What's wrong with ITTs ?

[webvan]

Did a search but couldn't come up with any dedicated thread, so here goes...always been a big fan of ITTs (75km ITT during the 1985 TDF anyone ?) and in the late 70s there were probably too many of them, but what's up with the current drought? I was reading comments by JF Pescheux, the TDF route planner, on the excellent TDF 2011 iPad app and he was saying that there's no point in having an ITT in the middle of the race...huh

I'm sure Wiggins wouldn't agree with that. As it is he has zero chance of winning the TDF, with a 50km ITT in the middle that might be a different story. And the 2003 TDF was one of the most exciting ever thanks to that ITT in Albi where Ulle bouced back. When was the last time we had an ITT in the middle, 2007?

Anyone else want to see more ITTs in the GTs ?

 

[LukeSchmid]

More ITTs
More MTFs
Less stages that have nothing to do with GC

 

[Marcus135]

More ITTs
More MTFs
Less stages that have nothing to do with GC

true that, the pancake stages in GTs are silly and in tdf especally to many, nothing happens untill the final 10. Stages like that may have been much harder 30-40 years ago when the equipment was not so good but now all riders breeze through them. Longer ITTs would be good with a few more bumpy stages. Maybe a few more MTFs but not to many so its overkill...

 

[Descender]

"Maybe a few more MTFs"?? Are you kidding me??? Never in the history of cycling has there been so many MTFs. Mountain stages have now been made synonymous with MTFs. Long gone are the classic stages in the Pyrenees with the finish in Bagneres de Luchon or in the Alps with the Galibier etc. and finish in Briançon... I'm sick and tired of the major overbooking of MTFs, and people are asking for even more of them??

As to the topic, I will never understand the current repulsion towards ITTs in Grand Tours (especially since the trend hasn't seemed to affect the one-week races, many times organised by the same companies as the GTs...). The classic parcours would have a prologue ITT, sometimes (but not ALWAYS) a TTT the first days, a long ITT at the end of the first week and another long ITT at the end.

Not only have the GTs got rid of one of the ITTs, but they've kept the one that offers the least advantage to the roulers GT contenders: the last one. If we have a look at the gaps in the first and the last ITTs over history we'll see the gaps were significantly bigger in the first one, since everyone was fresher and powerful riders could turn on their engines and impose a huge blow on the climbers, who, and here's the important part, were forced to ATTACK in the mountains, and not in the last kms, but far from the finish, therefore lengthening the spectacle.

 

[brianf7]

Trouble with ITT,s is the shining stars,The show ponys that media love need a wheel to suck or they simply cant ride alone any where fast enough to compeet for a place in a ITT stage.

 

[veganrob]

50k ITT in the middle of GT would be great. Mix it up a a bit. Put more emphasis on individual effort.

For different thread, what I could do without is the TTT. While it looks cool it is not really fair.

 

[ingsve]

I think it probably has something to do with what riders are the current favourites and the courses are laid out to suit them. Right now the Sclecks are all the rage and having too many ITT kms would ruin their chances in overall GC in GTs. And since organizers want an interesting fight for the GC they make sure to lay a course that gives them that with the current crop of riders. When the top GC guys where Ullrich and Lance you had more ITT since they could fight it out during those and anyone who was a pure climber during those years was at the same disadvantage that ITT centric GC riders are now.

 

[Kwibus]

Imo the course directors have to look at the podiumcontenders.

Adding more TT would only benefit Contador more so I'm not sure if we want that right now. Unless they put in so many TT kms that riders like Martin and Wiggins get such a huge lead on Contador (which isn't even certain as Contador can TT as well at times) that he can't make it up in the mountains.

Personally I'd prefer a long TT instead of the TTT. Or a 15-20km TTT and replace a flat stage with a TT of 40km. Imo a TT before the mountains forces the climbers to attack more.

 

[Lanark]

The problem is that differences in the mountains have become smaller and smaller. This has a lot to do with the general increase in level among cyclists. What used to be selective, is easy now for a large part of the peloton. This makes anything outside of a late stage attack suicide.

