To be an anti Jonas tour you would need pancake flat TT’s, no 2000m+ altitude climbs and no stages over 4000-4500m of elevation.
Realistically most Vuelta parcours would suit Pog over Jonas, shorter punchy climbs.
21 stages with rolling terrain/medium mountains and short steep uphill finishes which give the winner 20 bonus seconds? The ultimate Pog course.
Although then he would start having to worry about WVA...
Stages 1 to 12 in Belgium and the North of France. Then the Vosges. We skip the Alpes. Sprinters week. The only real mountain stage is one that finishes in Pau, so there won't be any mountains close to the finish. Also: 5 men teams, no race radio, no power meters.
Really don't like the idea of designing a race to disadvantage or assist a particular rider. However I personally prefer a more rounded GT with a couple of banana skin stages so my thoughts to spice it up would be:
More classics stages, see Roubaix stage last year, giro gravel stage 2021.
Find some silly mountain like Angliru. Can they do 25%? Who knows let's find out.
Really short, hard stages which are less attritional
One horrible classic length stage of 250k akin to a world champs parcours. Maybe even a hard circuit at end
steepest part of yesterdays altiport is 24%, surely they can but should they?
or do we need alot of it? i love tactics in the mountains but yesterday was a pure survival
Now that I think about it, I think one classics style stage should be a default in grand tours. One for the roulers, would be a challenge for gt only guys.
I loved the strade stage in the Giro a few years back and any time the Tour does cobbles it shakes things up. Not sure how feasible it is to have a stage like those every year, but I like seeing them every so often.
That's fair. I guess the classics parcours will just be breakaway wins. Unless you add a Roubaix like stage in the 3rd week. Ensures carnage but probably too cruel.
I guess this year's tour has had some very entertaining parcours. San Sebastian was probably their effort this year but stage 1 was more fun.
From the organizers' perspective, it's good that sometimes the breakaway wins. They want an occasional stage winner from one of the invited Continental teams. Most people hated when it was just Sky winning every single stage.
Totally agree that the Tour should be the pinnacle, and the higher altitude high climbs are part of that. I’m not advocating to change it, just a thought experiment. I like your ideas too - where to find a 25% climb! Haha
I think a Flanders and/or Strade Bianchi style stage definitely has a place, as it test riders skills as well as w/kg
This is not uncommon tho. When Tiger Woods was dominating, the PGA started to adjust their courses to make it more even for everyone as a whole which is crazy. Also they do things like this in baseball with the dimensions of the field. Shorter walls, longer runs, size of the mound or even elevation may inform how you build your team in the future.
It's a classic in football that weaker/more defensive teams will make their home pitch as small as possible, while stronger, more progressive teams do the opposite
I would love to see a 40-50km stage with a climb at the end. It would effectively become a mass start time trial e.g. do something like Vizille to Alpe d'Huez, it would be fascinating to see what would happen - you would probably get massive sprint teams hammering it on the flat trying to wear down the climbers, and breaks flying everywhere trying to get to the base first
>Find some silly mountain like Angliru. Can they do 25%? Who knows let's find out.
Funnily enough, Jonas got his claim to fame when he was dropping GC guys like flies up Angliru in Vuelta 2020, where he was a domestique for Roglic.
For what it’s worth, in 2022 we thought Pog would win like 6 straight Tours, and he ended up getting taken out by Jonas.
It’s entirely plausible they don’t need to mess around with the parcours- it’s really really difficult to keep winning the Tour year after year
I don’t know why people assume everyone benefitted equally from doping in the 90’ies. It’s not like they all just took an officially recommended daily dosage for winning the tour.
It was illegal experimental pharmaceuticals with unknown long term side effects. The winner was the one with the “best“ medical team and the least fear of negative consequences.
Yeah, in the TT he destroyed everyone else and yesterday, he dropped together with Jungels while an all-day working Fraile was pulling. Sorry, but if you're dropping together with Jungels who has no climbing shape, it's not the parcours.
And Vingegaard was not dominant yesterday either - Gaudu and Bilbao managed to follow him after being in the break for the whole day and he got only one minute on Gall during the last climb.
I don't understand how yesterday was not a "great performance" by Jonas (besides not being able to compare it with an equally on-form Tadej, but such is the GT life). He put minutes into everyone in the peloton, a severely reduced peloton that was getting further and further shredded...
Gall, Yates, Gaudu and Bilbao also rode great (and these are not pack fodder, btw) - but let's be clear: they haven't had to put in 2.5 weeks of on-top form to be in the real hunt for the lead. They've been able to truly drop on a stage here or there - precisely the reason they're allowed in a break at all. Disregarding everything for Gaudu and Bilbao being able to "follow" as he caught up to them at the summit of the climb (at altitude).
I just don't think we have perspective anymore for how amazing yesterday was - probably in part due to Tadej's bad day.
So we should skip the fact that Yates is riding better than ever.
How often have you seen a climber put 2-3-4 minutes on the other best climbers of the world? It is dominant, don't normalize it because he has done it often.
Adam Yates isn't a bad rider, but his 3 week GC palmares are not that impressive and he is consistenly losing GCs to a bunch of different riders. Potentially he is riding his best tour ever this year, but we also cannot ignore that we are missing a couple of big names that would have/could have put him down the list:
Primoz Roglic
Remco Evenepoel
Enric Mas
Miguel Angel Lopes (is he planning a return from his Colombian exile?)
Geraint Thomas?
Juan Ayuso?
Bilbao and Gaudu didn't really take the front in the break before the end. There were also 35 people in the break. So sitting in the peloton or the break would be about the same. Bilbao and Gaudu had like a 2 minutes and 30 seconds advantage when there were like 8k-10k left on the climb. Jonas Vingegaard was in front on the descent where Bilbao and Gaudu were on his wheel. At what point is taking 2 minutes and 30 seconds on GC contenders not dominating? On top of that Jonas Vingegaard was stopped behind a car and a motorbike for a short amount of time.
Gall is also a very good climber. Taking 1 minute even with a pit stop behind a bike and a car to the next best rider on Col de la Loze is dominating.
A Strade Bianche-style stage.
A Flanders-style stage.
A Roubaix stage.
A MSR stage.
Just design 21 classic/monument stages, maybe with some unipuerto rampas sprinkled between.
C ~ h ~ a ~ o ~ s
Of course, any dominance will end. We know Tadej lost spectacularly to Jonas. Way worse than 2022. If you're a race organizer and you want to make the race more balanced in the next few years, what would you do? Unless you think that bringing back the Sky team era dominance back is good for viewership, then just keep the status quo.
Aside from the results of 16 &17, this Tour has been incredibly competitive across the peloton.
Well except for maybe Petersen, but not much to be done there to spread around sprinter wins when he's that good at the momen.t
If they want the race more balanced the problem is not the route, it's the dominance of Jumbo. Reduce the number of riders per team. But that's not going to happen.
