What if...

[Lord Stanley]

I have a huge respect for Maillot Jaune like I do for Stanley Cup for example but imagine if there was no GC in the race, if the overal time didn't matter, if you just had to choose to ride for either green or polka dot (or even both) jerseys.

(Is there actually any race like that in the world?)

Wouldn't the race be incredible? Imagine Contador and Schleck attacking before every summit (who would have got the polka dot jersey this year?), riders like Vinokurov attacking early in the race to try to survive as many cathegories as possible etc and seeing the battle Petacchi/Cavendish vs. Contador for the green maybe.

I think Le Tour would be much more entertaining like that.


I'm not saying they should do this with Le Tour de France, of course not, I'd love to see something like that in a less important Tour though. The whole stage would be full action.

Oh and then again why the hell did they get rid of those time bonuses? Makes no sense to me.

 

[joy118118]

looks like classics

 

[The Hitch]

I have a huge respect for Maillot Jaune like I do for Stanley Cup for example but imagine if there was no GC in the race, if the overal time didn't matter, if you just had to choose to ride for either green or polka dot (or even both) jerseys.

(Is there actually any race like that in the world?)

Wouldn't the race be incredible? Imagine Contador and Schleck attacking before every summit (who would have got the polka dot jersey this year?), riders like Vinokurov attacking early in the race to try to survive as many cathegories as possible etc and seeing the battle Petacchi/Cavendish vs. Contador for the green maybe.

I think Le Tour would be much more entertaining like that.


I'm not saying they should do this with Le Tour de France, of course not, I'd love to see something like that in a less important Tour though. The whole stage would be full action.

Oh and then again why the hell did they get rid of those time bonuses? Makes no sense to me.

Alternatively have the mts closer to the finish.

 

[Fester]

The Tour de France used to be a "points race" (like the green jersey) in the first few editions (I think 10 or so). It turned into the race it is after, can't remember the reasoning.

Is bike racing not exciting enough already? Is it was invented tomorrow it would be an "extreme" sport, or more realistically, banned.

Remember you do have a mountains classification and points classification to watch too...

 

[Vonn Brinkman]

Remember you do have a mountains classification and points classification to watch too...

You have a good point there, and of course, the Tour wouldn't be the Tour without the GC, but I think Lord Stanley is trying to point out that because of the GC battle going on, there is less excitement regarding the polka dot jersey. I think myself that the points jersey is quite exciting already, with the Cav/Thor/Petacchi battle raging, but when a non-climber like Charteau wins the polka dots, is loses some of its true purpose: the jersey for the best climber.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

They could offer time bonuses at every summit. Say, 30 seconds for Cat1, 20 seconds for Cat2, 10 seconds for Cat3 and 45 seconds for HC. Then every climb becomes important.

But that seems to be contrary to the concept of a stage race. Why have stages when a rider can finish the day with less cumulative time despite not being first to the finish?

 

[El Pistolero]

The only thing that needs changing is the polkadot jersey. First and foremost they need to change the rules so only the best climbers can win it. Second of all, they need to make it more prestigious, so people actually want to go for it as their goal before the Tour starts.

What I'm proposing is that they keep track of how long a cyclist did over a climb(category 2 and above) and the climber who climbed all climbs of category 2 and above in the least amount of time wins the king of mountains competition. Bonus seconds are given for this classification, but only for a stage that has a mountain finish. So the winner of a stage with a mountain finish gets 60 bonus seconds, the second gets 40 seconds and the guy who came in third gets 20 seconds.

These bonus seconds wouldn't count towards to GC though, only for the KOM competition.

Also double the prize money for that award.

 

[Fester]

The only thing that needs changing is the polkadot jersey. First and foremost they need to change the rules so only the best climbers can win it. Second of all, they need to make it more prestigious, so people actually want to go for it as their goal before the Tour starts.

What I'm proposing is that they keep track of how long a cyclist did over a climb(category 2 and above) and the climber who climbed all climbs of category 2 and above in the least amount of time wins the king of mountains competition. Bonus seconds are given for this classification, but only for a stage that has a mountain finish. So the winner of a stage with a mountain finish gets 60 bonus seconds, the second gets 40 seconds and the guy who came in third gets 20 seconds.

These bonus seconds wouldn't count towards to GC though, only for the KOM competition.

Also double the prize money for that award.

