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What is the perfect Grand Tour?

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Lol. I'm hardly asking them to race from sunrise to sunset. Riding 174 km on average for 23 days in a row is possible and humane for even amateurs. An inhumane route would not allow for a full night of sleep, 4000 km is far away from that.
All I'm asking for is a small boy to clean my chimney. They'll get breaks and food.

Amatuers don't race at the intensity of pros, nor starve themselves to be most efficient.
 
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It's not that difficult to make a good GT route.
  1. Make the first week of the race interesting: a diversification is needed. A steep hilly finish, a couple of mountain stages (including a difficult MTF), one untypical day (i.e. strade), a couple of sprints, one medium TT.
  2. Variety of mountain stages: hard MTFs as well as stages encouraging long-range attacks (monster+an easier climb combo). At least one unipuerto and multi-col no-flat stage.
  3. Arrangment of stages: locating most interesting stages (for long range attacks) before easier stages (or rest days). Avoiding clustering of super-hard stages (it will make riders afraid to attack on first stages of clusters) and avoid back loading. Example: Mortirilo-Aprica combo before the second rest day and Finestre-Sestriere combo as the last stage before Milan can provide two days of epic action. Add to it 3 difficult MTFs (one in each week, not adjacent to the two monster stages) and a couple of moderate mountain stages. In case of consecutive mounain stages pattern: hard + intermediate is better than the other way around (the second could bring some positive surprises).
  4. Moderate amount of TT (i.e. 50-70 km) to give a chance to strong TT-ists and encourage attacks by climbers.
 
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All I'm asking for is a small boy to clean my chimney. They'll get breaks and food.

Amatuers don't race at the intensity of pros, nor starve themselves to be most efficient.
Ease on the hysteria. With better technology and care it has never been easier to ride the same route for a pro. With the lenient time limits of today, we see very few OOTs and DNFs.

The intensity the pros ride depend on how fresh they are. If the routes really were "inhumane", they would ride them more slowly.
 
My preference is a fairly classic design with a little spice on top.

Flat stages: My least favourite, but sprinters deserve a chance, and they help to make the geographical tour of the country. Take four purely flat stages spread over three weeks, including one or two along the coast, with chances for echelons.

Transitional stages: Take three stages with some smaller climbs far from the finish. These can go to the breakaway, or end in a reduced bunch sprint.

Spunky stages: Take four stages with something extra in the final, suited for classical types, but also chances for GC riders. E.g. one murito finish, one stage with a murito and technical descent in the last 10 km, one sterrato stage, and one criterium with a recurring 3rd cat. climb (world championship style).

Middle mountains: Take three of these. One is relatively easy with a MTF. The other two have multiple climbs below 1500 m, but no MTF.

High mountains: Take five of these, spread over two mountain ranges. One is a monopuerto stage. The other four have multiple climbs over 1800 m. One has a flat finish after a descent. One finishes on a long HC climb. The remaining two have at least one HC climb along the road, followed by an easier MTF.

Time trials: Two can be enough. Take one 50 km flat ITT, and one 20 km climbing ITT.
 
Do you think the 1998 Giro route (the most recent GT without rest days) was worse off for not having any rest days? Do you think the route was spoiled by too much ITT? Do you think longer stages would ruin it?

How clean do you think the peloton was in the spring of 1998? Come on, man...

Also, I also think rest days is good and probably necessary for basically everybody else involved in the race.
 
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I mean, it's difficult to say specifically because there are certain features unique to each Grand Tour. The Giro and Vuelta have much better options for pacing than the Tour, because all the mountains are concentrated in specific areas in France, most of which are around its southern and eastern perimeter, whereas in Italy and Spain you're never more than a stage away from a significant enough range to put a selective stage in. The age of the roads and how they were constructed also changes the character of the race.

And one of the problems is the way that the organisers have reacted to changes within the péloton have solved some issues, but at the expense that often they've created new problems or exacerbated old ones. The lack of audience figures for flat stages compared to mountain stages caused Angelo Zomegnan to bias the Giro way too far in favour of the latter, resulting in a negative impact on the field attracted to race since a Giro-Tour double was off the cards, and costing him his job. Greater control meaning smaller gaps in mountain stages have led to the perception that the gaps created by time trials cannot be countered without changing the balance. ASO decided that since they had already started to simplify the mountain stages, the solution was to reduce the time trial mileage to make the race closer, which in some respects succeeded but resulted in less canvas for interesting pictures to be painted on, because it just reduced the amount of potentially decisive kilometres in the race. Unipublic decided that since the gaps created by their anaemic Unipuerto stages were fairly small (owing to them designing everything around the final 45 minutes of the stage being the only decisive part), the solution was to have more of those stages, because if you're only creating 30 second gaps where you used to be creating 1 minute gaps, you need twice as many mountain stages to create the same gaps as yesteryear.

