Tour of Britain today

specialgueststar
specialgueststar Posts: 3,418
edited September 2017 in Pro race
Is it another 5 man break at 3 minutes untill Km 8 then a cranky sprint sort of day. Or is it a 10 mile time trial ?
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  • r0bh
    r0bh Posts: 2,163
    Is it another 5 man break at 3 minutes untill Km 8 then a cranky sprint sort of day. Or is it a 10 mile time trial ?

    10 mile TT. Terrible edition so far with bunch sprint every day, I've not even bothered to watch the highlights most days.
  • Is it another 5 man break at 3 minutes untill Km 8 then a cranky sprint sort of day. Or is it a 10 mile time trial ?

    It's been incredibly dull so far, just recording and skip-watching with a lot of fast forward involved.
  • Yup. Pretty disappointing really .
    Trek,,,, too cool for school ,, apparently
  • okgo
    okgo Posts: 4,368
    They designed it for Dowsett to win it. Which he won't.
    Blog on my first and now second season of proper riding/racing - www.firstseasonracing.com
  • Mahoossive crowds from the people of Essex. Oops not really.

    TOB needs a radical rethink and new management because it pretty much sucks as it is
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,786
    Kiryienka goes fastest, ahead if Durbridge.
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,786
    Thomas now 2nd. Good ride, all things considered.
  • gsk82
    gsk82 Posts: 3,439
    After a few good editions this race seems to have reverted to been dross.
    "Unfortunately these days a lot of people don’t understand the real quality of a bike" Ernesto Colnago
  • Have to agree. Of all the places you could go race bikes in the UK and this is the best they could manage?
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,786
    Campanaerts fastest by 1second
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,786
    Looks like Dowsett faded, finished 6th
  • fenix
    fenix Posts: 5,437
    Have to agree. Of all the places you could go race bikes in the UK and this is the best they could manage?

    I think they have to follow the money - if a town pays for a stage = they can have it.
  • Last year at the start of stage 6, there were 2 riders inside a minute on GC.
    The year before it was 18.
    This year there are 62 riders within 20 seconds of the lead and now they have a 16km time trial.
    Yesterday, they gave 3rd cat climb status to a 1.2km, 2% speed bump.

    My guess is the first and last year that ITV 4 bother to televise the lot.
    What were the organisers thinking?
    They should be made to watch all of their steaming turd, as punishment.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,786
    Boom blows away middway best
  • inseine
    inseine Posts: 5,786
    Looks like it's going to be Boom
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,217
    Fenix wrote:
    Have to agree. Of all the places you could go race bikes in the UK and this is the best they could manage?

    I think they have to follow the money - if a town pays for a stage = they can have it.

    Whilst that's correct the organisers seem to have gone out of their way this year to avoid any meaningful climbs. The final stage through Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire and into Cardiff could have taken in any number of challenging climbs and I'm sure the Cotswold stage could have been tougher (as, no doubt, could the first 3 or 4 stages). There isn't a single 1st category climb in the race this year (and we're talking UK level 1st cat climbs here) let alone an up hill finish. The GC was almost always going to be decided by the TT with the other stages being one day races to all intents and purposes. Given the relatively strong sprint field breaks were never likely to succeed on the terrain and there's absolutely no balance.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,217
    Didn't the organisation change hands a year or so back? If so, the resulting route suggests that was a big mistake!
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,137
    Pross wrote:
    Didn't the organisation change hands a year or so back? If so, the resulting route suggests that was a big mistake!
    No, they had the opportunity to, but stuck with SweetSpot. They've done it since the start (2003 or 4)
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,217
    I'm surprised by how bad the route is then, I suspect there was a brief to make it sprinter friendly to try to attract the big names given how few went to the Vuelta. One or two decent climbs wouldn't have hurt though as the inclusion of the TT meant it would be unlikely a sprinter would take the GC.
  • gweeds
    gweeds Posts: 2,550
    Dullest race of the year. By a kilometre.
    Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.
  • r0bh
    r0bh Posts: 2,163
    Gweeds wrote:
    Dullest race of the year. By a kilometre.

    It's a shame because in the last couple of years there has been some great racing at the ToB :(
  • gweeds
    gweeds Posts: 2,550
    r0bh wrote:
    Gweeds wrote:
    Dullest race of the year. By a kilometre.

    It's a shame because in the last couple of years there has been some great racing at the ToB :(

    Agreed. This year's has just been awful.
    Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.
  • Agree with all of the above

    This is pony
  • mididoctors
    mididoctors Posts: 16,646
    i think sticking a british 10 in there is ok. but the rest of the course is a tad 1990's
    "If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
  • The top 20 is absolutely chock full of time trial specialists.
    Even EBH needs to win 2 of the remaining stages to take the lead.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • Just wonder what constraints there are regarding road closures - flat stages avoid the grupetts that must be a nightmare when keeping the road closed - ' You are just going to have to wait there for 50 minutes - there is a group of 5 that got dropped on the first climb ' :(
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,217
    Just wonder what constraints there are regarding road closures - flat stages avoid the grupetts that must be a nightmare when keeping the road closed - ' You are just going to have to wait there for 50 minutes - there is a group of 5 that got dropped on the first climb ' :(

    You just load the climbs towards the end. They've managed a few very good stages in recent years including a few 'mountain' top finishes. I wouldn't suggest every stage needs a climb but there should be at least one stage with a proper (as in would make 3rd cat at least in the TdF) climb, preferably at or very close to the finish. In my neck of the woods you could easily close many of the bigger mountain roads fully for a few hours with very little disruption if necessary. Certainly closing the Tumble would only affect a handful of farms as there are other routes albeit they may add 5-10 minutes to a journey.
  • bigmat
    bigmat Posts: 5,134
    Rubbish parcours, but they have managed to assemble a quality field (lots of the best sprinters and one of the best TT fields outside a GT / world champs that I can remember). Maybe their focus was on getting the best riders on to the start line?
  • Can Lotto ND balls this up with Boom and Campanaerts 1 and 2 and Roglic just 27 secs back ??