Congratulations ASO...

Monty Dog

For managing to turn the last 2 days into the high mountains into a boring procession - why today's stage could have finished at Hautacam or Luz Ardiden is beyond me - perhaps they're more interested in revenue from hosting a finish rather than a genuine interest in making it a race. At least the Giro organisers know how to make a GT a spectacle.

SpaceJunk

I didn't mind yesterday's stage, especially if today's stage had a summit finish.

But yeah, the Tour may end up having an exciting climax, but Pyrenees will be remembered for two things:

1. Feillu's stage win
2. Nothing else

kerryman

agreed, the last 3 days have been so dull.

feilliu's win was nice but rest was ordinary

the giro was full of great attacking exciting riding

have to wait for almost 3 weeks of racing to see the main contenders battle it out?!

dave_1

Monty Dog wrote:

For managing to turn the last 2 days into the high mountains into a boring procession - why today's stage could have finished at Hautacam or Luz Ardiden is beyond me - perhaps they're more interested in revenue from hosting a finish rather than a genuine interest in making it a race. At least the Giro organisers know how to make a GT a spectacle.

Pruedhomme and co at ASO definitely damaged the TDF today with this ridiculous stage and now a week of boring racing...no way should the TDF pass the pyrenees without proper summit finishes. The TDF should as a rough rule start up north and take in both mountain ranges. Silly decision by ASO.

GroupOfOne MkII

It actually says in the Tour guide that one of the reasons for today's finish was because of tonights big transfer to Limoges.

Thus they didn't want a summit finish, or a finish 'in' the main mountains, because of problems getting people back out and away from the stage finish, hence finishing out of the Pyrenees.

Also ASO didn't want the race to effectively be decided on the second weekend.

Still, I don't see why they couldn't have found a couple of small hills, even just 3rd or 4th cat on the run in, not so much to create time gaps, but to spice things up and give someone a chance of escaping from the bunch.

top_bhoy

GroupOfOne MkII wrote:

It actually says in the Tour guide that one of the reasons for today's finish was because of tonights big transfer to Limoges.

Thus they didn't want a summit finish, or a finish 'in' the main mountains, because of problems getting people back out and away from the stage finish, hence finishing out of the Pyrenees.

Also ASO didn't want the race to effectively be decided on the second weekend.
Still, I don't see why they couldn't have found a couple of small hills, even just 3rd or 4th cat on the run in, not so much to create time gaps, but to spice things up and give someone a chance of escaping from the bunch.

No, they were quite content to have it decided by the end of stage 4.

donrhummy

Agreed. I never understood why the TDF (the last 10 years) has so many stages where they take an historic mountain like the col du tourmalet and neutralize it by putting so much flat stage after it that no GC guy will waste his energy attacking. What a waste of a great mountain.

Kléber

Look at it the other way, if we had three summit finishes in a row it's likely Contador would have a three minute cushion and that's before the Alps and Ventoux. You'd all be complaining the race was decided, that it was over for Schleck, Armstrong, Evans etc.

At least this way it's open and we can look forward to the Alps. Remember too that you have to have stages for the attacking riders, the first week alone in the past was a procession of sprinters' stages.

Besides, the chase between Pellizotti-Fedrigo and the bunch is exciting. It won't change the race but it's still a hard race.

emadden

Kléber wrote:

Look at it the other way, if we had three summit finishes in a row it's likely Contador would have a three minute cushion and that's before the Alps and Ventoux. You'd all be complaining the race was decided, that it was over for Schleck, Armstrong, Evans etc.

At least this way it's open and we can look forward to the Alps. Remember too that you have to have stages for the attacking riders, the first week alone in the past was a procession of sprinters' stages.

Besides, the chase between Pellizotti-Fedrigo and the bunch is exciting. It won't change the race but it's still a hard race.