And yes, nobody likes a race that's settled after the first week, so organisers want to keep things close until late on so that fans don't tune out - but that shouldn't come at the expense of neutering the course. I mean, 18 sprint stages, then a TT, a single MTF and a parade would guarantee that the race came down to the final weekend, but understandably no race organiser has dared go for that kind of reductio ad absurdum situation.

The Grand Départ:
I feel that a good Grand Tour should open with something that will offer up potential to open up a gap but will leave people close enough that in the coming days there is a fight for the opportunity to wear the leader's jersey. It absolutely should not be handed on a silver platter to sprinters who have no intention of trying to defend it (hello Marcel). Wearing the leader's jersey at a Grand Tour is an honour and therefore it should be earned. The two methods I prefer for the opening stage are the prologue, and a slightly hilly circuit type race. I don't mind point to point for stage 1 if it's something like Plumelec 2008 or Landerneau 2021, but something like the original proposal for the 2013 Giro's opening is ideal - it might be a sprint, but then the sprinter has earned their right to wear the jersey. The stage might open up gaps but they're not likely to be very large. I like a circuit race as an idea particularly for the Vuelta because it helps attract people for Worlds preparation as well, but also it means you can improve the atmosphere with fans able to see the riders several times. A prologue often has a better atmosphere than starting with a road stage (plus it's easier to police) for a similar reason.

An early means by which to separate the contenders from the pretenders:
The longer every potential contender has something to protect, the more nervous the péloton will be, and the more likely we are to see crashes. Something early on that tells you who doesn't have the form and needs to reappraise goals, and sets the scene, can solve this problem. This is the quintessential role of a Montevergine di Mercogliano. This kind of stage should be around the middle of week 1, I feel. If the race started with a road stage, then it is better for this to be a time trial - preferably a middling sort of length (~25km but possibly shorter, depending on the balance of other stages), again similar to the 2008 and 2021 Tours. The alternative is an MTF which is either a sprint-of-the-elites type that eliminates the pretenders but doesn't separate out the biggest guns, or a shorter and sharper one that is too long for puncheurs but not as endurance focused as later ones - the 5-8km at 8-9% type climbs work well for this. Examples of the former kind in recent memory would be the 2009 Giro to San Martino di Castrozza, 2011 Vuelta to Sierra Nevada by the traditional route, or of course the many Montevergine stages. Examples of the latter would include Arrate in the 2012 Vuelta and Planche des Belles Filles in the 2017 Tour. Yes, here's me praising the use of one of my most hated climbs - because it was used in the perfect way for it to be effective in the overall telling of the race's tale. Once you've settled the natural order of things in the péloton, a lot of the rest can fall into place.

Stages which are worthwhile for the GC - especially those which incentivise racing from distance - on weekends:
These are the days with the biggest potential audience share. Take advantage of that. No putting all the mountain stages, time trials and everything that is most likely to create new fans on days when people are at work, school or college and then put four hours of coverage of a flat stage on a Sunday. Especially on the penultimate weekend when the race's key period should be taking place. I'm looking at you here, ASO.

Do not put a huge MTF on stage 20 unless the race's balance is otherwise against the one-dimensional grimpeur, and make the queen stage a proper queen stage:
I know it's sorely tempting, but unless you beef up the time trial mileage, there is a very high chance that the best climber in the race already has the jersey before stage 20, and then it's a complete damp squib. See Ventoux 2009 and Zoncolan 2014 for the ultimate examples. A queen stage should see at least 3 monolithic climbs (the Galibier, Bonette, Stelvio, Tourmalet, Gavia, Fauniera type) or if it's not using that type of climb, preferably about 5 major climbs (the Dolomiti, Asturian, Valdôtain type). Something like the 2003 Giro Pontechianale stage, the 2008 Tour Alpe d'Huez stage or the 2011 Tour Galibier stage are good examples of the former, things like the 2009 Tour Le-Grand-Bornand stage, the 2009 Giro Monte Petrano stage, the 2011 Giro Rifugio Gardeccia stage, and the 2015 Giro Aprica stage are good examples of the latter.

