Paris - Nice 2014 *Spoilers*

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Comments

  • thomthom
    thomthom Posts: 3,574
    frenchfighter wrote:
    Only 46secs separate the top ten.

    Of course. That's what the organisers wanted. 8 sprints...
  • frenchfighter
    frenchfighter Posts: 30,642
    Betancur wins best young rider as well.
    Contador is the Greatest
  • Paul 8v
    Paul 8v Posts: 5,458
    Vichot must win the price for the worst fitting skinsuit...
    Road
    MTB
    NEW Cross
    Track/Grass Track/Winter bike
  • rayjay
    rayjay Posts: 1,384
    Chavanel was quiet today.

    Just for you know who :wink:

    To be honest I Thought Chavanel would win the whole thing .

    I bet Nic is not worrying to much about our Cav bet with those sort of picks :)
  • Crankbrother
    Crankbrother Posts: 1,695
    Bah! Should never have checked this thread ... I have it recorded and I'll now miss out on the over-excitement of a Schleck actually doing something useful ...

    At least I know it's worth watching ...
  • argyllflyer
    argyllflyer Posts: 893
    What a cracking week of racing. The riders make the race and with no obvious way of clinching GC outright they've risen to the occasion.
  • joelsim
    joelsim Posts: 7,552
    rayjay wrote:

    To be honest I Thought Chavanel would win the whole thing .

    So did I. And no doubt he'll win the Giro, the Tour and the Vuelta too.

    Betancur has looked comfortable all week. Shame he's not riding the Giro again against Quintana (and perhaps Mr Arredondo).
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,538
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    No MTN finishes, no TT, no wonder Sky switched Porte to T-A when Froome had to pull out.

    But not playing to the strengths of the traditional GC riders certainly makes this an interesting and open route.
    Best case: a series of classics, mad breakaway attempts and plenty of surprise players.
    Worst case: a tightly controlled race with no breaks allowed to get away, the GC being won on time bonuses by a consistent finisher with a decent sprint - might as well abandon having a yellow jersey and just go with the green.

    Think it had a bit of both in the end. An interesting experiment, but I doubt they'll go that way again, not unless they can guarantee all the biggest sprinters and classics riders turning up. Maybe they were dreaming of a big Boonen/Canc/Sagan showdwon, with Cav/Kittel/Greipel adding a flourish on the truly sprint stages? I'm still not quite sure what the last three of those are doing at T-A, there's slim pickings for them there really.
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  • rayjay
    rayjay Posts: 1,384
    Joelsim wrote:
    rayjay wrote:

    To be honest I Thought Chavanel would win the whole thing .

    So did I. And no doubt he'll win the Giro, the Tour and the Vuelta too.

    Betancur has looked comfortable all week. Shame he's not riding the Giro again against Quintana (and perhaps Mr Arredondo).

    I am going to keep picking him until he wins.

    There is a chance I could win the lottery first.

    Betancur climbed real well. Impressed.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,661
    I think the lack of big names in Paris Nice has been a bit of a blessing in disguise for emerging talent.

    Lots of names we just didn't see 2-3 years ago at the sharp end of events.

    Most confess, I do feel bait nostalgic for the old guard names - but then I can turn on T-A for that.
    _
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,538
    I agree, though I doubt the organisers were thinking of setting themselves up as a youth race...

    Frankly, I thought they were taking the piss when they got upset at Porte pulling out for T-A. Sky win it two years running so they reward them by stripping out the climbs and TTs :-D
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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    I think Paris-Nice is becoming the FA cup to TA's Premier League, this years race was exceedingly boring (in my opinion), I always liked the Mountain TT in the last stage the last few years.
  • above_the_cows
    above_the_cows Posts: 11,406
    I missed much of Paris Nice through a combination of talking to Eurocrats and drinking bier in Brussels. To be honest with the added bier and my Kwaremont special addition glass with a pave base and a cyclist climbing the stem that I permanently borrowed from a bar I think this was the better option.

    I just wasn't feeling the bits I did see really. I can't quite say why. I think it lacked the suspense and slow build up of 'will they maintain the lead, who's going to try and mess with the tactics?' of a stage race and did just feel like each day was a separate race, a week of one dayers if you like, but if I want one dayers, I'll watch one dayers, preferably with some cobbles. I was left staring at the bottom of my glass for that.
    Correlation is not causation.
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,661
    Does seem to have been a Marmite Race for most people...
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • andyp
    andyp Posts: 10,450
    The best description I read was that it was like a classic everyday, with a nervous finale with lots of people contending for the win.

    Personally I find that a lot more interesting than a straightforward course with a TT and a mountain top finish that leads to much more controlled, and subsequently, dull racing.
  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 19,310
    Anyone think it was a attempt (misguided or otherwise) to Sky proof the parcours?
    “New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!
  • Macaloon
    Macaloon Posts: 5,545
    I hope they just tweak this format a touch: start with a TTT and end with the col d'Eze TT to try to tempt some GT GC guys.