But also if we had three mountain stages the leaders would be fairly zonked tired... As has happened historically... another battle would happen in the Alps...

blazing_saddles

It's like all things Tour. About the money.
La Mongie cough up twice in 3 editions to have a stage finish, Hautcam, last year.
Pau is always hungry for a stage finish and Tabres hate being the poor country cousin.
So, Tarbes get the nod, this time.
Neither town has a useful climb close enough to make things critical.

mididoctors

I am kinda liking how this is panning out

the damage done to major GC contendors in the first week ..the TTT and all that is a shame but actually forcing these guys to ride hard for no benefit on GC brutalizes the race somewhat.

its been active but tight (TTT accepted)

I think we could see some serious damage in the final week perhaps some remarkable collapses


Lance is certainly hoping certain riders fade

squired

I remember my disappointment when the route was announced for this years edition. The stage Friday which had everyone saying ended on a climb that wasn't hard enough to cause a selection before it even happened and they were right. We then have a second mountain finish on a stage with no real difficulties before it and then Ventoux.

The problem is that they think doing this will make the race close and exciting. If you try to engineer something it often does the opposite. Some of the really hard Giros have been extremely exciting, with multiple mountain stages causing carnage due to different riders having bad days. Instead we have a situation where people 3 minutes down after a week of a 3 week race are apparently out of it.

People always bleat on about the riders making the race hard, but in the end the riders need the right course to do their jobs. The organisers must look at how the pros ride now and try to design courses that work with the current style of racing. For example, on a stage with two mountains, no-one riding for GC will try anything on the penultimate climb if there is 30km of valley before the start of the final climb. If you drop down and then straight back up they can.

Today I actually gave up watching before they even hit the top of the Tourmalet as I was just wasting my time. The sport needs people watching and if the stages are pointless they won't watch. I have a feeling I'll probably not bother with any of the stages next week either as they are unlikely to achieve anything. There are better things I can do with my time.

micron

The problem with having 55kms of TTing in the first week is that it needs to be balanced by opportunities for the climbers to get some of that time back and those opportunities simply aren't there. It's really badly balanced as a course.

Cyclismag reports that the Pyrenees will be fantastic next year and be a real centrepiece of the race - about time, and sadly too late for this year where, frankly, they might as well not have been in the race at all. To face the prospect of a sprinter winning a stage including the mighty Tourmalet is all wrong.

pinerellopaul

my advise to anyone on this years race is to start watching 2 hours after the start of recording on your + box and then fast forward it over the boring bits which condenses it down to about 1 hour of viewing , the most exciting thing this year watching this way was Fabians descending skills

i would love to know what Ian thinks of the race so far as he thought the Giro was a bore fest

iainf72

pinerellopaul wrote:

i would love to know what Ian thinks of the race so far as he thought the Giro was a bore fest

I've not seen any of this weekend (from Friday) yet so I can't really comment.

FJS

It will always be a problem to make a well-balanced route with a Grand Depart in the South.
If they put in too many decisive mountain stages in the first week people the last two weeks of the Tour are boring because the GC is decided already (see the Giro).
If they put in mountain stages that keep the GC open, like now, people complain too.

Remember the Pyrenees in the Tour de France that started in San Sebastian?

I actually think they did a good job with the route, apart from the roads picked for the TTT. In a normal TdF after the first week all we would have had would be an endless succession of predictable sprinter's stages. What we've had now in the first week has been lots better. Now some sprinters stages and then a full week of climbing. Not bad I think.

Prepare for more routes like this in the coming years, as Barcelona enjoyed hosting the Tour so much they're planning to put in a bid for Grand Depart in a couple of years.

AndyRubio

Three French stage winners suggests that no-one's really trying. Feeling guilty for being mildly bored.

FJS

AndyRubio wrote:

Three French stage winners suggests that no-one's really trying.

No. Just:
1. A single sprinter that is so dominant that other teams are not really willing to keep the pack togteher in flat stages anymore.
2. A couple of stages that favour break-aways of reasonable climbers without any GC chances.
3. Still too many teams with a GC leader who thinks he can win, so not many get an opportunity to go for breakaways yet.

mididoctors

FJS wrote:

AndyRubio wrote:

Three French stage winners suggests that no-one's really trying.

No. Just:
1. A single sprinter that is so dominant that other teams are not really willing to keep the pack togteher in flat stages anymore.
2. A couple of stages that favour break-aways of reasonable climbers without any GC chances.
3. Still too many teams with a GC leader who thinks he can win, so not many get an opportunity to go for breakaways yet.

