The Giro - Where did it all go wrong

iainf72
iainf72 Posts: 15,784
edited June 2009 in Pro race
So, I think this is one of the most uninspiring giro's I've watched. And I've watched a lot of them.

What made it dull? Was it the route? Riders? Something else?

Here's some of my thoughts.

Route

Not enough hardness concentrated together. You need a block of proper mountain stages to sort the men from the boys. Last weekend we had a day with a tough finish, a harder day and then a savage day. Then a rest and a tough day. They should've moved the rest day. Middle mountain + 2 high mountain stages is the required minimum block

The mountain stages seemed weak. Especially in Giro terms. Sure, we had some summiit finishes in the first week but they were a bit yawny.

TT - Interesting idea but the race for rosa ended there basically.


Riders


I will say the current top 5 is right judging by the race. All the guys have put in attacks and rode well. However, I think the race was ruined somewhat by DDL's over zealous defending of his second place. LPR chased down Basso last weekend and for what? It makes no sense. All it did was make sure Menchov only had to watch one guy. I think the dynamic of the race would've changed if Rabo had to watch more than one person. As it turned out LPR did the job for them.

Thoughts?
Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
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Comments

  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 21,812
    edited May 2009
    This ones for Davy.
    Just to save him the trouble.
    http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... 0&start=20
    Nice quote, btw.
    :wink:
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 16,860
    biggest problem basso didn't come up with the goods on that first mountain finish...

    the race developed no character

    from then on it was a mass grovel with no one one willing to over play their hand... this is a very current style of riding that I think arises out of a wide understanding of human physical limits (as displayed by power output training). top GC riders simply do not believe in the long distance attack anymore

    the time bonus plus DDLs strategy shut down a lot of breaks..he is not to blame for that

    the route was ok but perhaps having mountains early while the peloton was still fresh makes these mountain stages less demanding with fewer splits? what was better is making the final week hard..

    the race got interesting in the third week

    watching LA get fitter was of interest but on balance his influence was negative BUT it was not a major reason for the lack of fire in the race

    the riders didn't seem to rise to the occasion of the centenary (Milan was appalling and not completely down to LA)


    I think the real problem is riders are too good and too well matched.. Paris nice was a good race in part because peoples form was yo yoing a bit and no one knew where exactly they were relative to the others..

    the degree of control that can be exercised in a GT given a very slight advantage is amplified by current methods in training and racing... (radios again)
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • avoidingmyphd
    avoidingmyphd Posts: 1,154
    i disagree Iain, although I find what you say very interesting.

    Like you say, all the guys in the top 5 of GC have put in attacks, and the right riders have ended up in pretty much the right order. Surely that's a summary of a good grand tour?!

    And for me, the tactical "disappointments" have been part of the appeal. Liquigas' weird decision to have two GC riders and never really choose between them led to some entertaining action (like yesterday) and CTT pulling Pauwels (was it him? it's late-ish) from a stage-winning opportunity gave a nice insight into the kind of support Sastre feels he needs, and also the kind of support a GC rider can get in a team that is genuinely organised around him.

    My only real complaint was made by someone else on here today/yesterday - Di Luca wasted all his attacking talent using only one tactic against Menchov, trying to ride him off his wheel on the hard parts of summit finishes. Even from our sofas, we could see that he needed to mix it up.
  • afx237vi
    afx237vi Posts: 12,630
    I think it was definitely the route, rather than the riders. It looked spectacular on paper, but turned out to be a bit of a damp squib.

    Firstly, the mountains came too early. While that may seem like a good thing for the fans, the riders are not willing to put everything on the line with two and a half weeks to go. It just leads to conservative tactics and boring racing.

    Secondly, the mountain stages weren't hard enough. Sure, they were long, but there was only the Monte Petrano stage that had more than one big climb. The rest were just mountain finishes with nothing hard enough before the finish.
  • avoidingmyphd
    avoidingmyphd Posts: 1,154
    Oh, and one more thing.

    There's always lots of chatter about radios. But I wonder if it would be more worth banning power meters. At several times during the race, riders were clearly riding to the numbers (loqvist in the TT for example, and lots of people on summit finishes). It would mix it up nicely at important moments if riders had to judge their efforts rather than doing what a computer told them to.
  • cougie
    cougie Posts: 22,512
    Too clean maybe ?
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 16,860
    avoidingmyphd wrote:
    Oh, and one more thing.

    There's always lots of chatter about radios. But I wonder if it would be more worth banning power meters. At several times during the race, riders were clearly riding to the numbers (loqvist in the TT for example, and lots of people on summit finishes). It would mix it up nicely at important moments if riders had to judge their efforts rather than doing what a computer told them to.

