2016 Tour de France Ranking/10

thomthom

bobmcstuff wrote:

ThomThom wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

ThomThom wrote:

Do most of you rate your score on a who won a stage and not a second of the 5 hours prior to Cav going over the finish line (or whoever won..)

Also, 3. I was on a 2 but the rain, ironically, did provide a somewhat exciting 19th stage.

Re: the Cav winning a stage, the rest of a sprint stage is usually pretty damn boring regardless of who wins, there's nothing unusual about this Tour in that regard. The only excitement is if the break looks like it might stay away, or if you get crosswinds - which actually did happen this year.

Which is why 8 flat stages in a row is well idiotic.

But then they had the Euros on in France during the first week so presumably they decided it was better to put the stages with less prolonged action in them during that week anyway as no-one was going to watch the lot.

I doubt that was a consideration. Euro matches in the last week were played in the evenings anyway.

Pross

I think it was more a result of a decision not to have any long transfers, made for an unusual (boring?) route.

dougzz

Above The Cows wrote:

dougzz wrote:

What I didn't like was that the other GT contenders seem to think a plan for winning is to follow Froome and presumably wait for a mistake or some other intervention. Maybe it is all they have, but it seems to me that they're already beaten at the start line with that mentality.

Worked for Nibali.

Tru dat. But he needed a couple of others to follow Froome out. Nibs was a lucky boy that year.

Lanterne_Rogue

On reflection, I'd like to take a point off for that tossing advert where a Skoda driving twunt honks his horn at some poor woman on her bicycle for daring to set off one and a half seconds after the lights change, the bastard.

jam1e

Going with a 7, interesting not exciting, and a few great moments.

I think the lack of a proper summit finish took the edge off it really but if Ventoux had gone to plan it's hard to say that Froome's winning margin would have been anything other than even bigger.

jimmythecuckoo

I really enjoyed it. All of it.

We have 49 weeks a year where there is no Tour. I am not going to complain about the three weeks its on!

Cav was awesome. Froome attacked and went for it. Sagan was imperious on the rainbows.

7!!!!!!!!!!!

d_o_g

The parcours was terrible. I thought it looked a bit pump when I first saw it, but the reality was worse. Shame about Ventoux, but that was only ever going to offer a GC battle, and ended up being a huge talking point anyway.

The rest of it was dire. Andorra MTF. Ugh, wide, unscenic, steady gradient. Yuk. A week full of sprint stages, with nothing to break up the trains towards the end, unimaginative at best. I love a downhill finish after a climb, but do we need three of them in the mountain stages?

If I hadn't had Cav, Cummings and yes, Froome's success to be pleased with I'd be hacked off.

Still, there's plenty more bicycle racing left this year, the TDF is just three weeks of it. Vuelta should be good, it has been of late.

rick_chasey

TV ratings, as a proportion of the audience.

32% Holland -25% Spain -16% Flanders -12% France -10% UK -10% Germany -5% USA

.

As ever, Holland is the most Tour obsessed by quite some way.

m.r.m.

I really enjoyed it. 8/10 for me. Only thing that was missing was meaningful attacks on stage 19 and 20.

Maybe that would have been the case if Contador had not crashed out. Having only Quintana and maybe Porte as proper contenders for Froome spoiled the 9/10 or 10/10.

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

TV ratings, as a proportion of the audience.

32% Holland -25% Spain -16% Flanders -12% France -10% UK -10% Germany -5% USA

.

As ever, Holland is the most Tour obsessed by quite some way.

I think you have misread that tweet. They are the alleged drops in audience figures. (Personally I'm not buying them)

dolan_driver

I gave it a 5. Pretty much a run-of-the-mill Tour as far as excitement goes. If Froome didn't break a bone in a crash or get sick, he was going to win it. That was guaranteed. At least we can reasonably believe the podium was manned by guys riding cleanly.

DD.

m.r.m.

That is always from the perspective of no one challenging Froome, which is fair. I think it was better, because Froome didn't actually do the bare minimum. He attacked on the descent, which was really phenomenal. What would everyone say had that been Sagan or Nibali. He attacked on the flat in crosswinds and dominated the TT's. He would have won regardless, but I appreciate the effort.
Cavendish striking back and Sagan living up to his potential more and more with each passing year rounded it out.

Love it or hate it, SKY's dominance is turning the others more professional. This can be seen by FDJ's emphasis on TT's and their following success in that discipline for Pinot for example. If Bardet can follow suit, I think he can turn into a true contender. Maybe even more so than Quintana or Yates or Mollema (since Bardet can climb almost at Quintana level, but is much better at descending).

thomthom

Rick Chasey wrote:

TV ratings, as a proportion of the audience.

32% Holland -25% Spain -16% Flanders -12% France -10% UK -10% Germany -5% USA

.

As ever, Holland is the most Tour obsessed by quite some way.

Denmark har 1.1 million viewers during the last climb a few years back. That's almost a fifth of the population. Madness.

rick_chasey

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

TV ratings, as a proportion of the audience.

32% Holland -25% Spain -16% Flanders -12% France -10% UK -10% Germany -5% USA

.

As ever, Holland is the most Tour obsessed by quite some way.