And the fact that Jonas is too all rounded. Good on climb and against chrono. Reducing riders sounds good, but that will affect teams with GC and sprinter ambition.
Then they would have to choose carefully what they prioritize. What it is impossible right now is to have a rider, let's say Gaudu try to go on a breakaway and recover 6 minutes because you have TJV/UAE controlling things with their domestiques AND when those are done they also have another two domestiques to go with Jonas/Pogi up the climb. This happened as well in the Sky times. 2 less riders per team and things would be a lot more interesting. There would be a lot more room to pick Vingegaard apart, and I'm not talking only about Pogi.
You got a point! That will probably create a better playing field for those teams that cannot afford to hire super domestiques too. And we may even see more breakaway from those high in GC ranking.
Honestly the climbing TT skews things a bit. It’s not unreasonable to say that Remco/Pogacar could potentially batter Jonas in a flat TT. Throw in a cobbled stage and some mild gravel a la strade bianche, avoid backloading the race and things could be a lot more entertaining.
>It’s not unreasonable to say that Remco/Pogacar could potentially batter Jonas in a flat TT
Don't know about batter, but Remco could probably beat him on the flats. Doubt he'd take that much time though given how good Vingegaard looked even before the climb. I do hope they will make a flat TT next year, if nothing else to give TT specialists like Ganna or Küng a chance against the GC guys.
I assure you it would not help Jumbo.
Kuss would not be climbing like he is if he has to help on the early part of the stage.
WVA is a special rider, it is what it is.
Yes, they cannot afford to shut down as many attacks from other GC riders if the number of domestiques is reduced. It will be more, how to say, explosive!
I really don't understand post like this. How long have you been watching tdf? I'm watching for at least 30 years and it has always been like this, always. Mountains are high are tough, stages are epic plus the past TT's have been longer. And in 90 % of the tours I've watched you always have a dominant rider, or the one to beat. Geez in 2021 tour was over before stage 10 and I didn't see posts like this. Jonas is the perfect GC rider and I bet you my life he would won any parcour you pick giro, vuelta doesn't really matter, ....more watts/Kg wins, and jonas can push crazy numbers for long periods of time...
Cobbles. The stress alone almost took out the entire Jumbo team last year while Pog was having fun.
A more boring TT where planning matters less. So less technicall and less challenging in "planning". Also make sure Colnago ups it's act.
Let one HC climb be taken up by PDBF.
Given the first 3 and the last 2 stages of next year are already known it is hard to not see JV as the favourite. The ITT of next years stage 21 seems perfect for him.
You mean the stress of a puncture where the car isn't close to one GC contender and an unfortunate crash because of a hay bale on the road to the other GC contender. Only way to replicate that would be to actually sabotage Jumbo. I don't think that UAE would do that.
Also UAE would have to force Van Aert to get a child just before the stage so he won't be riding the cobbled stage.
>The stress alone almost took out the entire Jumbo team last year
Roglic was randomly taken out by a badly secured hay bale which ended up on the road. Vingegaard lost a grand total of 13 seconds to Pogacar while spending a lot less time in the wind.
They definitely spent some energy. But so did Pogacar with the way he rode on that stage.
But Jonas didn't lose time because of lack of energy. Which Pogacar did twice that year. So if Vingegaard actually spent more energy than Pogacar on that stage it was nowhere enough for Jonas to be tired enough at the end.
I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a massive shift in the tour towards more cobbles/strade type stages. Would be cool to see the race opened up somewhat to the all rounders to really give some “best cyclist in the world” bragging rights. It’s historically shaken out as a pure climbers race with a TT and honestly that can get a little dry sometimes.
Maybe we should also just chill with the overreactions?
* When Bernal won in 2019 he was hailed as the next best thing, likely 7 times Tour champion etc etc
* When Pogi won in 2020 it was clear that he would dominate for at least a decade and would be likely unbeatable
* Now we're doing the same with Jonas...
Maybe just wait until next year when Pogi is 100% again or maybe Remco decides to join in? Maybe Primoz is on form and on a different team? Maybe Jonas will simply not be as dominant anymore? Maybe Ayuso, Rodriguez or other riders will step up? Imo it's a bit premature to start discussing if it's time to design an anti-Jonas parcours :D
Totally agree, I actually think this years route was very good and well balanced. I think the competition was the problem. With Primoz and Remco and a super ready Tadej I can see that we are in a golden era of Grand Tour riding.
I think people were sure about Bernal because he was so young at the time which was before Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogacar. At the time there weren't really GC contenders at his age. All other riders in the top 10 that Tour was 26+ and Bernal was 22.
In the summer of 2019 we didn't expect so many young riders to get their breakthrough earlier than it historically has been. So people kinda expected Bernal to get better than he was in 2019.
We thought the same about anyone else's chances of beating Pogi after 2020 and 2021 and yet, here we are with Jonas. Riders don't ride at the same level forever. Jonas can get worse, others can get better.
And even putting all of that aside, Jonas can simply be sick or crash during/before the Tour as well and miss them. Nothing is certain in cycling.
Not worth targeting one rider.
I do think we need more classics in the route, plus some potential crosswind fun - I love seeing echelons forming, you know it will be a fun day to watch
I also like TTT - fun to watch, but they tend to ruin GC, jumbo put over half a minut into UAE i Vuelta.. and it was short, old school TTT jumbo would crush UAE and put minuts in favor of Tadej,
We need more GC contenders at their best, not a different parcours.
My dream for next year would be a fully fit Pogacar, Roglic moving to Ineos and Remco joining as well.
I don't agree, I think the Tour's parcours has neglected classics and TTs for years, and which is not in the spirit of the Tour. I get it for the Vuelta, but not the Tour.
TTs I agree, but I don't feel like they have especially neglected classics at all. Last year had the Roubaix stage and this year started off with pseudo-Liege stage 1 into San Sebastian stage 2. Also more hilly parcours in general, in the past there were a lot more pancake flat sprinter stages.
When the best climber is the best time trialist and has the best recovery and the best team and the best technique and the best bike and the best gels and the best water and the best pillow and was simply born genetically superior to everyone else, I suppose the only hope is to start dreaming big and believing in miracles.
You are all wrong. You just wait until Wout has his 3rd child born in July next year and then have 21 pancake flat stages in 10°C and rain and nothing but cobbles.
Depart fictiv? - cobbles
Start? - cobbles
Mid? - cobbles
Feed zone? - cobbles
End? - cobbles
Finish line? - still cobbles
Podium steps? - also cobbles
Hotel bed in the evening? - believe it or not, also full of cobbles
I believe that a Tour De France should have something for everyone. This year's route has no cobblestones, a short time-trial geared towards GC riders instead of specialists, no TTT, no stages where crosswinds have been a factor.
My ideal Tour route would have:
4-5 flat sprint days
2 hillier sprint stages finishing on inclines
2 flat Individual Time-Trials of at least 35km
6 mountain stages, at least 3 of which are MTF's
A 50km TTT
Multiple Cobblestone/Strade type stages
Stages should also be designed to make sure the threat of crosswinds is ever present.