Sequencing of mountain stages:
Especially the Tour has a bit of a necessity of doing the mountains in blocks. That's fine, it's geographically necessitated. But if that's the case, pacing is crucial. If you're going to do three in a row, the most difficult mountaintop finish cannot be last, otherwise it will neutralise earlier stages (see the 2009 Vuelta). If you're going to do the short mountain stage, it seems to work best placed directly after the queen stage, for two reasons: 1) the queen stage will be hard enough for domestiques that they will often fall away early on the short mountain stage, and 2) the short mountain stage being short means riders will be less scared of expending energy in the queen stage. And if there are three mountain stages in a row, the first one is likely to see the leaders leave it to the final climb to avoid too much fatigue across the coming days. This is the ideal place to use your Zoncolan, your Anglirú, your Ventoux, your Alpe d'Huez. The queen stage is preferably on the penultimate weekend. The 2011 Giro penultimate weekend is a great example of how to do the back to back mountain stages.

Placement of time trial stages:
Keeping something back for the time trial is too often a killer blow to action on mountain stages. There are exceptions - pleasingly more common now - but typically you need a transitional stage between the mountains and the final time trial if you're making an ITT the final decisive stage, as the Tour often does if the Pyrenees go last, with a flat stage then a time trial somewhere near Bordeaux. If you're going with a late-race ITT, then you need to have a solid length one earlier in the race. You can get away with only one long ITT if it's held mid-race, but if you're going with that approach then it MUST be the kind of time trial that can gain or lose minutes, because this is the only chance for the time trialist to gain significant time. In this case, you need something like 2009 Cinque Terre or 2015 Valdobbiadene. If there is no prologue, then something akin to the 2008 formula, with around a 20-30km ITT in week 1, and a 45-50km ITT on stage 20, would be good. If there is a prologue, then it's best to either go with a mid-race long time trial (probably 40-50k) and a shorter one later in the race (or even, for the Giro at least, on the final day), or a single, but monolithic, mid-race time trial like the ones mentioned above. The Vuelta used to finish off with a 40km+ time trial in Madrid and the race lead would frequently change hands in them - the Giro likewise has had its final day TT change the winner twice in the last ten years (Hesjedal in 2012 and Dumoulin in 2017) but on both of those occasions, it was already felt that they would win and so the ITT was like a coronation not dissimilar to Cadel Evans overhauling Andy Schleck in 2011.

Variety in transitional stages:
It is pretty well-established at this point that I do not like the Team Time Trial, and unless one of the three countries elects a Communist government or undergoes a Communist revolution, the TTT should therefore not be included. However, we do want to balance out the teams that are brought so that we don't have just full on mountain trains running alongside each other. The point of the race is that any stage can be a place to gain or lose time, not have set liaison sections and set timed sections like the Dakar Rally. I suggest that in fact this is one area where the Grand Tour organisers have been excelling themselves recently. The Tour de France in 2021 just published its best set of non-GC stages in years, and looks like they have understood what they need to do with flat stages to make them more important to the overall picture. I would like to see a maximum of four straight up sprint stages. If more stages end up in sprints, then so be it - for example if the organisers prepared a stage that would be susceptible to crosswinds but the weather on the day didn't play ball, or weather conditions meant neutralisations like stage 1 in 2020. Or it rained and the riders just didn't feel like it, like Asti in 2020. No, actually, scratch that last one. This is also where your other rouleur challenges come in - sterrato, hormigón, cobbles, ribinou.

Some genuine endurance stages in the medium mountain and hilly areas:
Not every stage in and of itself is a thriller, but sometimes the role they play is crucial because they are important for the days to come. This is where the super-long intermediate stage comes in. The 2021 Tour's 7th stage, a monument-length hilly stage, is a great example because without the fatigue created by that stage - which itself was good - stage 8 is more tightly controlled than it becomes. The Giro used to be the best at this type of stage, with examples like Pinerolo 2009, L'Aquila 2010 (of course, the strange situation on the road exacerbated things there too), Porto Sant'Elpidio 2012, Ivrea 2013 and San Giorgio del Sannio 2015. Even if they just end up as stages for the baroudeurs, they will have an impact in the long run on the GC mix as well as giving the type of rider that may have had to reappraise earlier goals or that wouldn't otherwise have a chance to take a stage win a chance to do so.