Quite interesting this. People aren't happy Charteau won because he isn't the best "climber" The nature of the competition is that it will lean in favour of the best climber. Not that the best climber might win it. Like the points jersey, not always won by the best sprinter. Like wise the GC isn't always won by the best stage racer; 2006 for example. That's what makes cycling special. It's not a drag race, you can use your brain.

If a climber wanted that jersey he should have fought harder and more intelligently, like Charteau did.

 

[The Hitch]

They could offer time bonuses at every summit. Say, 30 seconds for Cat1, 20 seconds for Cat2, 10 seconds for Cat3 and 45 seconds for HC. Then every climb becomes important.

But that seems to be contrary to the concept of a stage race. Why have stages when a rider can finish the day with less cumulative time despite not being first to the finish?

I was thinking that too but then they will just let breakaways take those bonus seconds anyhow.

 

[Kender]

What I'm proposing is that they keep track of how long a cyclist did over a climb(category 2 and above) and the climber who climbed all climbs of category 2 and above in the least amount of time wins the king of mountains competition. Bonus seconds are given for this classification, but only for a stage that has a mountain finish. So the winner of a stage with a mountain finish gets 60 bonus seconds, the second gets 40 seconds and the guy who came in third gets 20 seconds.

These bonus seconds wouldn't count towards to GC though, only for the KOM competition.

Also double the prize money for that award.

that would be boring as hell. you wouldn't be able to see the battle going on easily, and it would end up being the same or similar looking podium to the GC

it's fine how it is. who cares that a true climber didnt win it. if a true climber wanted it they'd have had to work for it. charteau worked his **** off for that jersey and deserved it. he earned it.

 

[boardhanger]

that would be boring as hell. you wouldn't be able to see the battle going on easily, and it would end up being the same or similar looking podium to the GC

it's fine how it is. who cares that a true climber didnt win it. if a true climber wanted it they'd have had to work for it. charteau worked his **** off for that jersey and deserved it. he earned it.

It's a simple idea. Points on offer for whoever is first over catorgaized climbs earns points. Need it be more complicated??

 

[skidmark]

The Tour de France used to be a "points race" (like the green jersey) in the first few editions (I think 10 or so). It turned into the race it is after, can't remember the reasoning.

Is bike racing not exciting enough already? Is it was invented tomorrow it would be an "extreme" sport, or more realistically, banned.

Remember you do have a mountains classification and points classification to watch too...

From my memory, after the first 10 or so editions of the Tour, Henri Degrange realized that riders were losing the tour too much based on fortune, like a broken fork costing Eugene Christophe hours when he was in the leader's jersey. Back then it took awhile to fix stuff and you could lose tons of time. So they moved it to a points system based on finishing rank, meaning if you had bad luck, you finished 50th and lost 50 points, rather than losing 5 hours. I think that lasted for 8-10 editions, then they moved back once they changed some rules about fixing bikes and bringing everything you had at the start of the stage to the end.

And yeah, although it'd be neat to see top guys chasing non-GC jerseys, they could really make that happen by making the course a bit tougher on 'average' days. The giro seems to do a good job of this; looking at the points ranking always sees a mix of GC contenders with sprinters. I don't think you have to sacrifice the GC for it necessarily.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

I too would like to see the KOM be a little more contested by GC climbers.

To me it changed mostly with Richard Virenque, who would go on these long breakaways on mountain stages in order to win the first few climbs, knowing full well he'd be caught before the finish. He did this with one goal in mind, to win the KOM jersey. JaJa followed this same tactic.

I much prefer to see serious contenders wearing that jersey so it strikes a little fear in the hearts of the other rides. The last time I saw this was probably Tony Rominger in 1993 repeatedly attacking Mig in the mountains while holding the KOM, and Mig fighting back hard wearing the MJ every time.

A "solution" of sorts may be to increase the bonus for final climb of the day, and increase it even more for MTF's. Plus put more MTF's into the Tour, but that is one we all agree on.

 

[ericthesportsman6]

I have a huge respect for Maillot Jaune like I do for Stanley Cup for example but imagine if there was no GC in the race, if the overal time didn't matter, if you just had to choose to ride for either green or polka dot (or even both) jerseys.

(Is there actually any race like that in the world?)

Wouldn't the race be incredible? Imagine Contador and Schleck attacking before every summit (who would have got the polka dot jersey this year?), riders like Vinokurov attacking early in the race to try to survive as many cathegories as possible etc and seeing the battle Petacchi/Cavendish vs. Contador for the green maybe.

I think Le Tour would be much more entertaining like that.