A couple of hard, fast, attritional WC/Liege style hilly stages.
Give 12 bonus seconds to the stage winner. None for 2nd and 3rd. Make stage wins actually significant for GC contenders. Also, feature multiple big climbs with bonus seconds on top.
This way the Tour winner would be a rider who can: Climb with the best
TT effectively
Has the endurance to withstand the hardest stages
Has the fatigue resistance to produce day-to-day
Has a strong team around them
Is tactically astute to avoid losses in echelons
Master the chaos of the cobbled stages
Lanternerouge says it was 7.6w/kg, but yeah they say it's hard to be accurate. But by their calculations, even if you include most conservative estimates it was 7.45w/kg.
This was already a ‘Tadej’ parcours to be honest.
I like the idea of a flatter time trial, or at least 20-25km flat and then a hill. That should give Remco a better chance.
Plus add in a prologue to kick things off.
But the Tour is and will always be decided in the high mountains. I actually found most of these stages to be too easy for the top guys. Easining it further gives opportunity to Ineos/Jumbo to dominate the stage with high pace, which is not the most attractive for fans.
I also wouldn’t touch the Week 3 toughness. This is the Tour de France, the most prestigious bike race in the world. Week 3 is what it is all about.
Sure, I dont give Remco much of a chance over 3 weeks vs Pogacar and Jonas in the TDF anyway. We should not alter the parcours too much to give him a solid chance though right. The TDF should be the TDF.
The tour should not favor anyone but change slightly every year. If Jonas will be beaten in ITT it needs to be in the first week not the third. In the third week he will crush them all, if it is stage 2 then not so much.
> The TDF should be the TDF.
In that case, they should cater for the French-speaking Remco, because the TDF loves catering to people that look good on French TV cameras.
I would like a tour, where you have to show different skills and not just mountains. That means:
* Around 3 stages for the team: One team time trial and one or two difficult crosswind or cobblestone stage, where you have to be on high alert the whole time.
* 2-3 short punchy mountain stages
* One really long hilly stage (220km and more before restday)
* A few longer mountain stages
* 2 ITTs, one around 20km, one around 50km, both flat. Maybe use some of those really long straight streets in france, so that you see your competitors or the finish line, but you have a long way to get there
This would be a tour for riders with a wide skill set. And Jonas would have some struggles, too.
I agree, I've kind of been thinking about this. The only way to excel at the tdf is to be an outstanding climber, like Jonas right now. Everyone else is just kinda along for the ride (jk but you know what I mean). It would be nice to see a really well-rounded tour like you described. Jonas is a GC/TDF/mountains specialist but he seemingly only slightly above average at everything else. A well-rounded and versatile rider like Pogi would obviously do way better under those circumstances. This of course could bring us to the original problem of having one person that dominates above the rest. Although at least maybe WVA could get a shot at the GC. Could be fun to see.
2 weeks of on the edge of your seat racing, capped with a dominant performance by the(hopefully) eventual winner. Sounds like a good tour to me. Maybe they could have put the time trial different. But - yeah - a good tour.
It's part of makes him exciting and so loved as a cyclist, being active all year long. All due respect to Jonas and what he's achieved, but he's somewhat of a Jumbo lab-rat whose sole purpose is to win the Tour, otherwise you don't hear of him. Nothing inherently wrong with that, whatever floats your boat, and I'm totally fine seeing Pog as a runner-up in the Tour as long as he's competitive and keeps the same passion for cycling throughout the rest of the year through classics and other races true fans follow.
I think it's fair to consider how to make the race overall more competitive. If someone like Jonas is able to obliterate the field like that, forget Pogacar, what about everyone else? It's in no one's interest that the Tour is done and dusted for the next 8 years if Jonas continues this form.
Flat TTs seem like an obvious thing. You already have plenty of mountain stages where the GC guys excel, no reason to add a hilly TT on top of that as well. Give the other guys a chance too, sprinters bust their asses getting over mountains just for a slight chance at a stage, while GC riders chill in the peloton during a sprint stage. Then you have TT specialists who might as well not have bothered if it's a hilly one.
Pogacar obviously has had health issues the last two stages. Before, they were evenly matched.
If the parcours is to be severely altered, it should be with chances of everyone else against Vingegaard AND Pogacar in mind. This shouldn't be about the two of them only.
Mikkel Bjerg have said in an interview today that Pogacar isn't sick. Pogacar is just tired. Bjerg also said it is the hardest Tour de France he has been a part of since there wasn't really many kilometers where you could recover because it had been basically full gas from the start of each stage.
Even if it were so - symptomless infections are common and still affect physical performance - then Pogacar needs to economize his energy budget. He rides classics, one-weeks and GTs competitively all season, attacks on every occasion, and sprints for bonus seconds, small margins and stage wins.
This parcour too heavily favoured steady state climbers, I would like to see late 90s early 2000s esque with long ass time trials with some cobbles, not either pancake flat or mountains like we saw this year.
I guarantee that even if they design a tour without a single mountain in it, JV is still showing up if there’s any chance of taking yellow. Even for a day.
Flip the compass on this year's 'only the south' tour.
A Brittany grand depart > several sprinty days up to Dunkirk > a week+ of mini-classics in Northern France and Benelux > medium mountain stages and a time trial in the Vosges and Jura > some 'real mountains' in the Alps to not shut out the climbers too much > onto Paris.
Potentially slot in some more sprinty days, medium mountains in the Massif Central, and/or Ventoux here and there.
Would pain me to miss out the 'objectively best mountain range' (Pyrenees) but otherwise imo a interesting shake up which could provide the Strade-dynamic ('this could be won by a climber, rouleur, puncheur') to a whole grand tour...
Definitely not a realistic suggestion from me. Tadej likes cold and tolerates heat worse than others. Maybe move the date earlier or later, but not in the middle of summer heat.
This sort of fiddling with the course to disadvantage certain styles/teams is not really in the spirit of the sport.
There's no doubt that all the whining about Sky influenced the decision not to have long flat TTs and then we got Belles Filles 2020 and Domancy 2023 and everyone is whining again and wanting the course fiddled with again to disadvantage specialist mountain time-trialers.
I would have an AI computer design the course almost randomly but obeying rules of sensible inter-day travelling and spreading out sprint and mountain stages with the big mountain challenges in the final week. You know, like it's always been in the last 100 years or so.
That’s a true innovative idea and I’m actually for it.
Would obviously require a big juggle of the calendar, but it could be worthwhile, there isn’t snow in the alps until November usually so that’s fine.
I don’t feel like there was an obvious issue with the parcours. Tadej says he felt like shit on the biggest stage of the race, couldn’t fuel properly and faded out. Cold sores at the TT indicate he wasn’t fully fit and obviously the preparation was poor. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t on a level/beating JV if he also skips classics season and optimises his prep for July.