More prestige on the secondary classifications and a better balance of the points system in the GPM, especially in the Tour:
The Tour's GPM was reorganised in 2011 to reflect the "king of the breakaways" element. This had largely been exacerbated by the poor stage designs of 2009-10 where final climbs 60 or 70km from home were giving huge numbers of points. I agree with the theory behind the change they made but I think the imbalance in the points scale is too extreme, such that we're seeing GC riders winning the jersey by accident (Froome in 2015, Pogi both times). That's less a problem if they're winning it over the type of break fodder that is currently picking up the jersey in the Vuelta (thanks to their doing away with the MTF category and giving a lot of points to summits that are obviously not going to impact the race, which is their problem), but when you see something like Carapaz in 2020 or Wout Poels in 2021 finishing just outside the top 10, lighting up the mountain stages... are these not precisely the type of riders who should be targeting and contesting the GPM and making it a worthwhile thing to follow?
 
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Each grand tours has diffrent problems when creating route. But common ones are balancing between fiancial and geography. The problem is that many cities (esp start-finish) paid to be parts of grand tours, and those cities might or might not have suitable terrain for spectacle on road (or lesser extent nature). It's usually hit-miss. Also, some race director might design route for a certain (type of) rider in mind.
 
Regarding the design of the Grand Tours the last few years, I see at least two main issues:

  • Overreliance on (steep) MTFs.
  • Easier mountain stages than earlier.

An this applies especially to the Vuelta and the Tour. The last point can be easily illustrated by studying some of the mountain stages in the last couple of decades. In 2005 the Tour had a 205 km stage to Pla d'Adet with six categorized climbs. In 2014 the stage to Pla d'Adet was only 125 km with four climbs. Portet d'Aspet and Mente was dropped. Something similar applies to the Plateau d'Beille stages in 2004 and 2015, respectively. The first was 2005 km with 7 climbs. The latter was 195 km with only four climb. Noticeably Col d'Agnes and Col de Latrape was dropped.

And for the first point, it is illustrated by the next year's TDF stages in the Pyrenees. The stage to Foix via Pegeure could have been a good place for a long range attack at Peguere. But this stage is followed by two MTF stages. La Flamme Rouge's suggested re-design was way better. Same towns used, just in a different order with the stage to Foix as the last mountain stage, and adding several more climbs before Col de Peguere, making the stage significantly tougher.

qDy9Mt4.png
 
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Two years ago I drew a rough Tour route as a showcase of a good design for the Tour. Not the most creative route, as I tried to show what's possible with the current constraints. Overall length, number of rest days, number of climbs, maximum length of stages, start and finish locations, number of sprint stages, ITT km, etc. are all within recent parameters. The most unrealistic aspects are: the Grand Depart, the tunnel used in the stage to Rotterdam (can easily be fixed with a different stage start), the climb used in Metz (but still no more extreme than what has actually been used in recent years), and the last stage before Paris being a mountain stage in the Pyrenees (197 km, but the late start of the Paris stage should still make the transfer doable).

Rest days are on the last two mondays, after stage 8 and stage 14.

There's no distance markers on the profiles in the link (click on the image), but the hill prologue in Tulle is 2.75 km, the two other ITTs are ~41.5 km and ~47 km. The longest stage is the one to Rotterdam (249 km), the two hardest mountain stages are 210 km (Auron) and 205 km (Gavarnie). Both of the mountain blocks follow the same template: hardest MTF on day 1, hardest stage with the hardest climb being the penultimate on day 2, least selective stage most open to long distance chaos on day 3, and rest day/parade on day 4. There's as few days for the sprinters as in 2015, with as many finishes for them in the last two weeks as back then (2).

The point is to show that sequence (within stages and between stages) matter and the terrain available to the Tour is not the limitation.
 
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Regarding the design of the Grand Tours the last few years, I see at least two main issues:

  • Overreliance on (steep) MTFs.
  • Easier mountain stages than earlier.
An this applies especially to the Vuelta and the Tour. The last point can be easily illustrated by studying some of the mountain stages in the last couple of decades. In 2005 the Tour had a 205 km stage to Pla d'Adet with six categorized climbs. In 2014 the stage to Pla d'Adet was only 125 km with four climbs. Portet d'Aspet and Mente was dropped. Something similar applies to the Plateau d'Beille stages in 2004 and 2015, respectively. The first was 2005 km with 7 climbs. The latter was 195 km with only four climb. Noticeably Col d'Agnes and Col de Latrape was dropped.

