TDF 24:- (be)Rate the race
Not sure if Friebos has sat in judgement yet but in the absence of anyone else starting the thread, here's the annual chance for the beard strokers out there to tell us all that: if you score that 'x' then you don't understand the sport of professional bike racing.
For me it's an 8. A bit of history made with Cav, Girmay and the green jersey. The polka dot jersey regained some vital signs but may still need surgery and most stages would have held up as a 1 day watch. There was a modicum of GC jeopardy when JV took a second out of Pog but sadly it came to nothing in week 3.
I enjoyed it and miss it.
Cake is just weakness entering the body
Comments
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Based on the competitive nature of the entire tour, the stand-out Grimay & Cavendish achievements, and most notably how much I actually cared about watching...
6.5
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Can I go 7.5?
Agree with all the positives in the original post - Cav, Bini, Carapaz, the gravel stage, Bardet's win on stage 1, all great feelgood punch the air moments.
Other than that, I feel it was almost a carbon copy of last year for me in that the GC race was really exciting for the first two weeks, but much like Vingegaard wasn't really at risk last year, Tadej was nowhere near risk this year and as much as I like him, Pogacar's dominance in the 3rd week was a bit boring. Just want them both to come in absolutely PINGING next year and knock lumps out each other.
Was impressed with Remco tbh.
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7 GC race fizzled out a bit but a solid edition.
[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]1 -
I'll go for a solid 8.
Cav's win will forever be a highlight for me.
Jonas's performance was little short of fantastic. Finishing the race would of been an achievement considering his crash in the Basque Country and he managed 2nd. Frankly that's worth a point all on it's own.
Enjoyed most of the rest. The odd snooze days were handy for catching up with the rest of the Sport we'll watch :)
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6.5 for me. A few decent stages, especially in the first week that had a lot more than a glance at the bunch finish results would suggest. Big stories with Cav and Bini. Stage 2 was a cracker. Jonas was much more competitive than I'd expected that gave hope of a good GC battle especially when he appeared to have cracked Pog on Stage 11. It was also good to see some longer attacks by GC riders. There were a fair few dud stages in the second half and the days where wind looked like it might play a part never materialised. Shame the GC intrigue pretty much ended in the final week. Here's hoping that this year's top 3 can return all on top form next year.
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I’d go for a 5 for the GC race and boring sprint stages but an 8 for most of the day to day racing. Throw in a few historical moments and I’ll settle on a 7.5.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1 -
7 for me
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Nah we've definitely had some real stinkers in the past. In general, (with exceptions), the quality of Grand Tour racing has gone up.
I'd give it a 6 probably. Better than average. GC was done far too early, sprint stages were too many and offensively boring, but the rest was actually pretty good.
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Freed from the confines of having poll options I'm giving it 24.62 out of 37. If you need that on a scale of 10, then it's roughly 6.654
Positives were obviously Bini, Cav, Bardet, Campenaerts, Turgis, Abrahamsen and some very good stages
Points deducted for Cort not winning a stage despite the blue moustache, Mads P getting crocked and Vingegaard not winning the overall
Also: not a fan at all of the final day TT, where it didn't get interesting in any way until the final three riders, and that was only a question of the stage win, which became obvious from Pog's 2nd time check at the latest
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8 for me. The first 9 stages alone would have made a good 1 week stage race, and there was other notable points throughout which maintained that
The dropping of points predominantly comes from the lack of GC and the lack of breaks in the sprint stages. Pog's dominance was jaw dropping, though, and the Giro-Tour double can't be underestimated
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As good as Pog's double was, let's be honest, he's had no major rivals really.
Giro was against a very B if not C tier of riders and the Tour; every serious competitor bar one had terrible accidents very close to the Tour and the only one who didn't crashed out.
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That's a ridiculous statement. The fact you forecast the right result doesn't make it a foregone conclusion, as you've done it with way too little data. Being overly confident of a prediction is a sign you're on the wrong end of the Dunning-Kruger scale.
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Merci Monsieur Madiot.
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Cake is just weakness entering the body1 -
Mmmmn, end the tour with a gravel stage is what I'm hearing here.
