rhubroma said:
You are kidding right?
Serious mountains. If this Tour had been designed correctly it would have had a third MTF at least and finished on top of some prooven race makers: Luc Ardiden, Alpe d'Huez, etc.
I'm fine with all the time trialing, but the mountains weren't up to snuff. Period. I think we can all agree on this. A pure time trialist is a poor winner on a course that doesn't make his climbing weaknesses an issue.
Had Foome not puncured the race might have turned out differently. Had Froome not punctured and been on another team, he wins. Thus the strongest rider hasn't won the race, which is always a shame.
At any rate had this been a better route with more serious mountain courses, Sky would have changed tactics, or else we would have witnessed the embarassment of Froome waiting for his leader on more than one stage.
No I'm not kidding. There have been serious mountains in this TdF. Maybe not as many as last year but there have been 3 big mountain stages. What makes you think that Sky would change tactics on a hypothetical 4th or 5th mountainstage? Look at the GC for the top ten riders based on stage 7, 8, 11, 16 and 17:
Christopher Froome (GBr) Sky Procycling 00:00:00
Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Sky Procycling 00:00:04
Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 00:00:27
Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar 00:02:36
Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Bel) Lotto Belisol Team 00:02:59
Thibaut Pinot (Fra) FDJ-Big Mat 00:03:53
Janez Brajkovic (Slo) Astana Pro Team 00:06:18
Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing Team 00:07:08
Haimar Zubeldia Agirre (Spa) RadioShack-Nissan 00:07:38
Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 00:08:08
Who is it that miraculously would have been become better than Sky? Wiggins and Froome have bested the other contenders in basically any type of mountain stage that the TdF has on offer.