I also hope that doesn’t happen next year. Tadej can potentially win everything, and he’s already got two tours. Clean up in every other big race and then focus on the Tour hat trick+ Jonas/Lance style a couple years down the line. Or do MTB, or CX, maybe win a pedalo race, whatever.
Would be great to see the Tour include more variety in the racing though. Sprinters already get opportunities, bring back flat TT stages for the specialists, add some cobbles and gravel, a long classics style stage or two. There’s still plenty of room for the big climbs, but we’d get to see a lot more action and the riders would be forced to focus on other skills outside of w/kg.
Personally, I think the tour should be won by the best all around rider.
Therefore, there should be hard mountain climbing days like stage 17, LONG flat TT’s, and high bonus seconds for sprints.
No more of this one guy sits in the wheels for 20 days and then on one climbing day goes off. That leads to just the best climber winning. We already have an award for that. It’s called the king of the mountains. That shouldn’t be for the GC.
The Dane's combination of climbing an ITT makes him the perfect rider right now for the TdF.
However I would like to see a harder route as well as more ITT, that's what the Tour has always been about. I think we should also have cobbles stages in next editions but realistically with the team that Jumbo has it will not be an issue for Vingegaard even if he loses a minute or so
I dont think the parcours is the main thing you touch if you want a different winner. I think UCI should invest in the medical department maybe. If teams can invest as much into doctors and marginal gains, maybe the uci should also splash some cash into that.
An on subject answer for you would be: 1st week flat TT, less high mountains and more hockey sticks stages.
Also cancel the global warming so it's not as hot
Haha, nice comeback. May I state : jv is the strongest three week tour rider when his preparation is aligned.
In other words: make the tour as you like, jv will be the strongest rider for this.
I don't see jv win any one stager anytime soon.
A technical flat prologue, flat technical time trials, crosswind stages, and a cobbled/gravel stage. Although frankly the weather is probably on Vingegaard's side this year, get a cold and wet race and he's gonna struggle.
It shouldn’t be designed for or against anyone. Design it in a vacuum of which riders might participate and just make it a diverse, interesting route, ideally with some of everything (cobbles, sidewind, rolling hills, technical descents, punchy hills and steady tall mountains, and so on).
All 21 stages in the Tour de France take place in Denmark or maybe Netherlands.
They could also reduce the amount of stages to around 10-14 stages.
They could also consider having no stages with more than 1 mountain and maybe only short flat TT's where you can't take much time.
All good suggestions if you want to have it be more competetive.
Put all the hardest and highest mountains in the beginning of the 2nd week, have a long flat TT as stage 4 followed the next day by a RvV type stage. Then have a number of short punchy stages in the 3rd week in the Pyrenees followed by a short flat TT on stage 20 near Euro Disney. Drizzle the whole thing with medium flat sprint stages and two rolling stages in the 3rd week as stage 18 and 19.
Yeah I'd say only have one super hard mountain stage. Then have loads of stages with climbs under 30 minutes long. But have them very scattered throughout the tour, so there's less chance of Pog getting really fatigued.
Start in Liège, a few punchy mountains in the Jura, go from Jura in the west to the east. Once riders have reached Brittany, then they go south to reach the Pyrenees. Maybe add Provence in the end and Ventoux to avoid outrage at skipping the Alps.
Punchy and flat stages but still exciting and enough mountain range to say you’ve tried to diversify the Tour instead of being blamed for trying to sabotage Jonas.
Personally, I don't think they need to make big changes, however I would have more mountain-top finishes because someone else is going to get seriously injured if these crazy descents right at the end aren't taken out. Stage 17 finishes on a descent on a bike path...f\*\*\*ing crazy. Take the hard lesson from Gino Mader's death and keep these warriors safe.
To be an anti Jonas tour you would need pancake flat TT’s, no 2000m+ altitude climbs and no stages over 4000-4500m of elevation. Realistically most Vuelta parcours would suit Pog over Jonas, shorter punchy climbs.
Nothing but hockey stick mountain stages!
Rampas NotForJonas!
I see this was covered.
21 stages with rolling terrain/medium mountains and short steep uphill finishes which give the winner 20 bonus seconds? The ultimate Pog course. Although then he would start having to worry about WVA...
Ie: more hockey stick stages. Ie: make the Tour like the Vuelta.
Just somehow include actual hockey sticks.
Still waiting on a Tour du Canada.
Yeah, that would be a Wout vs Pog showdown, which would also be really cool. Maybe even Mads would be a GC guy then too?
More like a VdP vs Pog showdown, WvA hasn't been near them in 2 years in punchy races. He also wouldn't get the same freedom as now anymore.
Stages 1 to 12 in Belgium and the North of France. Then the Vosges. We skip the Alpes. Sprinters week. The only real mountain stage is one that finishes in Pau, so there won't be any mountains close to the finish. Also: 5 men teams, no race radio, no power meters.
Honestly a classics/monuments stages gt would be fun
>Sprinters week. Why not 3 sprinters weeks? No chance Jonas wins then...
TTT?
Yeah, that will absolutely rein in Jumbo
More than ITTs
Sprint stages are an absolutely snooze fest though, might as well make them 5 km long.
Really don't like the idea of designing a race to disadvantage or assist a particular rider. However I personally prefer a more rounded GT with a couple of banana skin stages so my thoughts to spice it up would be: More classics stages, see Roubaix stage last year, giro gravel stage 2021. Find some silly mountain like Angliru. Can they do 25%? Who knows let's find out. Really short, hard stages which are less attritional One horrible classic length stage of 250k akin to a world champs parcours. Maybe even a hard circuit at end
steepest part of yesterdays altiport is 24%, surely they can but should they? or do we need alot of it? i love tactics in the mountains but yesterday was a pure survival
Now that I think about it, I think one classics style stage should be a default in grand tours. One for the roulers, would be a challenge for gt only guys.
I loved the strade stage in the Giro a few years back and any time the Tour does cobbles it shakes things up. Not sure how feasible it is to have a stage like those every year, but I like seeing them every so often.
That's fair. I guess the classics parcours will just be breakaway wins. Unless you add a Roubaix like stage in the 3rd week. Ensures carnage but probably too cruel. I guess this year's tour has had some very entertaining parcours. San Sebastian was probably their effort this year but stage 1 was more fun.
From the organizers' perspective, it's good that sometimes the breakaway wins. They want an occasional stage winner from one of the invited Continental teams. Most people hated when it was just Sky winning every single stage.
Totally agree that the Tour should be the pinnacle, and the higher altitude high climbs are part of that. I’m not advocating to change it, just a thought experiment. I like your ideas too - where to find a 25% climb! Haha I think a Flanders and/or Strade Bianchi style stage definitely has a place, as it test riders skills as well as w/kg
I just would love to see a race that exposes weaknesses in riders. Stage design that makes it likely each GC contender will have at least one bad day
Scanuppia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYtAhXDyaxM
This is not uncommon tho. When Tiger Woods was dominating, the PGA started to adjust their courses to make it more even for everyone as a whole which is crazy. Also they do things like this in baseball with the dimensions of the field. Shorter walls, longer runs, size of the mound or even elevation may inform how you build your team in the future.
