Tour de France 2017 General Thread

rtmie

I am not sure if we have rose tinted nostalgia or not. I am old enough to remember Big Mig dominating the TTs and following in every other stage. It was full for 5 years. Then we had US Postal and the joys that brought.
Wondering if the tour has really been forever thus. It is really a 3 week melodrama, if you want pure racing then the classics are the place to be.

RobFowl

rtmie wrote: »

I am not sure if we have rose tinted nostalgia or not. I am old enough to remember Big Mig dominating the TTs and following in every other stage. It was full for 5 years. Then we had US Postal and the joys that brought.
Wondering if the tour has really been forever thus. It is really a 3 week melodrama, if you want pure racing then the classics are the place to be.

I started following the tour in 1983, that was a good one. Plenty of suspense and drama. 9/10
84 was a Fignon bulldozer 7/10
85 a Hinault controlled but not dominated tour 7/10
86 possible the best of all time, Hinault and Lemond at their best 11/10
87 Roches duel with Delgado and indeed JF Bernard 8/10
88 Dominated by Delgado 6/10
89 Wow, just Wow. 10/10

The 80's tours were simply the best

Lusk_Doyle

I quite liked the "Where's Frank?" tours with Andy S!

el tel

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

For me, Kwiatkowski was the rider of the tour this year. His service to Froome was amazing at all times. What a rider to have in your arsenal to destroy the others, both mentally and physically. He went out, several days after riding himself to a stop in the mountains to kill off the other GC riders, and nearly won the last tt and finishing 2nd by one second. A monster performance. This, coupled with his success earlier in the season make him the rider of the tour for me and if he can take the win at the worlds later on a course that suits his strengths, similar to the manner in which he won in 2014, he will be my rider of the year.

Edit: At one stage in the mountains when AG2R were on the front and pushing on he was sitting up emptying the contents of a musette into his pockets and riding with no hands like on a normal group spin. Effortless while the others were bating away a few riders in front of him.

He sounds almost superhuman.

guanciale

RobFowl wrote: »

I started following the tour in 1983, that was a good one. Plenty of suspense and drama. 9/10
84 was a Fignon bulldozer 7/10
85 a Hinault controlled but not dominated tour 7/10
86 possible the best of all time, Hinault and Lemond at their best 11/10
87 Roches duel with Delgado and indeed JF Bernard 8/10
88 Dominated by Delgado 6/10
89 Wow, just Wow. 10/10

The 80's tours were simply the best

For any child of the 80's it is exceedingly difficult to watch modern GTs. They seem much more exciting in the past, but how much of that is Roy of the Rovers style nostalgia. In contrast, monuments seem very exciting, but we had less tv access to those back then.

If I could wish for a few things it would be:
(1) lots of short brutal stages,
(2) more technical terrain - William Fotheringham today speculated that next year would see farm track Ribinou of Tro Bro Leon fame,
(3) medium mountain stages - as an experiment a tour avoiding both Alps & Pyrenees would be interesting if it could still have mountains,
(4) TTT but on a technical up down course - need something that almost negates TT bikes.
(5) ultra long stages ( maybe 2). Talking about 300k MSR type length - that are used to bookend many sub 140km stages.
(6) split stages - oh yeah

In addition if we could lose race radios from team car and use of on bike computers then that might also be interesting.

Cookie_Monster

1bryan wrote: »

The tour de france really needs to reinvent itself. It is a damp squib almost every year.

Not really re-invent itself but change some rules for sure. Ban radios and half the number of team cars. The ease of communications via radio and car makes it far too easy to manage everything. You can't miss someone sneaking into a breakaway or a team member falling out the back and requiring assistance, gaps can be too easily managed etc. It remove any requirement to pay attention in the peleton

rtmie

The Lemond/Hinault, Lemond/Fignon battles and Roche in 87. That was certainly lively times. The advent of big dominant teams in my mind starts with Big Mig and Banesto.

LennoxR

Interesting to see the consensus here. Personally I've next to no interest in the Tour these days. I suppose it's not Froome's fault that he's a boring bar steward, but it's not even fun shouting against him like it was in some of Armstrong's Tour wins.