I think you have misread that tweet. They are the alleged drops in audience figures. (Personally I'm not buying them)

I read it as a drop from nation to nation.

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

TV ratings, as a proportion of the audience.

32% Holland -25% Spain -16% Flanders -12% France -10% UK -10% Germany -5% USA

.

As ever, Holland is the most Tour obsessed by quite some way.

I think you have misread that tweet. They are the alleged drops in audience figures. (Personally I'm not buying them)

I read it as a drop from nation to nation.

It is. It doesn't show the Dutch to be cycling obsessed though - just that they had the biggest drop. (Which I find dubious considering Dumoulin and Mollema)

ContrelaMontre

dougzz wrote:

Above The Cows wrote:

dougzz wrote:

What I didn't like was that the other GT contenders seem to think a plan for winning is to follow Froome and presumably wait for a mistake or some other intervention. Maybe it is all they have, but it seems to me that they're already beaten at the start line with that mentality.

Worked for Nibali.

Tru dat. But he needed a couple of others to follow Froome out. Nibs was a lucky boy that year.

Bullsheet - Nibali had already attacked into Sheffield and attacked on the cobbles before Froome and Bertie crashed out. He hardly wheelsucked waiting for others to crash out.

Back to this year's edition. I gave it a 6, but nearly a 7 which is interesting that nearly 60% of the votes are for 6 or 7.

It was a fine edition with lots going for it including

Cavendish's comeback including the first time he ever beat Kittel
Sagan's awesomeness
GVA holding the yellow jersey by getting in the breakaway
Cummings win
Froome's downhill attack
Sagan and Froome's echelon - I have never seen such an attack that I recall, it was like something out of Merckx's era
Ventoux farce
Julien Alaphilippe
All of Stage 19 - poor old Malcolm Oliver (Bauke Mollema), Bardet's win
Thrilling descent by Izaguirre to win stage 20
Greipel continuing his record of never going away empty handed

Downsides

Froome's dominance making the GC predictable (how many tours in the last 20 years hasn't this been the case - it seems fairly standard in my experience)
People whingeing about it being dull
Ventoux being curtailed

above_the_cows

ContrelaMontre wrote:

dougzz wrote:

Above The Cows wrote:

dougzz wrote:

What I didn't like was that the other GT contenders seem to think a plan for winning is to follow Froome and presumably wait for a mistake or some other intervention. Maybe it is all they have, but it seems to me that they're already beaten at the start line with that mentality.

Worked for Nibali.

Tru dat. But he needed a couple of others to follow Froome out. Nibs was a lucky boy that year.

Bullsheet - Nibali had already attacked into Sheffield and attacked on the cobbles before Froome and Bertie crashed out. He hardly wheelsucked waiting for others to crash out.

Froome crashed and broke his wrist on the stage before the cobbles and then abandoned on the cobbled stage well before they ever actually saw any of the cobbled sections and Nibali put in a dig. His attack in Sheffield was the only time he attacked Froome. After Contador had crashed on the first proper MTN stage he had no serious competition.

ContrelaMontre

Above The Cows wrote:

ContrelaMontre wrote:

dougzz wrote:

Above The Cows wrote:

dougzz wrote:

What I didn't like was that the other GT contenders seem to think a plan for winning is to follow Froome and presumably wait for a mistake or some other intervention. Maybe it is all they have, but it seems to me that they're already beaten at the start line with that mentality.

Worked for Nibali.

Tru dat. But he needed a couple of others to follow Froome out. Nibs was a lucky boy that year.

Bullsheet - Nibali had already attacked into Sheffield and attacked on the cobbles before Froome and Bertie crashed out. He hardly wheelsucked waiting for others to crash out.

Froome crashed and broke his wrist on the stage before the cobbles and then abandoned on the cobbled stage well before they ever actually saw any of the cobbled sections and Nibali put in a dig. His attack in Sheffield was the only time he attacked Froome. After Contador had crashed on the first proper MTN stage he had no serious competition.

Correct. He took the initiative at every opportunity... Just like Froome did this year, which I was super impressed with. He attacked at unexpected points rather than just smashing the first MTF and time trials.

mrfpb

underlayunderlay wrote:

I think the biggest problem was a growing consensus view that the Tour is entirely about the GC battle in the high mountains and that anything else is unimportant.

For me the daily battles and minor skirmishes are what really makes it, and there was still plenty of that to look for this time round. Who could have watched EQS falling apart today and not felt the warm feeling of schadenfreude? Who can sit stony faced as Astana blow the front of the race apart only to discover that the rider they were working for hadn't received the message? What sort of mind watches Sagan's obvious glee at being in a breakaway with the yellow jersey and GC favourite alongside him ("I said 'hey, we're really strong, yeah?!'") and thinks 'this would be so much better if only it were Quintana and Froome grinding away for twenty days..."?

This, really.

I can't rank it against others as this is the first one I've followed start to finish. The daily battles are what makes it. This isn't a straightforward superhero movie, it's a sprawling Lord of the Rings type epic with minor characters stepping forward to surprise us at different moments. There are 21 races and red bibs to win, there are four jerseys to take home. Why focus on the GC above all else. I imagine watching every minute of every stage will be overwhelmingly dull in any year, but there was enough excitement in the last 30-60 mins of every stage to make it worth following.