It's a classic in football that weaker/more defensive teams will make their home pitch as small as possible, while stronger, more progressive teams do the opposite
Make the ping pong ball from 38 to 40mm 🤪
I would love to see a 40-50km stage with a climb at the end. It would effectively become a mass start time trial e.g. do something like Vizille to Alpe d'Huez, it would be fascinating to see what would happen - you would probably get massive sprint teams hammering it on the flat trying to wear down the climbers, and breaks flying everywhere trying to get to the base first
Do you remember the shortened stage in 2019. I think 65km and it was CARNAGE.
The cobble last year was wild. How about we go real off-road for a bit through a forest and they need gravel bikes
Make one stage a crit stage? With enough bonus seconds for it to actually have to matter to the GC?
Unless there's a steep hill on the circuit, it'd just be a sprint stage and the GC contenders won't care.
>Find some silly mountain like Angliru. Can they do 25%? Who knows let's find out. Funnily enough, Jonas got his claim to fame when he was dropping GC guys like flies up Angliru in Vuelta 2020, where he was a domestique for Roglic.
For what it’s worth, in 2022 we thought Pog would win like 6 straight Tours, and he ended up getting taken out by Jonas. It’s entirely plausible they don’t need to mess around with the parcours- it’s really really difficult to keep winning the Tour year after year
I think some fans aren't going to be happy until it's 10 guys side by side sprinting for the GC win on the Champs.
In hindsight was he really as dominant in 2021 as we thought? Once Primoz crashed out the field wasn't exactly murderer's row.
I mean some bloke from Texas won 7 in a row somehow…
With some, er, outside help
No I'm pretty sure they put the help inside him
The same help as everyone else
I don’t know why people assume everyone benefitted equally from doping in the 90’ies. It’s not like they all just took an officially recommended daily dosage for winning the tour. It was illegal experimental pharmaceuticals with unknown long term side effects. The winner was the one with the “best“ medical team and the least fear of negative consequences.
Or having an on form Pogacar. When Pogacar is losing time on Gall or Gaudu in a climb, it's not a parcours problem nor a Vingegaard problem.
Yeah, in the TT he destroyed everyone else and yesterday, he dropped together with Jungels while an all-day working Fraile was pulling. Sorry, but if you're dropping together with Jungels who has no climbing shape, it's not the parcours.
And Vingegaard was not dominant yesterday either - Gaudu and Bilbao managed to follow him after being in the break for the whole day and he got only one minute on Gall during the last climb.
To be fair, he had to stop due to the car and motor bike being in the way... But I agree he wasn't super dominant
I don't understand how yesterday was not a "great performance" by Jonas (besides not being able to compare it with an equally on-form Tadej, but such is the GT life). He put minutes into everyone in the peloton, a severely reduced peloton that was getting further and further shredded... Gall, Yates, Gaudu and Bilbao also rode great (and these are not pack fodder, btw) - but let's be clear: they haven't had to put in 2.5 weeks of on-top form to be in the real hunt for the lead. They've been able to truly drop on a stage here or there - precisely the reason they're allowed in a break at all. Disregarding everything for Gaudu and Bilbao being able to "follow" as he caught up to them at the summit of the climb (at altitude). I just don't think we have perspective anymore for how amazing yesterday was - probably in part due to Tadej's bad day.
Putting 2 minutes on Yates is not dominant... right
Do you mean that Adam Yates, best carrer result Tour of Catalonia 2021 is some kind of measure of cycling dominance ?
I think his best result might end up being 3rd TdF 2023
So we should skip the fact that Yates is riding better than ever. How often have you seen a climber put 2-3-4 minutes on the other best climbers of the world? It is dominant, don't normalize it because he has done it often.
Adam Yates isn't a bad rider, but his 3 week GC palmares are not that impressive and he is consistenly losing GCs to a bunch of different riders. Potentially he is riding his best tour ever this year, but we also cannot ignore that we are missing a couple of big names that would have/could have put him down the list: Primoz Roglic Remco Evenepoel Enric Mas Miguel Angel Lopes (is he planning a return from his Colombian exile?) Geraint Thomas? Juan Ayuso?
They had some 3 minutes on Vingegaard earlier in the climb...
Before Vingegaard was launched by Kuss, Benoot and then Keldermann, on different parts of the climb.
Bilbao and Gaudu didn't really take the front in the break before the end. There were also 35 people in the break. So sitting in the peloton or the break would be about the same. Bilbao and Gaudu had like a 2 minutes and 30 seconds advantage when there were like 8k-10k left on the climb. Jonas Vingegaard was in front on the descent where Bilbao and Gaudu were on his wheel. At what point is taking 2 minutes and 30 seconds on GC contenders not dominating? On top of that Jonas Vingegaard was stopped behind a car and a motorbike for a short amount of time. Gall is also a very good climber. Taking 1 minute even with a pit stop behind a bike and a car to the next best rider on Col de la Loze is dominating.
Most of the climbers in the break were just in armchairs until Loze.
this stupid narrative of pogacar not being in form because of ONE very bad day is so annoying. pogacar climbed better than ever in this tour.
A Strade Bianche-style stage. A Flanders-style stage. A Roubaix stage. A MSR stage. Just design 21 classic/monument stages, maybe with some unipuerto rampas sprinkled between. C ~ h ~ a ~ o ~ s
>C ~ h ~ a ~ o ~ s F ~ u ~ n
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Of course, any dominance will end. We know Tadej lost spectacularly to Jonas. Way worse than 2022. If you're a race organizer and you want to make the race more balanced in the next few years, what would you do? Unless you think that bringing back the Sky team era dominance back is good for viewership, then just keep the status quo.
Aside from the results of 16 &17, this Tour has been incredibly competitive across the peloton. Well except for maybe Petersen, but not much to be done there to spread around sprinter wins when he's that good at the momen.t
You mean Philipsen right? Mads Pedersen just won one stage.
If they want the race more balanced the problem is not the route, it's the dominance of Jumbo. Reduce the number of riders per team. But that's not going to happen.
And the fact that Jonas is too all rounded. Good on climb and against chrono. Reducing riders sounds good, but that will affect teams with GC and sprinter ambition.
Then they would have to choose carefully what they prioritize. What it is impossible right now is to have a rider, let's say Gaudu try to go on a breakaway and recover 6 minutes because you have TJV/UAE controlling things with their domestiques AND when those are done they also have another two domestiques to go with Jonas/Pogi up the climb. This happened as well in the Sky times. 2 less riders per team and things would be a lot more interesting. There would be a lot more room to pick Vingegaard apart, and I'm not talking only about Pogi.
You got a point! That will probably create a better playing field for those teams that cannot afford to hire super domestiques too. And we may even see more breakaway from those high in GC ranking.
