What's wrong with ITTs ?

[Cult Classics]

I really hate ITTs now. Prologues I can live with, but the time trials often kill the road racing. Theyre more predictable and less about luck, tactics and timing. How many times have you seen riders just holding back, being conservative, because they know the TT is coming? I want more riders like Schleck and Gilbert and less like Levi Leipheimer, please.

Trivia question: list all of Levi Leipheimer's road stage/one day wins in European races.

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

I find prologues to be more exciting than longer time trials actually. Unless there's a big battle for GC going on in those time trials like in 2007 Tour. Or a better example: 1989 Tour

Prologues are just people riding bikes then you get the result at the end.

Long TTs allow lots of time checks - worlds this year were brilliant with 5 time checks + the finish, created a full 90 minutes of high interest during the last group of riders.

 

[Angliru]

You haven't been following cycling for long, have you? Anyone who says that Thierry Marie's and Boardman's prologue wins weren't exciting is a knob. And who could forget Perico Delgado missing the start in '89?

That wasn't exciting, that was heartbreaking for me! What was exciting was watching him climb and at the same time heartbreaking again to realize that he just maybe could've won that tour if not for his tardy arrival to that year's prologue.

 

[webvan]

You snooze you lose.

 

[Arnout]

Problem with time trials is that its not road cycling in my opinion. A main element of road cycling is not going faster than all the others, but going faster than all the others at the right moment. That means working together with opposition, not working, doing surprising things etc etc. The riding in a peloton makes cycling special. In no other major sport you work so closely together with your enemy. The skill is also to do that in the optimal way.

Time trialling is not about that. It's about going faster than all the others full stop. I still can enjoy them sometimes as the mental aspect is quite interesting sometimes, but overall it are just some people riding fast. I might as well watch ice skating, which is the stupidest sport on earth.

 

[HL2037]

What's wrong with ITTs in a grand tour? Well, Andy suck at TTing, and Andys dad is good friends with the guy that designs the TdF route, that's whats wrong.

 

[Bavarianrider]

What's wrong with ITTs in a grand tour? Well, Andy suck at TTing, and Andys dad is good friends with the guy that designs the TdF route, that's whats wrong.

Seems like the friendship took at least little hit

 

[webvan]

Dunno maybe daddy got tired of seeing Andy being his lazy self and thinking that with just one ITT, one big attack in the last week would be enough to win. We saw how well that worked in 2010 and 2011. With two ITTs, he'll have to go full throttle any time a mountain shows up.

 

[HL2037]

Seems like the friendship took at least little hit

Seems somebody realized that if Andy wasn't able to win with the 2011 parkours and the Leopard-Trek team behind him, then it's never going to happen. So they stopped designing the course for him.