4. and the muntain stages reduce the opportunities for GC contenders to make decisive moves favoring breaks..

5.opens up green and polka dot jersey contests

I am not so against this route.. the TTT rules need adjusting

emadden

Im guilty of not having paid much attention to the route when it was announced... Its only after the fiasco that was the TdS that I realise how crap this years TdF route is... Ok the first week was fairly exciting, but lets face it, for the next week we are going to be bored sh8tless.. The GC is still pretty much the same as it was before we went to the "mountains", but a small change... No disrespect to Nocentini, he is a class guy, but he is going to be in yellow for another week!

For those that are saying that the tour would be over if the last three days had severe mountains - I beg to differ. There may have been gaps, but it would have been exciting to watch and we would have had those behind trying to build up strength for a round two in the Alps.

Verbier is going to be boring... a flat run in after Mosses (which is not a hard climb) and then the power boys can roll up the climb... I hate being so critical, but I just find the race is designed to come down to the Ventoux and I have a bad feeling that the stage will be flop.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Riders could be set off individually at the start, according to their overall timing gap upto and including the previous stage. Almost TT style, but allowing riders to co-operate on the road by drafting.

Riders could be set off in groups, with a like ranked rider from each team in each group, with rank based on current overall time to date.

This business of blanket finish times to a peleton that could stretch out for many seconds could be abandonned, giving riders their actually time of crossing the line.

Any communication by the team bosses could be scrapped.

I'm no doubt repeating stuff that has been talked about before, maybe even implemented, but it seems so damn rediculous that we could watch 4-hour stages, day after day... Without seeing much that will influence the overall winner! :?

afx237vi

NitrousOxide wrote:

Riders could be set off individually at the start, according to their overall timing gap upto and including the previous stage. Almost TT style, but allowing riders to co-operate on the road by drafting.

Riders could be set off in groups, with a like ranked rider from each team in each group, with rank based on current overall time to date.

This business of blanket finish times to a peloton that could stretch out for many seconds could be abandonned, giving riders their actually time of crossing the line.

Any communication by the team bosses could be scrapped.

I'm no doubt repeating stuff that has been talked about before, maybe even implemented, but it seems so damn rediculous that we could watch 4-hour stages, day after day... Without seeing much that will influence the overall winner! :?

A TT where drafting is allowed? Er, wouldn't the first guy off the ramp slow down to let the second guy catch him, and then they'd both slow down to let the third guy catch them, and after 20 km, voila, a peloton of 150 riders!

The blanket time at the finish is for safety reasons. Can you imagine how dangerous a finish would be if 180 riders were all trying to be at the front, going at 70 km/ph? The GC guys don't want to be there and the sprinters don't want them there. It would be mayhem.

- but it seems so damn rediculous that we could watch 4-hour stages, day after day... Without seeing much that will influence the overall winner!

That's bike racing. The race is won over three weeks. Patience is a virtue and all that.

Kléber

NitrousOxide wrote:

it seems so damn rediculous that we could watch 4-hour stages, day after day... Without seeing much that will influence the overall winner! :?

Maybe you missed cycling from 1992 until 2005 but pretty much every Tour in the Indurain and Armstrong eras came down to about 45 minutes of excitement. Indurain would crush his rivals in the time trials and Armstrong would take off on the first mountain stage and grab yellow, defending his position in the TT stages.

This year we have passed the Pyrenees and the main GC contenders are all relatively close together and in with a shout.

Gazzetta67

For managing to turn the last 2 days into the high mountains into a boring procession - why today's stage could have finished at Hautacam or Luz Ardiden is beyond me - perhaps they're more interested in revenue from hosting a finish rather than a genuine interest in making it a race. At least the Giro organisers know how to make a GT a spectacle.

Bravo MONTY DOG 150% agree i Knew this would happen even back in sept when the race route was unveiled - the Giro is a far better race, Prudhomme and that Pussy Leblanc before them could not make a race route interesting if they tried.

