Tour de France 2018 - General Thread

fryup · 31-07-2018 10:37am

he's not the most charismatic of sportsmen is he?

saw him on the one show yesterday zzzzzzzzzzzzz

eeeee · 31-07-2018 11:38am

fryup wrote: »

he's not the most charismatic of sportsmen is he?

saw him on the one show yesterday zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Almost no professional sports people are now*. They have to specialise and dedicate their lives to it from such an early age they haven't seen a whole lot of life really. There just isn't enough space in professional sport anymore, with ever tightening margins for a bit of a life/variety. It was different in the past, but the levels of professionalism are such now that it kind of precludes very rounded characters. Pro cyclists now are *almost* (there are some characters of course) always disappointing when it comes to the personality department. Particularly GC people. They can't really think of or do anything else.

You see them being magnificent in their field, then you see them interviewed outside it and all the charisma disappears. Cyclists are particularly boring I think, as it's such a demanding sport. Although I have to sat I'm routinely disappointed by most people now so maybe I'm looking for something that never existed/can't exist!

*obviously there are exceptions, but they are exceptions, not the rule.

Macy0161 · 31-07-2018 11:43am

I would think Thomas normally is pretty interesting? Didn't see the one show but would imagine he's pretty wrecked having done the tour, celebration and now on the media rounds (and I think he is also down for a few crits).

Weepsie · 31-07-2018 11:49am

fryup wrote: »

he's not the most charismatic of sportsmen is he?

saw him on the one show yesterday zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Watching the One Show and complaining about someone's charisma? Hmmm

eeeee · 31-07-2018 11:50am

Macy0161 wrote: »

I would think Thomas normally is pretty interesting? Didn't see the one show but would imagine he's pretty wrecked having done the tour, celebration and now on the media rounds (and I think he is also down for a few crits).

We must have different definitions of interesting!

He's fine, he's cycled/raced from a young fella, was supported in what he did, and now he's where he is. It's not a particularly interesting story.
Svein Tuft is an example of a cyclist who has an interesting story, and is an interesting guy, but I think he's retiring this year.

Female cyclists tend to be more interesting than the men as most can't live a full time cyclists, so have broader experiences of life, with careers and the like outside cycling, or coming to it later etc.

Macy0161 · 31-07-2018 11:52am

Maybe interesting was the wrong phrase, but he's not the normal monosyllabic GC contender. Well able to be quite funny in interviews, and I liked the clearly unscripted Tour winners speech.

happytramp · 31-07-2018 1:10pm

Wiggin's on Graham Norton was pretty funny. Talking about playing football with his son on a miserable wet Saturday morning where his kid got to be Neymar but he always had to be someone like Jimmy Bullard.

Dr. Bre · 31-07-2018 5:24pm

I still think if Porte doesn’t crash out he would hve won

Itziger · 31-07-2018 5:36pm

What I'm looking forward to seeing is how Sir Brailsford makes Bernal into a time trialist. Bit like Big Mike Indurain in reverse.

Chips Lovell · 31-07-2018 5:43pm

He’s already a very good time trialist.

Itziger · 31-07-2018 5:45pm

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

He’s already a very good time trialist.

Oh, didn't realise that. Must check out his TT history.

Lusk_Doyle · 31-07-2018 5:57pm

Itziger wrote: »

Oh, didn't realise that. Must check out his TT history.

https://www.procyclingstats.com/mob/rider/egan-bernal

He beat Roglic earlier in the year on an uphill tt.

Boscoirl · 31-07-2018 6:12pm

An uphill tt would be easy for him, he wasn’t dragging the peloton up behind him

Lusk_Doyle · 31-07-2018 6:28pm

Boscoirl wrote: »

An uphill tt would be easy for him, he wasn’t dragging the peloton up behind him

The elastic is only imaginary!

retalivity · 31-07-2018 8:20pm

Lumen wrote: »

20m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xis1_1_Bfgg

Reports yesterday and today in french news (of course!) On salary capping, due to the low numbers of viewers in this years tour and the domination of sky turning people off. Apparently sky's budget for this year is €35m - sunweb's is €12m. So dumoulin has had a monter effort to come 2nd to the 2 sky guys, with virtually no help in the mountains.
I always thought movistar were (relatively) rich, but apparently not. Same as quickstep.

c.p.w.g.w · 31-07-2018 8:45pm

retalivity wrote: »

Reports yesterday and today in french news (of course!) On salary capping, due to the low numbers of viewers in this years tour and the domination of sky turning people off. Apparently sky's budget for this year is €35m - sunweb's is €12m. So dumoulin has had a monter effort to come 2nd to the 2 sky guys, with virtually no help in the mountains.
I always thought movistar were (relatively) rich, but apparently not. Same as quickstep.

Squad salary caps or salary cap for your 8 riders on the tour

31-07-2018 9:17pm

Some talk of the salary caps and more here http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lappartient-keen-to-curb-team-skys-tour-de-france-dominance/

magicbastarder · 31-07-2018 11:37pm

the guardian's collection of the best photos from the tour:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2018/jul/29/tour-de-france-best-images-from-2018-race-geraint-thomas

neris · 31-07-2018 11:43pm

retalivity wrote: »

Reports yesterday and today in french news (of course!) On salary capping, due to the low numbers of viewers in this years tour and the domination of sky turning people off. Apparently sky's budget for this year is €35m - sunweb's is €12m. So dumoulin has had a monter effort to come 2nd to the 2 sky guys, with virtually no help in the mountains.
I always thought movistar were (relatively) rich, but apparently not. Same as quickstep.