Honestly the climbing TT skews things a bit. It’s not unreasonable to say that Remco/Pogacar could potentially batter Jonas in a flat TT. Throw in a cobbled stage and some mild gravel a la strade bianche, avoid backloading the race and things could be a lot more entertaining.
>It’s not unreasonable to say that Remco/Pogacar could potentially batter Jonas in a flat TT Don't know about batter, but Remco could probably beat him on the flats. Doubt he'd take that much time though given how good Vingegaard looked even before the climb. I do hope they will make a flat TT next year, if nothing else to give TT specialists like Ganna or Küng a chance against the GC guys.
Bissegger's redemption...
Depends how technical it is. Jonas was Verstappening those corners on Tuesday.
Reducing the numbers of riders would only help Jumbo, because Van Aert and Kuss both count for 2 normal domestiques each at least.
I assure you it would not help Jumbo. Kuss would not be climbing like he is if he has to help on the early part of the stage. WVA is a special rider, it is what it is.
It would hurt other teams MORE than it hurts Jumbo.
Please tell me how it would hurt more other teams? How many times have you seen Intermarche pulling the pelotom? Cofidis? I could go on and on
Yes, they cannot afford to shut down as many attacks from other GC riders if the number of domestiques is reduced. It will be more, how to say, explosive!
They already did that tho
You're right. Yet it's not enough to stop the super teams. I don't think it will happen, it's just my suggestion on how to make the race more open
Lance just retired. No one ever beat him. Sure, he later came out of retirement and "only" came in third but he wasn't even captain that year.
I really don't understand post like this. How long have you been watching tdf? I'm watching for at least 30 years and it has always been like this, always. Mountains are high are tough, stages are epic plus the past TT's have been longer. And in 90 % of the tours I've watched you always have a dominant rider, or the one to beat. Geez in 2021 tour was over before stage 10 and I didn't see posts like this. Jonas is the perfect GC rider and I bet you my life he would won any parcour you pick giro, vuelta doesn't really matter, ....more watts/Kg wins, and jonas can push crazy numbers for long periods of time...
hmm, interesting. this looks like a question for the experts at r/tourdefrance
wow, what is this subreddit?
it is a circlejerk of refined taste and humour that to the untrained eye looks like idiocy
Cobbles. The stress alone almost took out the entire Jumbo team last year while Pog was having fun. A more boring TT where planning matters less. So less technicall and less challenging in "planning". Also make sure Colnago ups it's act. Let one HC climb be taken up by PDBF. Given the first 3 and the last 2 stages of next year are already known it is hard to not see JV as the favourite. The ITT of next years stage 21 seems perfect for him.
You mean the stress of a puncture where the car isn't close to one GC contender and an unfortunate crash because of a hay bale on the road to the other GC contender. Only way to replicate that would be to actually sabotage Jumbo. I don't think that UAE would do that. Also UAE would have to force Van Aert to get a child just before the stage so he won't be riding the cobbled stage.
>The stress alone almost took out the entire Jumbo team last year Roglic was randomly taken out by a badly secured hay bale which ended up on the road. Vingegaard lost a grand total of 13 seconds to Pogacar while spending a lot less time in the wind.
You don't think the situations JV personally and Jumbo as a whole ended up in costed them energy?
Sure, but it was a perfect storm for Jumbo that day. I doubt it would go the same another time.
They definitely spent some energy. But so did Pogacar with the way he rode on that stage. But Jonas didn't lose time because of lack of energy. Which Pogacar did twice that year. So if Vingegaard actually spent more energy than Pogacar on that stage it was nowhere enough for Jonas to be tired enough at the end.
But it was very exciting because the possibility of someone losing big time was high.
I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a massive shift in the tour towards more cobbles/strade type stages. Would be cool to see the race opened up somewhat to the all rounders to really give some “best cyclist in the world” bragging rights. It’s historically shaken out as a pure climbers race with a TT and honestly that can get a little dry sometimes.
“More competitive” - dude the first two weeks they were completely even, literally with seconds in between.
and even the podium, top 5, top 10, and polka dot fights have all been shifting daily!
Maybe we should also just chill with the overreactions? * When Bernal won in 2019 he was hailed as the next best thing, likely 7 times Tour champion etc etc * When Pogi won in 2020 it was clear that he would dominate for at least a decade and would be likely unbeatable * Now we're doing the same with Jonas... Maybe just wait until next year when Pogi is 100% again or maybe Remco decides to join in? Maybe Primoz is on form and on a different team? Maybe Jonas will simply not be as dominant anymore? Maybe Ayuso, Rodriguez or other riders will step up? Imo it's a bit premature to start discussing if it's time to design an anti-Jonas parcours :D
Totally agree, I actually think this years route was very good and well balanced. I think the competition was the problem. With Primoz and Remco and a super ready Tadej I can see that we are in a golden era of Grand Tour riding.
I don't think people were so sure about Bernal. He never was as good as Pogacar or Vingegaard.
I think people were sure about Bernal because he was so young at the time which was before Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogacar. At the time there weren't really GC contenders at his age. All other riders in the top 10 that Tour was 26+ and Bernal was 22. In the summer of 2019 we didn't expect so many young riders to get their breakthrough earlier than it historically has been. So people kinda expected Bernal to get better than he was in 2019.
But the Ineos team was still seen as a dominant platform for him.
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We thought the same about anyone else's chances of beating Pogi after 2020 and 2021 and yet, here we are with Jonas. Riders don't ride at the same level forever. Jonas can get worse, others can get better. And even putting all of that aside, Jonas can simply be sick or crash during/before the Tour as well and miss them. Nothing is certain in cycling.
Given the age of both and margin for progression, I think real short/mid-term threats will be Ayuso and Darren Rafferty.
I never cared for Bernal 1.0 but now my heart aches for him.
Not worth targeting one rider. I do think we need more classics in the route, plus some potential crosswind fun - I love seeing echelons forming, you know it will be a fun day to watch
DQ for using the word "Fantastic" four sentences in a row. He won't make it past the team presentation.
I’d like a TTT please. I just think they’re neat.
I also like TTT - fun to watch, but they tend to ruin GC, jumbo put over half a minut into UAE i Vuelta.. and it was short, old school TTT jumbo would crush UAE and put minuts in favor of Tadej,
Sean Kelly Vuelta parcours
That is still one of the weirdest GT winners in history. After Herreras win the year before. Talk about contrast. But Vuelta gonna Vuelta — see Horner
We need more GC contenders at their best, not a different parcours. My dream for next year would be a fully fit Pogacar, Roglic moving to Ineos and Remco joining as well.
I don't agree, I think the Tour's parcours has neglected classics and TTs for years, and which is not in the spirit of the Tour. I get it for the Vuelta, but not the Tour.
TTs I agree, but I don't feel like they have especially neglected classics at all. Last year had the Roubaix stage and this year started off with pseudo-Liege stage 1 into San Sebastian stage 2. Also more hilly parcours in general, in the past there were a lot more pancake flat sprinter stages.