Point 1 - Kill off the Tour with a Team Time trial to suit Astana.
Point 2 - Lets all have DOWNHILL finishes now - yeah Great idea not.
point 3 - Letting the Biggest Ego in the Race - Erm were is his Foundation message - oh
" I dont want to help Contador it`s MY Race"

Monty you must be like be yearning for the days of the early 80`s 2 Mountain Top Finishes in the Pyrenees and 3 in the Alps - or Maybe prudhomme has given in to the Dopers to make the stages easy now.

Unsheath

One has to ponder how much these out of town finishes are due to economic reasons rather than sporting ones. Having 2 stages in a row finish 40km + from the summit is just not plausible.

The ASO rationalising that this is for keeping the racing tight is just a smokescreen. Can you see their PR saying "This route finished in Tarbes because they gave us €200K more? As for the tight racing, they blew this apart when real time was lost on the TTT. Evans, Sastre and Menchov in particular needed a chance in the first week to claw time back.

As someone mentioned previously, having Friere almost snatch a stage containing the Tourmalet makes a mockery of the great col.

Kléber

It's not money, town's don't outbid each other for finishes. Instead typically 250 candidatures for stage finishes are received each year, all based on a fixed fee, and it's for ASO to pick a route that joins the dots.

This year's route has deliberately avoided the summit finishes as it would have cooked the GC within 7 days of the start.

FJS

Kléber wrote:

It's not money, town's don't outbid each other for finishes. Instead typically 250 candidatures for stage finishes are received each year, all based on a fixed fee, and it's for ASO to pick a route that joins the dots.

This year's route has deliberately avoided the summit finishes as it would have cooked the GC within 7 days of the start.

I fully agree. It's to keep the last week exciting. And a ski resort would have probably more disposable PR money then a relatively small town like St Girons or Tarbes anyway.

nferrar

I don't see how Pyreneen summit finishes would have settled the GC anymore than it already is (basically now a question of which Astana rider is going to win). In fact it needed summit finishes to give Schlek & Sastre a chance of getting back in the race (predictable after the TTT even without the unexpected 40 second stage split) - I'd have loved to have seen Astana tested by mountain attacks. As it now it's going to be a yawn fest to Ventoux and unless Contador cracks there he'll walk away with it.

blazing_saddles

Kléber wrote:

It's not money, town's don't outbid each other for finishes. Instead typically 250 candidatures for stage finishes are received each year, all based on a fixed fee, and it's for ASO to pick a route that joins the dots.

This year's route has deliberately avoided the summit finishes as it would have cooked the GC within 7 days of the start.

Yes, but those fixed fees are hefty and are definitely not index linked. Can't be easy for a place, even like say. La Mongie, to justify the output, regularly. Twice in 3 years must mean a break.
I assume Tarbes got the nod over Pau, as Pau have had stage finishes more than anywhere, I believe?

It is especially noticeable with the Alpine finishes. Many seem to get one finish a decade.

These small "Ville Departs" are usually a one off.

Kléber

It's €200,000 per finish. Each town pays but then contributions come from regional government, the local department too. Tarbes or Pau, Lourdes or Hautacam, it doesn't matter as the region ponies up a lot of the money. So an actual ski station like La Mongie doesn't have to pay that much, maybe €50,000 from their budget, this is a bargain and usually they'd pay and pay and pay for the chance.

As I say, up to 250 towns put forward proposals for a stage finish and then ASO pick the route. Aside from the Grand Depart and Paris, the towns along the route don't learn of their inclusion on the route until the route is revealed in October (unless it leaks out).

Each Tour is different and this year's route. I still maintain we've got an exciting race, there are 25 riders within five minutes, that's 25 riders that Astana have to watch. I would have liked to have seen more GC contenders attacking but at the same time if we saw the GC contenders put more time into each other the Alps and Ventoux would end up as a procession.

skavanagh.bikeradar

I thought it would be a disappointing route, but I'm really enjoying it - much more than in recent years. The suspense is building nicely toward the Alps and Ventoux and a few riders are in a position where they need to take their chances and attack if they want to get anything out of the race in terms of GC. The stages with mountain top finishes can be a let down as all the GC riders wait for the final climb anyway. No, I'm enjoying the difference.