    I think there is scope for debate on the intrusion of technology... the science of it all is so well understood and the accessibility of the numbers to riders and DS in real time is getting on par to formula one's problem
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 16,860
    cougie wrote:
    Too clean maybe ?

    or the other way round..

    but maybe your right?

    it was pretty bl--dy fast
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • Noodley
    Noodley Posts: 1,725
    My thoughts:

    Get rid of radios
    Get rid of power thingies
    Introduce a scheme whereby anyone who appears not to have tried hard enough has their children or nearest family member kidnapped
    A minimum 5 bottles and a maximum 10 bottles to be carried by domestiques
    Only cheese and jam sandwiches in musettes...oh okay, and a Milky Way
    No helmets allowed
    Any team not making an effort gets given LSD to show them what a real trip is
    All repairs to be undertaken by riders - 'backies' from others will be permitted if the bike is beyond repairbut the bike must also be carried


    That should make it a bit more interesting.
  • DaveyL
    DaveyL Posts: 5,167
    20 seconds between the top two on GC with a technical 14 km TT still to go, and folk are complaining... I wouldn't blame the route, just the mix of riders taking part. If there were more extreme mountain stages, Menchov might be minutes ahead of DDL and everyone would be going on about what a yawner the GC was.

    Maybe it's the nature of cycling fans, that some will never be happy. Unless Baso's winning...
    Le Blaireau (1)
  • Tom Butcher
    Tom Butcher Posts: 3,830
    I thought it was a good race - not an all time classic but not bad - I mean it's still not done and dusted going into the final short time trial.

    If I was in charge I'd definitely go with the no radios and no power meters. Plus no helmets or shades - if they are going to suffer then I want to be able to see it. And allow them to take amphetemines - I'm sure that having the peloton speeding out of their boxes would make the racing much more aggressive.
    it's a hard life if you don't weaken.
  • sing_for_absolution
    sing_for_absolution Posts: 1,908
    Tom Butcher wrote:

    If I was in charge I'd definitely go with the no radios and no power meters. Plus no helmets or shades - if they are going to suffer then I want to be able to see it. And allow them to take amphetemines - I'm sure that having the peloton speeding out of their boxes would make the racing much more aggressive.

    Quite :lol:
  • cougie
    cougie Posts: 22,512
    I've not really seen many Giros before so hard to compare, but its been a pretty good race I reckon. Great stages - mad climbs that the Tour would never do - some nice sprint wins by Cav, the prologue course was pretty damn cool too - altho Monaco will be good too.

    Would have been good to see Menchov have a crisis in the last week, but hey - still a day to go !
  • Richrd2205
    Richrd2205 Posts: 1,267
    Interesting question! For me there's been a couple of things....

    -Conservative tactics. This is prob a combination of all sorts of things (the route, power meters etc etc), but it's been like having the Hog as DS of every team.

    -A two speed peloton. Some folk have recovered differently to others. This appears to have added to the above issue. Some performances have been questionable, others look a bit human. Not a fan of doping, but the current some do, some don't thing only distorts things further from all do...

    -Bad teams. Too many teams have picked no hope teams for the giro this year. Team Saxo Bank in particular


    & something I don't get: Armstrong struggling to keep pace with Wiggins in week one (6s advantage before the first rest day), then puts 2+ hours into him over the next 10 days. Is this about the racing getting more aggressive, Wiggins over-extending himself, tiredness or something else? Surely you don't gain or lose that much form over the rest day....

    Anyhow, a very underwhelming Giro. I'd hoped that it'd rival the Tour this year for excitement, but I hope that I don't look back & say that it did...
  • iainf72
    iainf72 Posts: 15,784
    DaveyL wrote:
    20 seconds between the top two on GC with a technical 14 km TT still to go, and folk are complaining...

    Stage 12

    1 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 50.27.17
    2 Danilo Di Luca (Ita) LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini 0.34

    Stage 20

    1 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 85.44.05
    2 Danilo Di Luca (Ita) LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini 0.20

    Ok, so he's clawed back 14 seconds but it's effectively had no change since stage 12.

    I will say the scenery was spectacular and made me wish I was in Italy
    Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.
  • csp
    csp Posts: 777
    Can someone explain what powermeters have to do with the race not being exciting?
  • phil s
    phil s Posts: 1,128
    csp wrote:
    Can someone explain what powermeters have to do with the race not being exciting?

