Tour 2019 Post Mortem and looking forward to 2020

davidof

So Bernal, 22 years old, could be on the podium for a number of years but will Brailsford send him to the Giro in 2020?
Bardet "after 5 years of trying I have to think about something else" - maybe Giro rather than Tour next year. (although another poster suggested trying to win some smaller tours)
Alaphilippe: "Tour" not an objective for 2020, content with his 5th place. After his early season successes really signed himself off as a great all rounder. "I'd rather have spent 14 days in Yellow, won 2 stages than be 3rd on the podium in Paris"
Pinot: "My life is the Tour" will be back seriously in 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSPMTGC-aEQ
Quintana: seems able to win stages but not able to go the distance now
Porte: well it is not going to happen is it. His chance was the year post Sky.

Very close at the top of the GC although perhaps due to the truncated Alpine stages.

Lanterne_Rogue

Taking Cummings over Cavendish was even more stupid than it seemed at the time.

Pross

Buchmann did well, always looked comfortable following but not able to attack with SK likewise. Modern tradition dictates they'll go to the Giro to try to dodge whoever leads Ineos but given the Ineos options even that could be a challenge for them.

Simon Yates looked like he could have done well had he come in fresh and a better option than Adam. Movistar have a team of GC podium riders but no domestiques but they'll be scattering next season - no more team prize! Dumoulin still looks the most likely rider to break the Sky / Ineos Tour dominance but I think this year was the big chance for someone, they're team is unlikely to be so weak next year. It felt like they had a bad Tour but they still took 1st and 2nd. That said, Pinot looked capable and would have been an interesting complication had it not been for that knee injury.

No_Ta_Doctor

A word for the domestiques

De Plus was immense in the mountains
Asgreen a huge engine on the flat (also did some mountain work!)
Bennet put in some solid shifts
Gaudu great as Pinot's last man pace setter

RichN95.

No tA Doctor wrote:

A word for the domestiques

De Plus was immense in the mountains
Asgreen a huge engine on the flat (also did some mountain work!)
Bennet put in some solid shifts
Gaudu great as Pinot's last man pace setter

Van Baarle and Muhlberger also very good

ocdupalais

underlayunderlay wrote:

Taking Cummings over Cavendish was even more stupid than it seemed at the time.

Seeing as Cavendish currently can’t make it to the end of stage 2 of some chipper in Italy - maybe not. At least Steve C finished the Tour.

specialgueststar

Thinking of that week in Nice already.

DeVlaeminck

Having watched the first 2 weeks on Eurosport and the last on ITV I still can't get my head round how anyone prefers ITV's coverage but vive la difference I suppose. Not going to pick out individuals for criticism but Rob Hatch, Wiggins and Orla whatshername played blinders.

Not sure where Thomas goes from here - second place yet you'd expect him to be third choice in his own team next year. It can't be good for the race to have maybe the top 3 contenders, certainly 3 of the top 5 or 6, on the same team. As a guess they all stay at Ineos but Thomas leads the Giro.

S Yates looks like he may be amongst 2-3 (Dumoulin being another, and Pinot I suppose) who might be able to challenge next year. He has to focus on the Tour now. I don't follow the sport's finances that closely but I get the impression some of these contenders ride for teams without the biggest budgets .

Pross

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Having watched the first 2 weeks on Eurosport and the last on ITV I still can't get my head round how anyone prefers ITV's coverage but vive la difference I suppose. Not going to pick out individuals for criticism but Rob Hatch, Wiggins and Orla whatshername played blinders.

Not sure where Thomas goes from here - second place yet you'd expect him to be third choice in his own team next year. It can't be good for the race to have maybe the top 3 contenders, certainly 3 of the top 5 or 6, on the same team. As a guess they all stay at Ineos but Thomas leads the Giro.

S Yates looks like he may be amongst 2-3 (Dumoulin being another, and Pinot I suppose) who might be able to challenge next year. He has to focus on the Tour now. I don't follow the sport's finances that closely but I get the impression some of these contenders ride for teams without the biggest budgets .

I think for most it is CK that ruins Eurosport coverage. That said, it feels this year that he is being eased out a bit.

I think Thomas will drop back to being a super domestique for Froome and Bernal but I'd like to see him go back to also riding the Classics again. This season has shown the benefit of having options though.