Quickstep are nearly always on the look out every year for a sponsor. Apparently they're looking again for 2019 as quickstep are going to finish up. Heard Patrick lefreve saying few years ago that he's been around so long that he had no problem pulling the team if they can't get a sponsor.

Lotto NL are pulling out so they're just going to be Jumbo for next year

neris · 31-07-2018 11:46pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Some talk of the salary caps and more here http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lappartient-keen-to-curb-team-skys-tour-de-france-dominance/

If they drop the teams to 6 and bam radio and power meters does that not man they have to do it for all uci WT events? So 6 guys at giro & vuelta?

Inquitus · 01-08-2018 12:15am

Deleted User wrote: »

Some talk of the salary caps and more here http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/lappartient-keen-to-curb-team-skys-tour-de-france-dominance/

I can't see how salary caps can work in cycling, in order for all 16 World Tour teams to have the same budget you would have to drop the team budget to the level of the lowest WT teams, if not you would just be leveling the playing field between the top few teams. This would reduce wages for cyclists drastically, as the pot to pay them will be reduced massively. Reducing teams to 6 would have a similar effect, essentially making a lot of riders redundant in the new structure.

Watching Lance's podcast I think he said Poels gets €1m a year to be one of the world's best domestiques. Given all the money in cycling comes from sponsorship there doesn't seem to be an effective way of capping the spending, if it came from the ASO or the UCI they could just give out €20m (or whatever) per team and that might be a basis for doing something.

Its hard to see how these proposals would not damage cyclists prospects and reduce their wages, and as such it's hard to see how it could be implemented. EU Employment law might have something to say on the subject as well?

Banning powermeters won't have a huge impact imo, professionals know their own bodies and can probably manage effort reasonably effectively with just a HR Monitor, that said I have nothing against banning them, I just question if it would change things much?

6 Man teams would certainly make races harder to control and probably improve the quality of the spectacle, but as I mention above in the proposed plans they mention reducing the team size in the Grand Tours and also reducing the number of WT teams, it's hard to see how this doesn't result in rider redundancies and lower wages all round?

Removing race radio would certainly liven things up, but we have seen in the past, with the likes of Robert Millar getting shafted at the Vuelta, that it can lead to dishonesty, and gives a lot of leeway for local comms and race directors to mislead or fail to give out accurate information. Personally I think its only fair that the riders are given up to date race information, but perhaps that can be accomplished by leaving communications between the Race director / Comms and the riders intact, with one official feed for all teams, but perhaps removing the DS's from that loop by banning the teams private communications? Back to the old days of going back to the team car for a tactical update!

retalivity · 01-08-2018 8:53am

Inquitus wrote: »

6 Man teams would certainly make races harder to control and probably improve the quality of the spectacle, but as I mention above in the proposed plans they mention reducing the team size in the Grand Tours and also reducing the number of WT teams, it's hard to see how this doesn't result in rider redundancies and lower wages all round?

Surely reducing the team size would mean tgat more teams could be invited, making races harder to control again? Think there was 22 teams of 8 in the tour, meaning 176 riders. Having 30 teams of 6 would allow more small teams in, in return netting them more exposure and a chamce to stay afloat? And the races would be chaos, 10 teams trying to get up the road every day. Even 25 teams of 7 would be a start...

Melodeon · 01-08-2018 9:02am

retalivity wrote: »

Surely reducing the team size would mean tgat more teams could be invited, making races harder to control again? Think there was 22 teams of 8 in the tour, meaning 176 riders. Having 30 teams of 6 would allow more small teams in, in return netting them more exposure and a chamce to stay afloat? And the races would be chaos, 10 teams trying to get up the road every day. Even 25 teams of 7 would be a start...

I seem to remember one of the arguments against adding more teams to the races when the team sizes were reduced by 1, was the sheer logistics of the convoy following the race and supporting the riders.
Adding a team to a race also adds at least 1 more team bus/motorhome/deathstar, 2 more team support cars, and who knows what else, per team, all of which needs to be accommodated during the race and parked up at start/finish areas.

Macy0161 · 01-08-2018 9:11am

I'm a bit undecided on reduced team sizes further. Already, it's effectively meant for any team with serious GC ambitions they didn't bring a sprinter. Then on flat stages, those that do won't let breaks get far enough ahead to make it interesting in case they don't have the manpower to bring it back*. About the only real impact on GC was that it actually weakened the challenge to sky, after Bardet lost a few domestiques through crashing.

*I think this would also be a consequence of no radios.

Most of the riders fans suspect are looking at their power meter, actually aren't, including froome. I think it was during the Giro Tommy D was asked after one of the stages specifically was he using power to judge his effort and he said he doesn't have it displayed during races.

dastardly00 · 01-08-2018 10:07am

magicbastarder wrote: »

the guardian's collection of the best photos from the tour:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2018/jul/29/tour-de-france-best-images-from-2018-race-geraint-thomas

Some of those photos are amazing!

mr spuckler · 01-08-2018 10:18am

dastardly00 wrote: »

Some of those photos are amazing!

the one of Naesan riding over Majka is incredible!
same with the Froome crash one, incredibly good luck from the photographer's perspective.

01-08-2018 10:23am

Ha thats a great one of Alaphilipe with Nick the Divils pitchfork

dastardly00 · 01-08-2018 10:27am

Macy0161 · 01-08-2018 10:28am

retalivity wrote: »

So dumoulin has had a monter effort to come 2nd to the 2 sky guys, with virtually no help in the mountains.

he lost Kelderman just before the tour - he crashed in his national champs.

mr spuckler · 01-08-2018 1:45pm

Dan Martin going on an interesting Twitter brain dump regarding funding of teams etc.
https://twitter.com/DanMartin86

Tour de France 2018 - General Thread

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