Who will win the KOM at the Tour?

[Andre.J]

Whoever wins the KOM will not be the best climber of course. So it doesn't really matter

Andre

 

[luckyboy]

Gadret/Moncoutie/Cunego.

 

[Ferminal]

Whoever wins the KOM will not be the best climber of course. So it doesn't really matter

Andre

At least this is actually true this year...

 

[greenedge]

CAS maybe as well

 

[Swabian Lass]

Moncoutie or Gadret. Maybe Vino if he lets go of his GC aspirations soon enough, which he might do. I think that he'll want to come out of this years Tour with something to show for it.

 

[Sylvester]

I wonder whether Egoi Martinez will try something. But he's not strong enough to actually win the jersey.

 

[Lexman]

David Mouncoutie

 

[auscyclefan94]

I strongly dislike the KOM this year. Personally this is how I would allocate the points.

HC: 40, 30, 25, 20, 15, 12, 10...
Cat 1: 25, 20, 15, 12, 10, 8...
Cat 2: 10, 7, 5, 3, 2 & 1
Cat 3: 5, 3, 2 & 1.
Cat 4: 3, 2 & 1.

Any finish on a climb be it a Cat 4 or HC gets double points.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

With the way the new KOM works, I think a GC rider will win it

 

[PedalCastro]

Agreed, stupid system for a jersey that is sadly more and more devalued each year.. Probably a GC rider, maybe VDB2?!

 

[just some guy]

Agreed, stupid system for a jersey that is sadly more and more devalued each year.. Probably a GC rider, maybe VDB2?!

my money was on VDB2 before now I recon Sammy

 

[Apollonius]

Contador will win it. It's not just set up for a GC rider this year, He's also going to push hard in the mountains anyway to try and reduce his gap so he's going to pick up the points others don't.

 

[Finn84]

I think last year was just obscure regarding KOM. That system was in place since 2003 or 2004 and usually the winner had at least one big stage. Rasmussen won Mulhouse and La Toussuire stages from day-long breakaway in the years when he won polka-dots for example.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Charteau had at least one big stage. He took almost maximum points from stage 9, for goodness sakes.

The problem is, major level climbers feel like they should be GC threats, especially with so little TT distance. A lot of the time recently the GPM has gone to a climber who feels like they have to go on long mountain raids because their GC bid will be derailed by TT mileage (Rasmussen), breakout stars, especially from wildcard teams, who aren't sure of their GC capabilities so look at the GPM as a way of selling themselves (Soler, possibly Kohl, though he rather fell into it after the Saunier Duval withdrawal), and GC riders who had lost enough time that they were no longer a threat, trying to rescue their race (Pellizotti).

Last year, the lack of time bonuses meant GC riders weren't bothered about winning the stages, and a collection of French riders (Pineau, Casar, Moreau, Fedrigo, Charteau) were the most active breakaway riders, and several of those are good enough climbers to duke out the 1st category and HC climbs.

I'm not going to begrudge Anthony Charteau his win. You can only win against the system in place, and he rode fabulously to keep that jersey. Casar, Moreau and Fedrigo are no mugs uphill. A weak GPM competition might just have to be the price we pay for a strong GC competition because few contenders are truly eliminated from contention. Maybe if he'd been on any other team Chris Horner could have got it; Caisse d'Epargne nearly did get it.