Jumbo look like they are starting to assemble a squad that could challenge Ineos but they need to be prepared to throw everything at the GC and not hope for stage wins elsewhere. The gamble then is you come away with nothing.

hypster

I felt sorry for Thomas in the end. He didn't do anything wrong but obviously wasn't as strong as last year and didn't have the same element of luck, coming off three times. Only beaten by one stronger rider in the race though who just hapened to be his teammate although Pinot probably would have had something to say about the final result if he'd stayed out of trouble.

Alaphilippe confirmed himself as one of the superstars of the sport for the next few years. The French dream turned into a nightmare which was entertaining in itself.

I still think Thomas will be in the Giro next year and depending on how that goes could play a supporting role in the team for Froome and Bernal as leaders in the Tour. Hopefully Froome will make it five.

rick_chasey

Eurosport gets a boycott until CK is no longer on the mic.

Lanterne_Rogue

OCDuPalais wrote:

underlayunderlay wrote:

Taking Cummings over Cavendish was even more stupid than it seemed at the time.

Seeing as Cavendish currently can’t make it to the end of stage 2 of some chipper in Italy - maybe not. At least Steve C finished the Tour.

Don't you go bringing facts along!

On the broadcast front, I felt Ned Boulting was showing signs of being overworked, and David Millar's ability to pick out riders instantly is disappearing as the generation he rode with begins to fade. Didn't actually watch any Eurosport to compare this year as switching between feeds is too much faff, but it seems from reports that they're responding to the challenge of ITV by upping their game. Good.

ridgerider

van Aert was a revelation...he could be the next Roglic!

I think Kruiswijk rode to his limit. Can't see how he will ever do any better than that.

jam1e

One thing which grated on me was the praise being heaped upon the failed gc'ers for their consolation prizes.

Quintana's (insert breathless superlative) stage win for example - yes it was a good ride but essentially he was given a sizeable headstart by virtue of being well off the pace, it was hardly fenestre 2018.

Bardet and Nibali the same thing, big fish swimming in small pools to take their respective victories, not their fault as such but when there's so much talk about asterisks (sp?) for Bernal it seems a bit off that individual rides escape such comment.

rick_chasey

jam1e wrote:

One thing which grated on me was the praise being heaped upon the failed gc'ers for their consolation prizes.

Quintana's (insert breathless superlative) stage win for example - yes it was a good ride but essentially he was given a sizeable headstart by virtue of being well off the pace, it was hardly fenestre 2018.

Bardet and Nibali the same thing, big fish swimming in small pools to take their respective victories, not their fault as such but when there's so much talk about asterisks (sp?) for Bernal it seems a bit off that individual rides escape such comment.

I'll disagree with that.

Winning a mountain stage in the Tour is a big big deal and it's nice to see the almost GCers turning their attention back to winning stages, as it should be.

For me it just outlined that even if they didn't have the form to be consistent over the full three weeks their class is still there.

Nibali's ride was properly baller.

DeVlaeminck

ITV coverage has a different feel and I suppose it depends what you like. CK is a bullsh*tter but his commentary does at least feel as if it's part of the coverage - for me Ned's doesn't - there's a disconnect as if he's watching a video of the race back and trying to explain what is going on. Millar has a tendency to over analyse and together they are telling me what I can already see without adding to the atmosphere. I'd actually take Millar but pair him with someone else - I think there is a dry humour in Millar that doesn't get aired enough.

Eurosport does have a few over analysers themselves - Flecha is incredibly dull as is Contador but we saw very little of them this time - not a fan of Stephens he's more in the ITV style on commentary but as an interviewer he did nothing wrong.

rick_chasey

I have my criticisms of Ned but currently the bar is set as "being factually accurate and giving a sense of what is going on" and Ned does actually do that, so I'll hold back.

craigus89

Thomas a class act as always. In his interviews he seemed to know that he didn't quite have it this year possibly because of the unusual winter time he had due to being the tour winner and the responsibility that brings. Would like to see him supporting Froome or Bernal next year and maybe getting a shot to be the leader at the Giro or Vuelta.

S Yates and Pinot both impressed. As said above it seems that Simon is the stronger option out of the two of them if targeting the GC at the tour is what the team wants to do, but they clearly need to go all in for it.

SK and Buchman might have ridden well but were dull as anything to watch, not one attack from either of them.

