TOUR TTT Good or Bad

markwalker

I vote bad,

drenkrom

Bad. It's not that exciting to watch and completely screws up the GC for the remainder of the race.

I love riding TTT's, though. Such a complete rush when everything goes perfectly!

afx237vi

Bad. Should be half the distance if they insist on having one.

markwalker

drenkrom wrote:

Bad. It's not that exciting to watch and completely screws up the GC for the remainder of the race.

I love riding TTT's, though. Such a complete rush when everything goes perfectly!

Never got it to go perfectly Still good to ride though, TOTAL beasting!

hommelbier

I enjoy watching the TTT but as the result skews the placings perhaps time bonuses could be awarded to each team instead, on the basis of final position similar to the points competition. Fastest team members get a bonus (to be taken off GC time) of 90 secs, second team 85secs, next 80 secs, etc, etc. In recent years the time advantage in the TTT was limited, rather than using the actual time advantage gained.

iain_j

Bad.

Replace with a mountain ITT.

Philip S

As a spectacle, it's great. Without the TTT this year we wouldn't have had:
- "Badger Bend"
- Menchov crashing on pretty much the first corner (Badger Bend)
- Ballan crashing on Badger Bend
- all those other crashes on Badger Bend
- The Bbox bend safari (one of the biggest laughs of the Tour)
- Garmin's 5 man masterclass

It did screw up the GC race though - killed off Evans, Menchov and probably Sastre's chances; possibly hindered Wiggins, possibly helped Lance.:shock: The other Astana GC boys would probably have had a good result on an ITT anyway, and Lance wouldn't have been that far behind - just held up by 45 seconds or so due to the drag of his enormous upper body.

Kléber

It screws up the GC, leading to groups of riders from each team being bunched together on the overall.

But some teams this year made a real mess of things, the big gaps on the GC this year were because some teams functioned as a team and some just fell apart. If you are Evans then you don't just spend your winter training hard, you use the time to plan, you aim to master every possible second of July and that includes the TTT. You visit the course before, you train with the team. And when the big day comes, you set an agreed strategy, preferably one that is based on your riders wattages so that each rider is aiming for set power outputs during different parts of the course.

But Silence-Lotto just fluffed it, they fell apart, dropping Van Summeren and then having to wait 30 seconds for him to come back whilst the poor lad killed his legs trying to come back and so he was useless when he came back.

Even plans can fall apart, slick outfits like Garmin probably lost the stage because they lost too many riders too soon.

markwalker

agreed Kleber.

So is yours a yes or no vote?

Le Commentateur

Should be for time bonuses only. 5 seconds per placing, 10 seconds gaps for the top three.

PBo

How about the TTT results are only factored into the team standings not individual times?

Moomaloid

technically they beautiful to watch, if boring as sin... however this years was quite exciting... i don't think they have any place in tours now though due to the time differences.

I think they should have Grand Prix des Nations type race for TTT's, however it wouldn't count for anything would it so nobody would take it seriously...

donrhummy

It's fun to watch but it's bad for GC. I think they should make it so that they have the TTT but each placing is worth a 10 second penalty only. That way there's some incentive and benefit for having a better team but not to where it ruins the racing.

mididoctors

Le Commentateur wrote:

Should be for time bonuses only. 5 seconds per placing, 10 seconds gaps for the top three.

and

donrhummy wrote:

It's fun to watch but it's bad for GC. I think they should make it so that they have the TTT but each placing is worth a 10 second penalty only. That way there's some incentive and benefit for having a better team but not to where it ruins the racing.

doesn't work for a host of reasons IMO... I really don't like the idea that not making the extra effort has no effect on GC because your performance falls in a certain bracket.

garmin lost by 18 seconds... it would make no difference if they had reduced that to losing by 1 second... the guys going off last not only have the splits but can gauge the effort,,, winning by 1 second is enough and once ahead can relax because there is nothing else to gain.

if you find yourself on timing in a position where it looks impossible to catch someone in front and you know from radio the guys behind are not going to catch you (or don't care) then applying as much pressure to the pedals as you can has no benefit. In a ITT or TTT against the clock there should be some benefit in going that bit faster if you can... when they did this in the 2005 the teams not in contention just rolled round and missing the top 30 sec split produced a nonsense result.

either short courses or half the time gaps... halving the time gap works for me..you can have the test and every extra RPM you can get out of a gear counts

thou half gaps would still have killed the race for cadel

..real time still counts for team GC

how about split stage day 1?

TTT followed by ITT? bit much perhaps but a short TTT in the morning (15-20km) TT (10km or so)early eve late arvo?

mididoctors

PBo wrote:

How about the TTT results are only factored into the team standings not individual times?

loads of teams wont bother making the effort if they are aiming for the jersey or podium.

bobtbuilder

Good as a spectacle. Bad for the overall race. Kills off GC contenders from weaker teams.