    It's good to experiment. Expand the range of possible winners beyond elite GC riders. Give a frisky peloton a lumpy parcours to play with. Unpredictable racing may happen.
    ...a rare 100% loyal Pro Race poster. A poster boy for the community.
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,538
    TailWindHome wrote:
    Anyone think it was a attempt (misguided or otherwise) to Sky proof the parcours?

    It certainly looked like it, but I'm at a loss to work out why they'd do that. As we saw from the list of big names at T-A, this parcours didn't suit any of the usual suspects. Only Nibs turned out for it, and he needn't have bothered.
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  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 19,310
    http://cyclocosm.com/2014/03/how-the-ra ... nice-2014/

    Note Sky Jag at 2.25 - Bwahahaha!
    “New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!
  • frenchfighter
    frenchfighter Posts: 30,642
    And they wonder why they have no friends in the peloton.

    Contador is a master with friends in every team bar the state run teams of katusha, orica and sky.
    Contador is the Greatest
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,538
    Macaloon wrote:
    I hope they just tweak this format a touch: start with a TTT and end with the col d'Eze TT to try to tempt some GT GC guys.

    It's good to experiment. Expand the range of possible winners beyond elite GC riders. Give a frisky peloton a lumpy parcours to play with. Unpredictable racing may happen.

    I think you'd end up with teams that loaded big engines plus a single climber for leader then, which would defeat the purpose of the lumpy bits. They'd all try and shut everything down so their guy could seal it on d'Eze.

    I really quite like the idea of a pure lumpy parcours, but it would have to be more selective, early each stage, to work. The point would be to make it as difficult as possible for teams to control the race. Perennial jokers and chaos merchants Garmin would love it.
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  • Macaloon
    Macaloon Posts: 5,545
    TailWindHome wrote:
    http://cyclocosm.com/2014/03/how-the-race-was-won-paris-nice-2014/

    Note Sky Jag at 2.25 - Bwahahaha!

    Superb. I love his sprint analysis. And woe betide the death star when Frenchie sees that Chava diss.
    ...a rare 100% loyal Pro Race poster. A poster boy for the community.
  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,661
    ^^^^you live in a totally different world don't you...
    We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
    - @ddraver
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,538
    frenchfighter wrote:
    And they wonder why they have no friends in the peloton.

    Contador is a master with friends in every team bar the state run teams of katusha, orica and sky.

    Oh Jesus, give it a rest. It's so tedious.
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  • Macaloon
    Macaloon Posts: 5,545
    No tA Doctor wrote:
    I think you'd end up with teams that loaded big engines plus a single climber for leader then, which would defeat the purpose of the lumpy bits. They'd all try and shut everything down so their guy could seal it on d'Eze.

    I didn't check the climb's chaos coefficient with the model. Bin it.
    ...a rare 100% loyal Pro Race poster. A poster boy for the community.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,163
    Some riders are good enough that they don't need to buy favours, others need all the friends they can get :lol:
  • thegibdog
    thegibdog Posts: 2,106
    The problem with having a week of classics type stages is that in a classic everything is left on the road, whereas in a stage race most riders will have an eye on the next stage. This is why one day races are generally better than stage races. On Eurosport they were saying that it was a good race because the GC battle was close throughout - but then you could say the same about the Tour of Qatar...
    https://gibworth.mypixieset.com
  • No_Ta_Doctor
    No_Ta_Doctor Posts: 14,538
    thegibdog wrote:
    The problem with having a week of classics type stages is that in a classic everything is left on the road, whereas in a stage race most riders will have an eye on the next stage. This is why one day races are generally better than stage races. On Eurosport they were saying that it was a good race because the GC battle was close throughout - but then you could say the same about the Tour of Qatar...

    A good point, and hard to counter.
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  • Macaloon
    Macaloon Posts: 5,545
    It's true that stages can't replicate the intensity of a one day classic. But it's also true that some of the best GT stages in recent years have been on lumpy 'classics' terrain that offers opportunities for the adventurous.
    ...a rare 100% loyal Pro Race poster. A poster boy for the community.
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 21,541
    I thought the race was actually quite good. Better than my memory of last couple of years in any case. Finishing on a race track was a nice touch, but the thing I liked most was that on a number of the stages there was a huge range of riders that could win the stage and also could win the overall. On some stages in PTP some people picked Degenkolb whilst others picked Nibali - that's a good parcours to me.

    In terms of history, and I'm a bit ropey here, this seems like exactly the sort of course that someone like Kelly would have won, and it wouldn't surprise me if the route in the 80s was similar to this. Although, I'm sure someone will correct me.

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