And for the first point, it is illustrated by the next year's TDF stages in the Pyrenees. The stage to Foix via Pegeure could have been a good place for a long range attack at Peguere. But this stage is followed by two MTF stages. La Flamme Rouge's suggested re-design was way better. Same towns used, just in a different order with the stage to Foix as the last mountain stage, and adding several more climbs before Col de Peguere, making the stage significantly tougher.

qDy9Mt4.png
2005 km with 7 climbs. I don't know about that stage. Too easy, too much flat.
 
For me clear cut "sprinting stages" have no place in a GT. If you are a flat track bully who can't get over the tiniest of molehills after two days of consecutive racing, you have no place in a GT peloton imho. Potential sprinting stages should always offer enough variety that attackers or puncheurs at least have a reasonable chance of not having a stage end in a sprint. There have been far too many one-trick pony GT stage wins in the past imho. A-grade stage hunters statistically have a lower chance at winning a stage than B-grade sprinters.

Same goes for GC riders. If you can't survive some crosswinds sections, a few pavé sections and some classic twisting and turning where positioning could be key, then you might want to consider turning into a stage hunter for when circumstances suit you.

A GC route should not be tailored to climbers like it has been too often in past decades. There should definitely be more ITT kms. If you can climb but not TT you should have no more expectations to be able to compete for a GC than a TT-er who can't climb. TT'ing is the most honest and pure form of cycling. Who is the best not at sitting in someone else's wheel, or with the best team at his disposal. It is the essence of the sport imho. That said, a TT doesn't have to be completely flat, and certainly not all of them should be completely flat. Why are there so few climbing TT's?

Overall i find stages are tried to fit a specific mold too often. A "sprint" stage, a "mountain" stage, a "crosswinds" stage, a "Roubaix" stage...

As for TTT's... i like the discipline a lot, but i don't like how they can skew the overall GC outcome. How about having TTT's work with only bonification seconds? Winner takes 20s over 2nd spot. The 2nd takes 10s over 3rd. And going down, a 5s gap per spot?
 
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My dream route would be:
25 stages, 3 rest days, 7 flat, hilly and mountain stages, and 4 time trials.
The flat stages can have cobbles, echelons, and 3 and 4 cat climbs.
The hilly stages try for echelons as well with 1-4 cat rated climbs. 3 ending on a climb and 4 downhill.
The mountain stages all having at least one HCT and around 3 mountains each stage with 4 finishing on the summit and 3 being downhill finishes.
A 20-30 km TTT, a 15-30 km MTT, a 30-60 km hilly TT, and a 20-50 km flat one.

Give bonus time for the stage finish, intermediate point, and KOM points. I’m not sure what would be a fair time but for some flair give them the same amount of points they would receive for the classifications to the first 3.
 
How clean do you think the peloton was in the spring of 1998? Come on, man...

Also, I also think rest days is good and probably necessary for basically everybody else involved in the race.
Fun thing about those days. Stages overall were ridden way, way slower than now. Overall, average fitness as well as gear is better so if anything they should be better capable of handling a 3 week stage race without rest days.
 
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GTs:
  • Should have a number (4-5) of flat stages for the pure sprinters and also to function as a sort of rest day for GC contenders
  • Should have at least four mountain finishes. Preferably different type of mountains, but at least with some sections at 9%+
  • Have at least two very nice hill stages, similar to the Tirreno this year, or seemingly Torino Giro next year. Those are the future of cycling.
  • Prefarably one stage of Cobble-Strade or something similar
  • Should have no TTT
  • ITT should differ per GT, some GTs (around 60-70%) should be TT heavy, other GTs should have limited amount of GTs
  • Should have at least 2-3 stages that go to the breakaway to make it interesting for those riders as well.
  • Should have at least 13 stages that can potentially matter for GC.

The rest, I don’t care too much.
 
Regarding the design of the Grand Tours the last few years, I see at least two main issues:

  • Overreliance on (steep) MTFs.
  • Easier mountain stages than earlier.
An this applies especially to the Vuelta and the Tour. The last point can be easily illustrated by studying some of the mountain stages in the last couple of decades. In 2005 the Tour had a 205 km stage to Pla d'Adet with six categorized climbs. In 2014 the stage to Pla d'Adet was only 125 km with four climbs. Portet d'Aspet and Mente was dropped. Something similar applies to the Plateau d'Beille stages in 2004 and 2015, respectively. The first was 2005 km with 7 climbs. The latter was 195 km with only four climb. Noticeably Col d'Agnes and Col de Latrape was dropped.