Attack on the penultimate climb? The other rider will just set their domestiques at the front, and reel you in before the final climb. Attack at the foot of the climb? Same story, let your teammates set a good pace, and attack with a couple of kilometers to go, and you'll be much fresher than the fool attacking from the beginning of the hill. It's not like climbers attack late because they don't have to make up a lot of time from the time trial, they do it because it's the only way to gain some time.

If you would add some 70 km time trials like in the olden days in the current Tour, the only thing you would get is the top-8 filled with your Wiggins, Leipheimer and Klöden types, minimizing their losses in the mountains.

If you want to add some ITT's, you must make the mountains a lot harder. Not just add more MTF's, but make the stages a lot harder as well. Just look at this year's Giro, the Zoncolan had big differences, why? Because it's so steep the domestiques are immediately eliminated. The Gardeccia stage was great as well, why? Because it was so tough, comming up on two difficult mountain stages, with a quick succesion of difficult mountains in the stage itself, the domestiques were again quickly killed, meaning the GC men had to fend for themselves (the Alpe D'Huez usually has a similair domestique-killing effect in the Tour because it's so steep at the bottom).

Add more ITT's, fine, but also add four or five stages like this:

Of course, drastically decreasing team size would work wonders as well. Have teams of 6 guys, and your average HTC or US Postal team would have a really difficult time of controlling a race (and it would decrease the number of crashes, because the peloton would be a lot smaller).

 

[phanatic]

What Descender said. Also, with all the TT specialists present at le tour, it is a shame not to see them have an extra stage or two before the big mountains. Maybe next year.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Nothing, they are great and belong to cycling.
Unfournately guys like Prudhomme and Zongeman don't like them

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

I think it probably has something to do with what riders are the current favourites and the courses are laid out to suit them. Right now the Sclecks are all the rage and having too many ITT kms would ruin their chances in overall GC in GTs. And since organizers want an interesting fight for the GC they make sure to lay a course that gives them that with the current crop of riders. When the top GC guys where Ullrich and Lance you had more ITT since they could fight it out during those and anyone who was a pure climber during those years was at the same disadvantage that ITT centric GC riders are now.

Yeah. expect way more ITT kilometers next year, though, if Schleck doesn't take this opportunity and/or if Contador is suspended.

I'd love to see a very long and hard 75-100km ITT in the Jura, Vosges or Massif Central mountains on the penultimate day......and a long 50-60km flat one some time in the first 2 weeks. That last TT could really shake up the GC.

Yeah, you'd have to have more more than 7 very hard high mountain and medium mountain stages, with properly linkable climbs, to balance things out, but that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[theyoungest]

If you want to add some ITT's, you must make the mountains a lot harder. Not just add more MTF's, but make the stages a lot harder as well. Just look at this year's Giro, the Zoncolan had big differences, why? Because it's so steep the domestiques are immediately eliminated. The Gardeccia stage was great as well, why? Because it was so tough, comming up on two difficult mountain stages, with a quick succesion of difficult mountains in the stage itself, the domestiques were again quickly killed, meaning the GC men had to fend for themselves (the Alpe D'Huez usually has a similair domestique-killing effect in the Tour because it's so steep at the bottom).

You're right about the Gardeccia stage (which was fantastic, maybe a little too hard) but on the Zoncolan it's just every man for himself, the fact that the domestiques are eliminated immediately doesn't really change that. Not much drafting to do on such a steep wall.

 

[auscyclefan94]

ITT's are good. Need more of them. I think the amount of mountain stages are just right. GT's are becoming too favoured to the pure climbers.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Just mix it up each year. This years TDF is clearly a climber edition.
Next year put a prologue and 2 50km ITT's in to favour the time trial specialists.
I like it when it changes from year to year

 

[uphillstruggle]

ITT's are good. Need more of them. I think the amount of mountain stages are just right. GT's are becoming too favoured to the pure climbers.

It's only the last two years that have seen the shift to less ITT. Look at 2008 and 2009 all three grand tours were favourable to all rounders who do well in TT's. Menchov won the giro in 2009. Wiggins came fourth in the 2009 Tour.

Personal I like to see some grand tours that are favourable to climbers and some that are good for the TTers. Why everyone thinks there should be 'A' formula for GT's is beyond me.

 

[auscyclefan94]

It's only the last two years that have seen the shift to less ITT. Look at 2008 and 2009 all three grand tours were favourable to all rounders who do well in TT's. Menchov won the giro in 2009. Wiggins came fourth in the 2009 Tour.