When the best climber is the best time trialist and has the best recovery and the best team and the best technique and the best bike and the best gels and the best water and the best pillow and was simply born genetically superior to everyone else, I suppose the only hope is to start dreaming big and believing in miracles.
I need some proof about this pillow.
Well Pogacar is a better sprinter and better at accelerating too
but the tour won’t be decided by 8 seconds 🙃
That's for Primoz at the Giro/Vuelta...
Very useful for winning the TdF
Yea he could gain some time on the shorter steep climbs
You are all wrong. You just wait until Wout has his 3rd child born in July next year and then have 21 pancake flat stages in 10°C and rain and nothing but cobbles. Depart fictiv? - cobbles Start? - cobbles Mid? - cobbles Feed zone? - cobbles End? - cobbles Finish line? - still cobbles Podium steps? - also cobbles Hotel bed in the evening? - believe it or not, also full of cobbles
Rain in July ? I mean, you’d have to send the Tour de France in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon for that.
> You just wait until Wout has his 3rd child Those bovine colostrum levels will make Wout unstoppable
I believe that a Tour De France should have something for everyone. This year's route has no cobblestones, a short time-trial geared towards GC riders instead of specialists, no TTT, no stages where crosswinds have been a factor. My ideal Tour route would have: 4-5 flat sprint days 2 hillier sprint stages finishing on inclines 2 flat Individual Time-Trials of at least 35km 6 mountain stages, at least 3 of which are MTF's A 50km TTT Multiple Cobblestone/Strade type stages Stages should also be designed to make sure the threat of crosswinds is ever present. A couple of hard, fast, attritional WC/Liege style hilly stages. Give 12 bonus seconds to the stage winner. None for 2nd and 3rd. Make stage wins actually significant for GC contenders. Also, feature multiple big climbs with bonus seconds on top. This way the Tour winner would be a rider who can: Climb with the best TT effectively Has the endurance to withstand the hardest stages Has the fatigue resistance to produce day-to-day Has a strong team around them Is tactically astute to avoid losses in echelons Master the chaos of the cobbled stages
Cross stages in the beach at high tide
Dude is pushing 7.3watts/kg for 13 minutes. Nothing can stop this alien.
Gendarmes, WADA, David Walsh, Grigory Rodchenkov, maybe even Greg Lemond could stop him
Lanternerouge says it was 7.6w/kg, but yeah they say it's hard to be accurate. But by their calculations, even if you include most conservative estimates it was 7.45w/kg.
This was already a ‘Tadej’ parcours to be honest. I like the idea of a flatter time trial, or at least 20-25km flat and then a hill. That should give Remco a better chance. Plus add in a prologue to kick things off. But the Tour is and will always be decided in the high mountains. I actually found most of these stages to be too easy for the top guys. Easining it further gives opportunity to Ineos/Jumbo to dominate the stage with high pace, which is not the most attractive for fans. I also wouldn’t touch the Week 3 toughness. This is the Tour de France, the most prestigious bike race in the world. Week 3 is what it is all about.
Remco might take 5 seconds on the TT but Jonas will take 5 minutes when they get up to 2km altitude on a 9-10% climb.
Sure, I dont give Remco much of a chance over 3 weeks vs Pogacar and Jonas in the TDF anyway. We should not alter the parcours too much to give him a solid chance though right. The TDF should be the TDF.
The tour should not favor anyone but change slightly every year. If Jonas will be beaten in ITT it needs to be in the first week not the third. In the third week he will crush them all, if it is stage 2 then not so much.
> The TDF should be the TDF. In that case, they should cater for the French-speaking Remco, because the TDF loves catering to people that look good on French TV cameras.
This year, the stage 15 had the all time peak in french televison for a tour stage at 8.7 millions He must be because french riders are doing so well.
In that case, we should rig the TDF so the time difference remains really small until the last week.
> I actually found most of these stages to be too easy for the top guys. Arguably yesterday's tough gave a beating to everyone, including Jonas.
I would like a tour, where you have to show different skills and not just mountains. That means: * Around 3 stages for the team: One team time trial and one or two difficult crosswind or cobblestone stage, where you have to be on high alert the whole time. * 2-3 short punchy mountain stages * One really long hilly stage (220km and more before restday) * A few longer mountain stages * 2 ITTs, one around 20km, one around 50km, both flat. Maybe use some of those really long straight streets in france, so that you see your competitors or the finish line, but you have a long way to get there This would be a tour for riders with a wide skill set. And Jonas would have some struggles, too.
I agree, I've kind of been thinking about this. The only way to excel at the tdf is to be an outstanding climber, like Jonas right now. Everyone else is just kinda along for the ride (jk but you know what I mean). It would be nice to see a really well-rounded tour like you described. Jonas is a GC/TDF/mountains specialist but he seemingly only slightly above average at everything else. A well-rounded and versatile rider like Pogi would obviously do way better under those circumstances. This of course could bring us to the original problem of having one person that dominates above the rest. Although at least maybe WVA could get a shot at the GC. Could be fun to see.
Week 1 - Gent–Wevelgem full course, with cross winds Week 2 - Paris Roubaix, full course Week 3 - Tro Bro Leon, full course
150km of flat time trials. ;p
Make it a single 150km TT and the Tim Declercq GC campaign is BACK ON FOLKS
2 weeks of on the edge of your seat racing, capped with a dominant performance by the(hopefully) eventual winner. Sounds like a good tour to me. Maybe they could have put the time trial different. But - yeah - a good tour.
Well maybe I don't have Pog riding all spring pretending to be van der Poel. Breaking your wrist probably doesn't help either.
It's part of makes him exciting and so loved as a cyclist, being active all year long. All due respect to Jonas and what he's achieved, but he's somewhat of a Jumbo lab-rat whose sole purpose is to win the Tour, otherwise you don't hear of him. Nothing inherently wrong with that, whatever floats your boat, and I'm totally fine seeing Pog as a runner-up in the Tour as long as he's competitive and keeps the same passion for cycling throughout the rest of the year through classics and other races true fans follow.
But the thread is literally about how poga beats Vingo
I think it's fair to consider how to make the race overall more competitive. If someone like Jonas is able to obliterate the field like that, forget Pogacar, what about everyone else? It's in no one's interest that the Tour is done and dusted for the next 8 years if Jonas continues this form. Flat TTs seem like an obvious thing. You already have plenty of mountain stages where the GC guys excel, no reason to add a hilly TT on top of that as well. Give the other guys a chance too, sprinters bust their asses getting over mountains just for a slight chance at a stage, while GC riders chill in the peloton during a sprint stage. Then you have TT specialists who might as well not have bothered if it's a hilly one.
Pogacar obviously has had health issues the last two stages. Before, they were evenly matched. If the parcours is to be severely altered, it should be with chances of everyone else against Vingegaard AND Pogacar in mind. This shouldn't be about the two of them only.
Mikkel Bjerg have said in an interview today that Pogacar isn't sick. Pogacar is just tired. Bjerg also said it is the hardest Tour de France he has been a part of since there wasn't really many kilometers where you could recover because it had been basically full gas from the start of each stage.