And for the first point, it is illustrated by the next year's TDF stages in the Pyrenees. The stage to Foix via Pegeure could have been a good place for a long range attack at Peguere. But this stage is followed by two MTF stages. La Flamme Rouge's suggested re-design was way better. Same towns used, just in a different order with the stage to Foix as the last mountain stage, and adding several more climbs before Col de Peguere, making the stage significantly tougher.

qDy9Mt4.png
I believe that's my redesign rather than LFR's. Otherwise agree, obviously ;)
 
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First of all i'd say three ITT, two of them to be mandatory put as first (~10/15 kms long) and last (~30/35 kms long) stage and a big one (60/70 kms long or even more) before the first real mountain stage. The first stage so we can already have some gaps and avoid keeping a too close GC and some one trick pony getting the yellow jersey and the last to avoid having a freaking criterium robbing a stage, this two could be hilly but the long one should be pan flat to have climbers loose the more possible so they have to relentlessy attack in the mountains if they want to be relevant in the GC. I don't mind having also a TTT or an MTT, even both if they don't steal a spot from an ITT, but if there aren't my evaluation of the route won't change.

In the first week, at the Tour i prefer not having real mountain stages or MTF so i would fill it with three hilly stages, three sprint stages and a stage with cobbles in addition of the opening ITT and the long one to be put possibly as stage 9 before the first rest day. The sprinter stages should be very long (250+ kms) to be useful to put fatigue in the legs of GC riders whereas the hilly stages could be also short, because we won't have action from far anyway, and possibly one should have some sterrato. For the Giro and Vuelta i'd totally avoid sprinters stage since the terrain, unlike in France, offer the possibility to have at least hilly days everywhere and anyway a couple of hilly stages with flat finish could still end in a sprint like happens in races like Catalunya or Pais Vasco. As i said previously at the Giro and Vuelta i'd put already a couple of mountain stages in the first week, but nothing exceptional because would be a waste, and generally longer stages in the Giro and some muritos in the Vuelta.

In the second and third weeks i'd put only mountain stages or very hilly stages, except for the final ITT, with some key designing points to be respected:
*At least in the Giro and the Tour, having the two hardest stages after the two rest days to exploit who has a bad rest day or suffer it, in the Vuelta i don't mind because i think a closer and easier race is better so far in the season.
*The big stages should be followed by a short stage that usually delivers very well when is placed after a long and hard day on the saddle because riders are already fatigued and need less to crack.
*In the Giro and in the Tour an Alpine stage and a Dolomitic/Pyrenean stage should be 250+ kms long and with at least five passes used, possibly one also in the Appennines/Vosges at least 220 kms long.
*Again in the Giro and the Tour not more than one hard MTF and one mountain stage with the hardest climb as the last one, in the Vuelta i don't mind even if there is a murito fest.
*The second last stage should have a really big climb farther from the finish to incentivate someone that is minutes behind to try an all or nothing attack even from 100 kms out, could go wrong and be dull like with the Manghen in 2019 but the possibility should be given to riders, and anyway still better than a MTF on the Fedaia.
*In the Vuelta there could be even a dozen of MTFs but in the Giro and the Tour i'd keep at the bare minimum, as i said an hard one is enough plus an easier one after an hard climb and couple in hilly stages is enough.
 
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What's up with the hate of sprint stages? I mean the only sprinter I'm truely a fan of will probably never do the Tour and it's doubtful whether he does any GT soon, but... first I prefer a full bunch sprint to some stage that Joe Dombrowski, Patrick Konrad or, yes, Magnus Cort wins (sorry), yes, much of it is boring, but a sprint itself is anything but boring if there are some decent contenders, second they have always been such an important part of GTs ever since I have started to watch them... that a GT without them appears like whatever, but not a GT to me. The amount is already decreasing. And third I'm glad there are days I can tune in for 20 minutes at best without regret... :D
 
Regarding the design of the Grand Tours the last few years, I see at least two main issues:

  • Overreliance on (steep) MTFs.
  • Easier mountain stages than earlier.
An this applies especially to the Vuelta and the Tour. The last point can be easily illustrated by studying some of the mountain stages in the last couple of decades. In 2005 the Tour had a 205 km stage to Pla d'Adet with six categorized climbs. In 2014 the stage to Pla d'Adet was only 125 km with four climbs. Portet d'Aspet and Mente was dropped. Something similar applies to the Plateau d'Beille stages in 2004 and 2015, respectively. The first was 2005 km with 7 climbs....
I can only speculate that they were "dead tired" after the long journey!!
I love that design change. But we always do that here and organizers never do these stages. Well, very rarely.