Personal I like to see some grand tours that are favourable to climbers and some that are good for the TTers. Why everyone thinks there should be 'A' formula for GT's is beyond me.

Other than the 2009 tdf (which was just a shocking route) no tdf is really favourable toa time trialist. if you have 4 MTF's then there are plenty of opportunities for the climbers to get time. Got to be balance in a GT. More tt km's please. You'll get an exciting race.

 

[Sophistic]

Long,flat ITTs and great mountain stages need each other. There has to be a long, flat ITT before the tough MTFs start so that the climbers will push from the beginning. Nothing worse than the gc guys looking each other at at great mountain stage till 300m to go because everything is so close.
And the 2009 course TDF wasnt really that favorable towards good ITTs , headwinds simply ruined two of the 4 MTFs.

 

[Peccio89]

I guess that is because average people think that TT are boring to watch if confronted with regular stages, and so organizers prefer that the GC is decided on the mountains so that more people watch the race.

For example i am a big fun so i watch every stage when i can, but the average tv watcher usually watch cycling only during the mountain stages, and maybe the last 10 km of sprint stages, while if there is a TT he just listen to the result during the news( most of my friends and relatives do this)

 

[movingtarget]

I think a long ITT is overdue in the TDF. Also the promenade into Paris every year should be rethought. I would like to see an ITT on the last stage and have the criterium every few years. I think everyone knows what Paris looks like by now and for me the final stage should be decisive sometimes instead of the "let's honour the winner and have a sprint at the end,"type of stage it has become.

The short flat time trials to me are pointless. They should mix it up : short and hilly, long and undulating etc. The Giro has used the time trial stage much better in recent years. I hope next year, the TDF has two reasonably long or difficult ITT's and no TTT. Use the prologue for the travel video ala London.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

I think a long ITT is overdue in the TDF. Also the promenade into Paris every year should be rethought. I would like to see an ITT on the last stage and have the criterium every few years. I think everyone knows what Paris looks like by now and for me the final stage should be decisive sometimes instead of the "let's honour the winner and have a sprint at the end,"type of stage it has become.

That TT would be relatively flat, though, if it's in or around Paris. I'd rather not have a flat ITT as the final or penultimate stage.

One long flat ITT in the first or second week, and then a long super hard medium mountain one towards the end, would be less boring. The second TT is almost always too predictable, so they need to try something different to keep things interesting. IMO

 

[uphillstruggle]

Other than the 2009 tdf (which was just a shocking route) no tdf is really favourable toa time trialist. if you have 4 MTF's then there are plenty of opportunities for the climbers to get time. Got to be balance in a GT. More tt km's please. You'll get an exciting race.

2007: three mountain top finishes around 110 TT KM. Seems even enough. 2008 seemed balanced to me as well. The 2009 Giro was heavily favoured to the TTers. The Bottle was in contention for a while for god sake.

 

[theyoungest]

The 2009 Giro was heavily favoured to the TTers. The Bottle was in contention for a while for god sake.

If it's a TT like that, I don't mind if it's decisive. What a beautiful course that was.

 

[Descender]

I guess that is because average people think that TT are boring to watch if confronted with regular stages, and so organizers prefer that the GC is decided on the mountains so that more people watch the race.

For example i am a big fun so i watch every stage when i can, but the average tv watcher usually watch cycling only during the mountain stages, and maybe the last 10 km of sprint stages, while if there is a TT he just listen to the result during the news( most of my friends and relatives do this)

This doesn't explain why TTs are so short, why there is ALWAYS a TTT lately or why Mountain TTs are so common these days... the amount of excitement you "lose" during a TT stage is very overrated. You'll most probably get tons of more excitement in the mountains if you've had a 50 ITT before, and I very much doubt the TV audiences of ITTs are much lower than those of a flat stage, if at all.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

But they are lower than those of a mountain stage, according to RCS and RAI.

Certainly I expect them to be no worse than a flat stage, but flat stages are a curse that should be eradicated unless they have some kind of element to reduce the predictability (placing a small climb inside the last 10-20km, placing them in very exposed, windy areas or placing them on difficult road surfaces being the specific things I have in mind).