Lofty would be good? It's longer than Wilunga but only 15km out of Adelaide.
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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A lot of the time the problem they face is that, at that time of the year, the riders don't want anything too tough, hence the shorter stages.

The thing is, they do have some obstacles, they just don't use them. They could take some of the smallish climbs they have and put them close to the finish to allow some riders to make attacking worthwhile so that you get the possibility of it not being a sprint.

What I'd be tempted to do, given what ACF's just said about Mount Lofty, would be to do something that wouldn't work in most stage races but because of the limited number of obstacles and easy racing of the TDU might be able to work, is take something from the world of wintersports.

Instead of the altogether extremely tedious Adelaide crit on the final day, do a split stage 6a/6b thing. In the morning, a 10-15km time trial, so that everybody is on separate times... then in the afternoon, a 'catch-me-if-you-can' pursuit, where everybody sets off on their own race time, racing from Adelaide to Mount Lofty - if that's only going to be 15-20km you then have the possibility of a group of riders on close time chasing down those ahead, or the climbers who've lost a minute or two, might be able to stay in a group with some rouleurs and then catch time up on the sprinters (the TT will probably be short enough that most sprinters won't lose too much time and will still be up there in the mix) on the climb... that way, the finishing positions on the stage would also be the finishing positions of the overall Tour.

This wouldn't work in most stage races because the gaps would be too big - imagine doing it in the Tour, when most of the front runners would have finished a 100km stage by the time the last stragglers are allowed to set off. But in a short stage race that doesn't threaten to break the péloton up too much, it could work. It would also be something unique to the TDU, which would be one more defining characteristic than it has now.
 
A

Anonymous

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The Hitch said:
It wasnt like this for the TDP (a far superior race if i might add:p)

Looks like ill have to start a new thread for every stage in August then.
Click to expand...

I think first race of the season there will be above average chat per stage of racing. By august we are all struggling to come up with two posts per race. :D

Maybe someone with a lot of time on their hands could go through last years races and work out the post per race count, averages etc and see which is most talked about :D
 
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Monte Zoncolon

Dec 17, 2010
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auscyclefan94 said:
At least last year the Stirling stage and the Wilunga stage were exciting. I doubt those two stages will be that exciting this year. Maybe a finish up Mount Lofty would be good? It's longer than Wilunga but only 15km out of Adelaide.
Click to expand...

The Tour Down Under is a good race.

Though It would be great to see this climb included in The Tour Down Under, as a stage finish :

Mt Baw Baw:

http://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp?Col=Mt-Baw-Baw&qryMountainID=7734
 
M

Monte Zoncolon

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auscyclefan94 said:
Unfortunately Mt baw baw and adelaide are around 900km away from each other. I think that acutal climb is a little longer than that. It is closer to 7km I think.
Click to expand...

Yea rather unfortunate. But Mt Baw Baw judging by the profile, looks like an awesome gem of a climb.
 
The Hitch

The Hitch

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TeamSkyFans said:
Maybe someone with a lot of time on their hands could go through last years races and work out the post per race count, averages etc and see which is most talked about :D
Click to expand...

I did that for the Giro in an argument with Francois. Monte ZOncolan was the most talked about stage at that race followed by Laquilla followed by Mortirolo, but most of Laquillas talk took place after the stage.

The Tour had more posts per stage than the Giro. Well some stage had almost nothing, but the Tourmalet and Arenberg stages got more posts than any Giro stage.
 
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rgmerk

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Monte Zoncolon said:
Yea rather unfortunate. But Mt Baw Baw judging by the profile, looks like an awesome gem of a climb.
Click to expand...

It's a brute. <A HREF="http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com/2010/03/mt-baw-baw-reconnaissance/">Read this</A>. And <A HREF='http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=16676'>this</A>. I raced that day (in the C grade a long, long, long way behind the serious competition). Doing this climb under any conditions is hard, doing it with snow coming down is surreal...
 
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