Rick Chasey wrote:

Eurosport gets a boycott until CK is no longer on the mic.

Also this, don't care how good the others might be, I can't bring myself to listen to him. Plus I like Ned and Dave.

squired

I found that this year I would watch one channel until they said something stupid and then would switch over to the other. Or if Carlton was on I'd stick with ITV, apart from the numerous advert breaks.

My biggest annoyance was the ability of the producer (or whoever it was) and his/her ability to switch to the wrong camera every time something was happening. I can't remember which stage it was where one of the GC guys made a move and we instantly got about 5-10 seconds of an empty chair lift. A couple of times on Friday or Saturday the commentators were clearly frustrated too at the choice of camera when things were happening.

This year more than others it seems to me that fewer people care (or are allowed to) about GC placing. The top 7 on GC were split by 7 minutes, yet 20th was 50 minutes down. Not that long ago people would still be fighting for a top 20, but this year it seemed that there were only a dozen riders fighting for a top 10 and anything below that didn't matter. For me that is a shame.

hypster

I've always hated Ned Boulting although his nausiating, sychophantic adoration of Dave Millar seems to have tempered this year. Never really had much exposure to Carlton Kirby not having Eurosport but have heard him on some of the online feeds at times for other grand tours and he seems okay to me. Maybe more prolonged exposure would have me agreeing with the general loathing around here.

I do find David Millar comes out with a surprising lot of expert nonsense at times as well. It's generally when he's speculating about what a rider is going to do next or what he has just done. The censored he was talking about what Emmanuel Buchmann was going to do next in this Tour was incredible for instance.

Having said that they do do a difficult job filling hours of nothing much happening interspersed with a few minutes of real action. Most other sporting events have similar problems in my opinion and I generally find myself hating one commentator or associated expert or another there too.

specialgueststar

hypster wrote:

I've always hated Ned Boulting

:shock: :shock: :shock: wow :shock: :shock: :shock:

ddraver

Did the non-tweeps see this? https://twitter.com/JournalVelo/status/ ... 29479?s=20

The tour as a nightclub

ddraver

Dream Team

Hatch
Millar (McEwan cameos for the last 30km of sprint stages)

Wiggins on the bike
Boulting back on Post Race interviews
Imlach presenting the highlights
Chennoui presenting the 'Evening Stage' with Moore, Birnie and Friebos as the 'couch pundits'

That said, Kirby aside, English commentary has come on leaps and bounds recently.

Ben6899

Bored of Sagan's wheelies.

ddraver

Something from the archives to aid the withdrawal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuQ_58zcyfs

RichN95.

Ben6899 wrote:

Bored of Sagan's wheelies.

Quite. The kids near me do them going through red lights on a three lane highway.

rick_chasey

What is quite impressive is Bernal did not have the ideal build up to the Tour either, having been slated to ride the Giro before breaking his collarbone.

Aside from the potential to improve as he is still so young (though I tend to feel these top talents just hit their top form much earlier, rather than striding much further on from their already top performance), he clearly has room to improve his build up.

It will be a challenge to stay level headed in Colombia, but he seems fairly grounded so we'll see.

poppit

This is what I think will happen at Ineos (if Carapaz joins). Bernal and Thomas joint team leaders at this years Vuelta, Thomas and Carapaz joint team leaders at the 2020 Giro, Bernal and Froome joint team leaders at the 2020 Tour and all four at the 2020 Vuelta!

squired

Not the most in depth article, but interesting that Bernal clearly stands up for himself, despite his youth.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cycling/201 ... ord-makes/

Alejandrosdog

RichN95 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

A word for the domestiques

De Plus was immense in the mountains
Asgreen a huge engine on the flat (also did some mountain work!)
Bennet put in some solid shifts
Gaudu great as Pinot's last man pace setter

Van Baarle and Muhlberger also very good

Luke Rowe punched above his weight too

salsiccia1

SpecialGuestStar wrote:

hypster wrote:

I've always hated Ned Boulting

:shock: :shock: :shock: wow :shock: :shock: :shock:

Yes, very harsh. He's alright.

I haven't had a lot of time in front of the Tour this year, but my general approach is Eurosport for live and ITV for highlights. Eurosport's package has been excellent this year, the lovely Orla is knowledgeable and a very good presenter, and Rob Hatch is an excellent commentator. I know he divides opinon but I think does OK to fill the quiet bits.