I'm not saying they should do this with Le Tour de France, of course not, I'd love to see something like that in a less important Tour though. The whole stage would be full action.

Oh and then again why the hell did they get rid of those time bonuses? Makes no sense to me.

I stopped reading right there. You lost all credibility.

 

[boardhanger]

I stopped reading right there. You lost all credibility.

I know. It's a difficult post to take serious

 

[Roland Rat]

I too would like to see the KOM be a little more contested by GC climbers.

To me it changed mostly with Richard Virenque, who would go on these long breakaways on mountain stages in order to win the first few climbs, knowing full well he'd be caught before the finish. He did this with one goal in mind, to win the KOM jersey. JaJa followed this same tactic.

I much prefer to see serious contenders wearing that jersey so it strikes a little fear in the hearts of the other rides. The last time I saw this was probably Tony Rominger in 1993 repeatedly attacking Mig in the mountains while holding the KOM, and Mig fighting back hard wearing the MJ every time.

A "solution" of sorts may be to increase the bonus for final climb of the day, and increase it even more for MTF's. Plus put more MTF's into the Tour, but that is one we all agree on.

+1 to everything - Virenque, Rominger/Mig and final bonuses. The green jersey points are higher at the end than the intermediates, so why not with mountains?

I hated Virenque. Everything about him. His crass riding style, and that he was so obviously juiced to the gills yet no-one mentioned it and instead all we got was Phil'n'Paul going on and on about how the French housewives loved him.

 

[icefire]

The solution is easy: do not give money price to the GC winner.

Regarding time bonuses, it seems everyone has forgotten what happened in 2009 Vuelta. Several contenders were within less than 1 minute of the leader for most of the race, so breakaways were allowed every day to prevent changes in the GC. Only Silence-Lotto miscalculated the advantage in the stage to Xorret de Catí, where Evans lost the lead to Valverde because of the 8 sec given to the 3rd in the finish.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The main thing was, Valverde's guys were happy to let the break go if it didn't threaten Valverde, and Gesink, Sánchez, Evans, Basso and Mosquera were all happy for that to happen since when they DID get to the line together Valverde would beat them in a sprint;

in stage 8 Gesink gained the 8 bonus seconds after attacking in the last few hundred metres
in stage 9 Valverde gained 8 seconds of bonus for coming 3rd
in stage 12 Gesink gained those seconds after he and Mosquera attacked
in stage 13 Mosquera was 2nd after attacking and putting 30" into the others, Valverde won the sprint for 3rd
in stage 14 Sánchez put 14" into Valverde plus the 8 bonus seconds for coming 3rd (Valverde protected 4 seconds by letting Cunego and Fuglsang go - Samu would have been 1st and Valverde 3rd otherwise)
in stage 19 they were happy to let Cobo go on the descent, then Valverde won the sprint for 2nd.

Everywhere else was either a sprint or the breakaway was allowed to hoover up those bonus seconds.

It is a problem only if the rider in the lead has the ability to sprint; it was less of a problem on Xorret del Catí, for example, where Valverde was desperate for those bonus seconds and stalked down David de la Fuente to pass him and take them. Once Valverde had the maillot oro, nobody was prepared to duke out the bonus seconds in a sprint to the line with him.

 

[R.0.t.O]

Nothing wrong with the KOM format in my view - maybe the name is wrong, but at the moment it's a good reward for a brave breakaway rider. Guys like Charteau, Moreau, Cunego, Casar, Voeckler, Fedrigo were up in the breaks on a number of days - it's good that there's a big jersey reward for these guys to go for. Do Schleck and Contador care about coming 3rd or 4th? - I wouldn't think so, and I doubt they would change their riding tactics to try to be 1st or 2nd however the points format changed, GC is always going to be way more important.

(There already are more points for the final mountain of the day btw, have been since 2004.)

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

The first two tours were won on cumulative time. HDG started his points system with the 1905 tour. But it wasn't based on anything that happened out on the course, it was based entirely on the rider's finishing position and how long since the rider ahead of him had finished. Sounds like it would suit perfectly a rider like Merckx, who was never happy just to win by a little.

Geo Lefevre wrote, "The labours of Hercules were nothing compared with the calculations, and errors made at night often had to be corrected in the morning."

 

[Polish]

I think the Tour de France should be competed as a Team Event.
Add up the Top 5 riders from each team.

And the Teams should be National Teams.

All other races during the year would be normal sponsors like today.

But the TdF would be the "World Cup" as it were.