He certainly doesn't have the flair of the likes of Contador, Quintana etc. Personally I find the Vuelta to be the most interesting grand tour these days but by far the best cycle races are classics in my opinion.

1bryan

All My Stars Aligned wrote: »

One thing I will say about Sky though. They seem to have an amazing work ethic. How often in pro sport do we see the big money guy's failing to perform on the big stage. Never seem to be the way with Sky. Each of them leave nothing on the road. I don't think the same can be said for any of the other pro teams.

Agree and disagree. Certainly agree with the part about the TdF being the inferior of the grand tours (by quite a distance too). The bit about Sky's work ethic - I don't think it's work ethic, per se. All of the riders work and train hard and I'd never subscribe to the notion that Sky are any different in that regard. Where they do differ is in buying into everything being about one rider. About having a single goal, and getting all riders to toe the line. There is no other team that does that, and there hasn't been another team since the team of he-who-shall-not-be-mentioned, when he was 'winning' his 7 Tours.

Just look how Sky treat their sprinters. Cavendish, on the back of 4 stage wins in the 2012 tour, discarded. They've never been able to facilitate the likes of Swift, Henderson or Viviani. Even the likes of Alex Dowsett jumped ship because he thought he'd get better opportunities elsewhere.

In a way it's disappointing that they've kept some top riders fairly subdued by paying them massive salaries *just* to ride in support of Froome. Again, just like a certain American team back in the day. I'm sure some stages would have been lit up by the likes of Kwiatkowski or Landa if they were let loose.

buffalo

Meant to post this yesterday - the Irish Times' standfirst for Fotheringham's round-up of the Tour:



So much wrong.

conor_mc

Positive time cut-offs? Make the super-domestiques attack/ breakaway by having a cut-off of e.g. +3 mins ahead of GC leader on at least one stage. Even if it's just at the intermediates, the dom's either need to work harder to get up the road or the GC leader has to gamble by backing off and exposing themselves to attack.

mcgratheoin

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Not really re-invent itself but change some rules for sure. Ban radios and half the number of team cars. The ease of communications via radio and car makes it far too easy to manage everything. You can't miss someone sneaking into a breakaway or a team member falling out the back and requiring assistance, gaps can be too easily managed etc. It remove any requirement to pay attention in the peleton

Just cut the size of teams and hand out a few more wildcards. We saw Dan lose time in the crosswinds due to lack of teammates - if every team was in the same boat it might encourage more attacks.

Leroy42

It really isn't down to rule changes etc. Sky will simply adapt to those better than the other teams as they prepare better.

The other teams seem almost resigned to letting Sky drive the front of the race. They never try to disrupt it. Why do they just let Sky continue to pedal at the front on climbs. We all know how its going to go. Get your team riders in amongst them. Split up the train. Force Froome to fight to keep on Landas wheel. Form a second train on the other side to force Sky to make a choice.

Will it work? Well probably not, but it has a far better chance of working that the nothing they are doing at the moment which has resulted in 5 out of the last 6 TdF titles going to Sky.

Sky are very good, the best, and going to the front and setting a constant hard pace. But get guys to the front to slow it down, force sky to go around them (I'm not talking about blocking but simply disrupt the rhythm. And refuse to work at the front to chase down breakaways. Make sky use their resources to contain the breaks. The sprinter teams really need only work for the last few KM, once they make sure to have people in the break.

Macy0161

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Not really re-invent itself but change some rules for sure. Ban radios and half the number of team cars. The ease of communications via radio and car makes it far too easy to manage everything. You can't miss someone sneaking into a breakaway or a team member falling out the back and requiring assistance, gaps can be too easily managed etc. It remove any requirement to pay attention in the peleton

I think they'd just shut down all breakaways, unless they knew who was in it. No breakaway got the 20 minutes plus they used to get this year even? Too many teams with too much skin in various games, and I'm not convinced 8 man teams will help that.