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Cake is just weakness entering the body1 -
It was massively obvious before the season only Vingegaard could keep up with Pog, and it was massively obvious he would not be able to reach his form in time for the Tour because of the crash.
We all knew that. Some of us may have deliberately obscured the fact in order to make it feel closer or because we were dreaming of a Vingegaard win, but Pog flying off on the first mountain stage made it pretty clear that the obvious conclusions we met beforehand were indeed correct.
The surprise is not that Pog utterly dominated. The surprise is Vingegaard managed to beat him in one stage by half a wheel because Pog didn't eat properly.
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I'm not sure that's fair, given the relative time gaps you could say that apart from Jonas and Remco everyone else at the Tour riding GC was at a lower level than the rest of the Giro GC
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Cort NOT winning with his stupid blue moustache was a huge plus for me. Might bump my score up to an 8 now.
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8 for me.
Followed live via text tracker on the whole, so only watched highlights of the "good" (from my perspective) stages. (Life is too short to watch dull stuff, generally.)
Could have done with more GC action, but that is the exception rather than the norm.
Would only have been a 7.5 but for the fact that Mrs W&G and I rode a lot of the final weeks climbs at the end of last summer, so there was extra interest just from this, and it was fascinating to see how much shorter and flatter they have become over the winter.
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Roubaix to Paris?
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And yet despite your bombastic predictions Vingegaard actually put in career best performances later in the race, so unless you were consistently predicting Pog would put in a performance like no other cyclist had ever done before you were just guessing. It's OK, everyone thought pog would win, he did. The manner in which he did it was far less predictable than the result.
Warning No formatter is installed for the format1 -
6.5 for me I think.
It was a tour that dramatically under promised and so slightly over delivered.
We all knew Pog was going to win but at least Jonas made it a fight for a few days. (The biggest fire hydrant facing a Pogcineration is his inability to not have a bad day!). Disappointed in the other GC riders being able to provide nothing at all.
Some cool stories that were nice but provided little actual suspense in many ways. Missing Cav will forever be a regret, Abrahansson cool but never really challenged until he was and then there was nothing. Carapaz cool but should be taking the fight to the GC. Some fun early stages with some local success which was...nice. The gravel stage made some photographers a bag of cash for sure.
At the end of the three weeks nothing happened that we didn't expect to happen three weeks ago.
We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver0 -
Yes after Jonas' 2 second win plenty of pundits - Wiggo, Hincapie for two and I think a few on here - had Jonas as favourite.
Then when Remco took time on Jonas I can't have been alone thinking there was a chance we had a race for second. Ok neither worked out but you wondered what the next stages would bring.
[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]1 -
I think it'll be one of those races that's better to read about in the future than to go back and rewatch. A lot of the important stuff - Cavendish, Girmay - is better with all the added historical context and perspective that only a bit of distance (and fine words) can give. The rivalry between the top two will likewise only grow in the telling, and given extra flavour once we know where it finally ends. Whatever score you give it now, I bet it gets bumped up mentally by at least a point by the time you think of it in five year's time.
In terms of actual racing I thought it was a bit uneven. A lot of the best bits coming during the first week probably added to that, as the second and especially third weeks started to feel quite "samey" in contrast.
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Yeah OK, that's fair 😅
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Another 6.5.
Lots of very good stages but also lots of really bad ones. Breakaways were mostly starved of opportunities, because of too few intermediate stages, too stingy sprinter teams and Tadej Pogacar.
The GC battle lasted just as far as the first Pyrenean stage, for which, we had to wait too long.
Both the lesser jersey competitions were very good.
Oh and Cav.
"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
This is a fabulous idea for Stage 20.
Much more jeopardy than two Cat 1s and an HC
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8 for me.
Don't want to be repetitive since a lot of what I'd write has already been written by several already.
One thing though, breakaways may not win much anymore, but I do find watching the start of stages nowadays extremely interesting and fun with the racing often being bonkers at over 55 kph for the first 90 minutes. So, while the final result is sometimes a bit drab with favourites winning the stage in the end, the path to that result is often quite interesting and was very much so this Tour.
PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 20234 -
I’m in agreement with Friebos. 4 out of 5.
The top 3 all over performed imo. Lots of interesting racing.
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