    Nothing, it's pure bolleaux. Who has used a powermeter to pace themselves on any of the bunch road stages? No-one I can think of. Sastre hasn't even got his powermeter fitted on his Cervelo as far as I can see (Quarq powermeter). Leipheimer and Armstrong and the Astana boys haven't got SRMs fitted either, despite using them in training. Silence-Lotto and Garmin have Powertaps but I don't see that they've raced to the numbers. That leaves Liquigas and Columbia - ok so Lovkvist may have paced himself with a p.m. in the TT but others use a heart rate monitor. Big deal. You can't say Pellizotti or Boasson-Hagen have raced conservatively because of their SRMs.
    -- Dirk Hofman Motorhomes --
  • avoidingmyphd
    avoidingmyphd Posts: 1,154
    csp wrote:
    Can someone explain what powermeters have to do with the race not being exciting?

    it was only a tentative suggestion. But Phil's wrong to call it pure bolleaux!

    My thinking was this: riders avoid old-style "Into the red..ooops, broken down completely and riding backwards now" problems on summit finishes by riding to the numbers. And that kind of thing is one of the things that is exciting, and people moan when it doesn't happen. This doesn't require riders constant watching their numbers, , just using them as a ceiling on climbs. It can go entirely unnoticed by even the keenest spectator except through the indirect evidence of summit finishes being attritional rather than attacking. Admittedly, Lovkvist in the ITT was a bad example. He was just the most blatant!

    Phil's breakdown of teams is interesting. But I would counter that if Liquigas and Columbia have them fitted, then whether they look like they are racing to the numbers or not, that's two teams whose main climbers are almost guaranteed not to spectacularly overcook it on summit finishes. If the other teams don't use them, then why not just ban them?

    Sastre is a great example though. Not only does he ride without powermeter, but you'll see he pulls out his earpiece when he attacks too. I'd like to see more of that kind of thing.
  • shinyhelmut
    shinyhelmut Posts: 1,364
    surely you don't gain/lose that much form over a rest day

    There are ways..... (but I suspect you know that)
  • shinyhelmut
    shinyhelmut Posts: 1,364
    surely you don't gain/lose that much form over a rest day

    There are ways..... (but I suspect you know that)
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 21,812
    iainf72 wrote:
    DaveyL wrote:
    20 seconds between the top two on GC with a technical 14 km TT still to go, and folk are complaining...
    Stage 12

    1 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 50.27.17
    2 Danilo Di Luca (Ita) LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini 0.34
    Stage 20

    1 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 85.44.05
    2 Danilo Di Luca (Ita) LPR Brakes - Farnese Vini 0.20

    Ok, so he's clawed back 14 seconds but it's effectively had no change since stage 12.
    I will say the scenery was spectacular and made me wish I was in Italy

    This is the crux of it, isn't it.
    The race was won, after all the talk about it not being a real time trial, on the time trial stage. Next biggest time gains/losses, will come, today.
    The race has panned out exactly as some of us feared and lived down to my expectations.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • suspectdevice
    suspectdevice Posts: 263
    Do you think that things would have changed if they had made the Blockhaus stage into a TT (just the climby bit) a la Corones last year? and also moved it to the penultimate stage?

    Think they should have thrown in a Marmolada or a Gavia type stage. I think maybe the fact that it was the centenary year and they were re-living all the stages that they would not normally have put in the race was also a limiting factor.

    I think it will be back on track next year with another mad race....

    Just as a side thought, do you see the TDF going the same way as this? only metion it as i am watching the Ventoux stage whilst on Holiday out there this year, first time i will have watched it live and i really don't want it to be a pedestrian type stage.
  • Quite Frankly
    Quite Frankly Posts: 386
    The problem I have with the Tour de France route this year is that there are just three mountain top finishes, one of which is on the penultimate stage of the race. I suppose that goes a long way to guaranteeing that the GC will still be up in the air by the time they reach Ventoux and it should also ensure that there is very aggressive riding on the other two MT finishes.

    However, for me there will just be too many stages in the race where we see minimal change to GC. There are likely to be only two really exciting stages involving the main contenders during the first 19 stages of the race. We'll all be so bored by the time they hit Ventoux that we won't care what happens.
  • moray_gub
    moray_gub Posts: 3,328
    Blazing Saddles wrote:
    The race was won, after all the talk about it not being a real time trial, on the time trial stage. Next biggest time gains/losses, will come, today.
    The race has panned out exactly as some of us feared and lived down to my expectations


    Not the most exciting but is it any any worse than 2006 borefest where Basso rode everyone off his wheel and won by 9 minutes.Suppose in GC terms it depends on what you want out a race if you want to see the whole peleton scattred all over a Zoncolan or Corones and the GC won by 10 minutes or so then this is not the edition for you. Conversely if you want a close GC still to be decided on the last day then this meets that criteria though nowhere near as good as Salvoldellis 2005 win .Personally i think the race could have done with a classic Giro 2nd week mountain stage with Gavia or Stelvio included
    Gasping - but somehow still alive !
  • takethehighroad
    takethehighroad Posts: 6,646
    The Cuneo-Pinerolo stage was meant to be the big stage and we all know what happened there!