Less team cars will only help if the riders drop this unwritten rule rubbish.

I think there is an element of rose tinted glasses. For myself, it was well into the Armstrong years that we got Eurosport - before that it was half hour channel 4 highlights. I don't think this year was a bad tour, but even if you just watched highlights it probably seemed better.

They're boring when one person is dominant. So boring when it was Big Mig, Armstrong now Froome. The best tours are when we're between dominant riders. 87 - 89 probably wouldn't have been what they were if Lemond hadn't had the accident?

My own conclusion is it's the relative size of the tour compared to every other race. Top 10 at the tour worth more in publicity terms than a podium on the Giro and Vuelta maybe (outside of the more informed cycling public)? That leads to racing not to lose rather than to win. I don't think messing with the format/ team sizes/ race radios/ support vehicles is going to change that. Tour isn't going to get smaller, so maybe the hope is interest in cycling raises the relevance of other races.

mcgratheoin

Leroy42 wrote: »

Why do they just let Sky continue to pedal at the front on climbs.

Because Sky have a top GC contender, Giro mountains classification winner and two Paris-Nice winners setting the pace up the climbs in Landa, Nieve, Henao & Thomas (yeah I know he crashed out). World champion Kwiatkowski and world TT champion Kiryienka driving along on the flat and Knees & Rowe as the final two riders.

I accept your point about trying to discomfort Sky, but I think most riders are just hanging on at the pace Sky set so it's hard to set up a rival train or get yourself to the front.

RobFowl

Other teams don't just let Sky control the pace, as said above no other team has the actual bodies or horsepower to match them....

Lusk_Doyle

We need to lobby for a wildcard entry for the soon to be "Boards.ie Keyboard Warriors" Continental Team so they can show the others how it's done and what real racing at the top level should be about.

Leroy42

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

We need to lobby for a wildcard entry for the soon to be "Boards.ie Keyboard Warriors" Continental Team so they can show the others how it's done and what real racing at the top level should be about.

I'll drive the team car (or maybe just a passenger)

happytramp

Leroy42 wrote: »

I'll drive the team car (or maybe just a passenger)

I'll just follow from home and make useful suggestions about how I think you could drive the car more effectively.

greenspurs

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

We need to lobby for a wildcard entry for the soon to be "Boards.ie Keyboard Warriors" Continental Team so they can show the others how it's done and what real racing at the top level should be about.

You can be D.S ? :rolleyes::D

Lusk_Doyle

greenspurs wrote: »

You can be D.S ? :rolleyes::D

I see myself more in the Thomas DeGhent role. I like to be alone.

RobFowl

Bcmf or whatever he calls himself now as DS, Beasty in the general manager/CEO Brailsford type role

WinnyThePoo

Always get a bit sad when the tours over.

Lusk_Doyle

RobFowl wrote: »

Bcmf or whatever he calls himself now as grumpy DS, Beasty in the general manager/CEO Brailsford type role

Fixed.

RobFowl

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

Fixed.

He's your DS for the weekend

Beasty

OK, I'm up for it. Now Rob - need you to sort out that package

Lusk_Doyle - you're in the Shane Sutton role (sacking imminent)

Now where can we pick up the next Wiggins????

Lusk_Doyle

Beasty wrote: »

OK, I'm up for it. Now Rob - need you to sort out that package

Lusk_Doyle - you're in the Shane Sutton role (sacking imminent)

Now where can we pick up the next Wiggins????

But, but, she DOES have a big ...

rtmie

Does the Brailsford role involve coming up with random gibberish under the guise of blue sky thinking?

After a few drinks I can usually contribute that sort of guff .

Lusk_Doyle

rtmie wrote: »

Does the Brailsford role involve coming up with random gibberish under the guise of blue sky thinking?

After a few drinks I can usually contribute that sort of guff .

No need. Beasty has that particular skill perfected!

Beasty

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

No need. Beasty has that particular skill perfected!

When I lived in Manchester I took the opportunity to "inform" one or two of the locals. Not claiming to be the sole reason for Team GB's recent successes mind...