    As far as the Tour goes, Prudhomme has proved that he knows how to design a good route, so I'm not particularly worried
  • Moomaloid
    Moomaloid Posts: 2,040
    i've enjoyed i more than last year's TDF. I just hope that Sastre has enough fuel in the legs for the Tour. Its been great to see him have a go this past few days...
  • Murr X
    Murr X Posts: 258
    csp wrote:
    Can someone explain what powermeters have to do with the race not being exciting?
    Simple. Those that want to see powermeters banned are those that either can't afford / can't justify the price or can't get their heads around the technical side of the numbers and therefore are not able to use and benefit from their use properly.

    Many who fit into that category don't want others (including pros) to possibly be gaining an "advantage" from something that they are not using / can't use / don't have access to. :lol: Its true, I'm serious even if they won't admit it lol!

    Anyone who has used a PM in a road race knows that they don't make make the racing any easier... :wink: They are not much use in a RR either.

    I think I explained that pretty well. 8)
  • avoidingmyphd
    avoidingmyphd Posts: 1,154
    Murr X wrote:
    csp wrote:
    Can someone explain what powermeters have to do with the race not being exciting?
    Simple. Those that want to see powermeters banned are those that either can't afford / can't justify the price or can't get their heads around the technical side of the numbers and therefore are not able to use and benefit from their use properly.

    Many who fit into that category don't want others (including pros) to possibly be gaining an "advantage" from something that they are not using / can't use / don't have access to. :lol: Its true, I'm serious even if they won't admit it lol!

    Anyone who has used a PM in a road race knows that they don't make make the racing any easier... :wink: They are not much use in a RR either.

    I think I explained that pretty well. 8)

    Murr, did you see my post above? You can't seriously think the reason I tentatively floated a ban was because I think it's not fair that Lance Armstrong can't afford a power meter and Ivan Basso can?

    I'm more sure about this than when I suggested it above now. My objection to them is that they can (although I'm willing to take Phil's point that it's not clear this is happening)be used to make the race less exciting. And I can see no positive reason to allow them. IF grand tours are getting less exciting, the lesson of this thread is that it's because of an accumulation of little excitement reducers. And this might be one.

    I can get my head around the technical side of the numbers, and the specific technicality that concerns me is that riders can avoid breaching their lactate turnpoint. Some can do this more accurately than others using RPE alone, and those that are not so good are more entertaining when you take away their numbers.

    Sure, they don't make it any easier to win, but they do make it easier to not blow up. This might not change the outcome at the pointy end of the race (because what you get is a rider climbing steadily and coming in a few minutes down) but it does reduce the excitement for the spectator (because without the meter, the same rider may have attacked, blown up, and come in a few minutes down, but at least we'd have had something to watch).

    As far as I can see, the only real responses to this are that (i) these guys are pro's and can gauge their effort, so the meters make no difference. In which case, surely they can cope without? or (ii) you can do same with an HRM, in which case I'd answer that they are less accurate or maybe that we should ban them too.
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 21,812
    Well, I'm convinced that losing the top of the Blockhaus cost us a nail biting ITT finale.
    Other than that, I agree with MG, that we needed one of the two "monuments", in the second week, along with a shorter Sestrieres stage.
    2005 will always be a hard act to follow.
    Also, the great weather has made the event "low risk", which accounts for the high number of Romans!

    I hope it also accounts for the high average speed of the race, too. For given a fine Tour, I'd fully expect to see a lot of stages hitting the 47/48kph average.
    Not a good sign for the "new dawn".
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • leguape
    leguape Posts: 986
    Losing the three stages that could have had an impact on GC had a big effect - Blockhaus, Cuneo-Pinerolo and Milan - on how things have shaken out as the missing bits could have made big differences. Additionally, as they've pointed out, it's been unseasonably good weather for the Giro, no ridiculous wet/snow days and ice rink crashfests to speak of this year.

    Main problem for me is that it looks like only about a third to half of the field even bothered turning up to contend for the GC: Rabo, CTT, LPR, Liquigas, Astana, Diquigiovanni, Columbia, maybe Garmin. And of them, only a handful brought a team that might be useful for the job.

    OK, let's be brutal: LPR, Liquigas, CTT on a couple of days, are the only ones who've really looked interested in making it tough for the opposition. Astana effectively waved a white flag when they dropped 4 men back with Plan B on the first toughie, Rabo looked weak after Horrillo's departure from the race and Menchov seemed to be largely fending for himself.

    That said, it's been a closer and more engaging race than some GTs where it's all been decided by one or two climbs and I've lost interest in week 3 as they all bide their time trying to avoid a crash.
    http://www.atomicecho.com/cycling

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