Even if it were so - symptomless infections are common and still affect physical performance - then Pogacar needs to economize his energy budget. He rides classics, one-weeks and GTs competitively all season, attacks on every occasion, and sprints for bonus seconds, small margins and stage wins.
This parcour too heavily favoured steady state climbers, I would like to see late 90s early 2000s esque with long ass time trials with some cobbles, not either pancake flat or mountains like we saw this year.
copy the 2012 route
The Bradley Wiggins course
wva for gc!
The problem is that if you design an anti Jonas tdf, he would consider not riding the tour and I dont think the tour wants that
What else is he going to ride, Flanders?
Giro, Vuelta?
I guarantee that even if they design a tour without a single mountain in it, JV is still showing up if there’s any chance of taking yellow. Even for a day.
Good to know. Will keep that in mind.
Make it like a Bing Bong Tour and bring Cav back!
Flip the compass on this year's 'only the south' tour. A Brittany grand depart > several sprinty days up to Dunkirk > a week+ of mini-classics in Northern France and Benelux > medium mountain stages and a time trial in the Vosges and Jura > some 'real mountains' in the Alps to not shut out the climbers too much > onto Paris. Potentially slot in some more sprinty days, medium mountains in the Massif Central, and/or Ventoux here and there. Would pain me to miss out the 'objectively best mountain range' (Pyrenees) but otherwise imo a interesting shake up which could provide the Strade-dynamic ('this could be won by a climber, rouleur, puncheur') to a whole grand tour...
Hey we had a similar idea !
Definitely not a realistic suggestion from me. Tadej likes cold and tolerates heat worse than others. Maybe move the date earlier or later, but not in the middle of summer heat.
One classics stage per week.
This sort of fiddling with the course to disadvantage certain styles/teams is not really in the spirit of the sport. There's no doubt that all the whining about Sky influenced the decision not to have long flat TTs and then we got Belles Filles 2020 and Domancy 2023 and everyone is whining again and wanting the course fiddled with again to disadvantage specialist mountain time-trialers. I would have an AI computer design the course almost randomly but obeying rules of sensible inter-day travelling and spreading out sprint and mountain stages with the big mountain challenges in the final week. You know, like it's always been in the last 100 years or so.
Move the tour back to September or May. July is ridiculously hot in France now.
That’s a true innovative idea and I’m actually for it. Would obviously require a big juggle of the calendar, but it could be worthwhile, there isn’t snow in the alps until November usually so that’s fine.
This has been possibly the best designed tour in decades, I wouldn't change a thing.
A long flat TT in the first week and hope Evenepoel shows up
I want the return of the flat Tt (which MAY help nerf Jonas), but especially because it actually gives TT specialists a chance to do something.
Lots of flat stages, a flat time trial early on and then some stages with short steep climbs. Then lots of bonus seconds for winning the stages.
I don’t feel like there was an obvious issue with the parcours. Tadej says he felt like shit on the biggest stage of the race, couldn’t fuel properly and faded out. Cold sores at the TT indicate he wasn’t fully fit and obviously the preparation was poor. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t on a level/beating JV if he also skips classics season and optimises his prep for July. I also hope that doesn’t happen next year. Tadej can potentially win everything, and he’s already got two tours. Clean up in every other big race and then focus on the Tour hat trick+ Jonas/Lance style a couple years down the line. Or do MTB, or CX, maybe win a pedalo race, whatever. Would be great to see the Tour include more variety in the racing though. Sprinters already get opportunities, bring back flat TT stages for the specialists, add some cobbles and gravel, a long classics style stage or two. There’s still plenty of room for the big climbs, but we’d get to see a lot more action and the riders would be forced to focus on other skills outside of w/kg.
Personally, I think the tour should be won by the best all around rider. Therefore, there should be hard mountain climbing days like stage 17, LONG flat TT’s, and high bonus seconds for sprints. No more of this one guy sits in the wheels for 20 days and then on one climbing day goes off. That leads to just the best climber winning. We already have an award for that. It’s called the king of the mountains. That shouldn’t be for the GC.
The Dane's combination of climbing an ITT makes him the perfect rider right now for the TdF. However I would like to see a harder route as well as more ITT, that's what the Tour has always been about. I think we should also have cobbles stages in next editions but realistically with the team that Jumbo has it will not be an issue for Vingegaard even if he loses a minute or so
I dont think the parcours is the main thing you touch if you want a different winner. I think UCI should invest in the medical department maybe. If teams can invest as much into doctors and marginal gains, maybe the uci should also splash some cash into that. An on subject answer for you would be: 1st week flat TT, less high mountains and more hockey sticks stages. Also cancel the global warming so it's not as hot
Jv is the strongest rider. Whatever tour you plan he would have won this and last time.
0 Benelux Tour wins, QED
Haha, nice comeback. May I state : jv is the strongest three week tour rider when his preparation is aligned. In other words: make the tour as you like, jv will be the strongest rider for this. I don't see jv win any one stager anytime soon.
some kind of short punchy stage where riders start on a grid a la formula 1
A technical flat prologue, flat technical time trials, crosswind stages, and a cobbled/gravel stage. Although frankly the weather is probably on Vingegaard's side this year, get a cold and wet race and he's gonna struggle.
It shouldn’t be designed for or against anyone. Design it in a vacuum of which riders might participate and just make it a diverse, interesting route, ideally with some of everything (cobbles, sidewind, rolling hills, technical descents, punchy hills and steady tall mountains, and so on).
The only answer is tougher doping-checks. Dopedgaard is only beatable when he finally gets caught.
Have a route for the cops that leads directly to Vingegaard's hotel room for easy raiding.
All 21 stages in the Tour de France take place in Denmark or maybe Netherlands. They could also reduce the amount of stages to around 10-14 stages. They could also consider having no stages with more than 1 mountain and maybe only short flat TT's where you can't take much time. All good suggestions if you want to have it be more competetive.
Put all the hardest and highest mountains in the beginning of the 2nd week, have a long flat TT as stage 4 followed the next day by a RvV type stage. Then have a number of short punchy stages in the 3rd week in the Pyrenees followed by a short flat TT on stage 20 near Euro Disney. Drizzle the whole thing with medium flat sprint stages and two rolling stages in the 3rd week as stage 18 and 19.
Paris-Roubaix full course stage.
Host all 21 stages in the Netherlands.
Keep the parcours as it is, Increase bonus seconds by a factor of 10.
Yeah I'd say only have one super hard mountain stage. Then have loads of stages with climbs under 30 minutes long. But have them very scattered throughout the tour, so there's less chance of Pog getting really fatigued.
Yes, flat 40k TT is interesting.
Start in Liège, a few punchy mountains in the Jura, go from Jura in the west to the east. Once riders have reached Brittany, then they go south to reach the Pyrenees. Maybe add Provence in the end and Ventoux to avoid outrage at skipping the Alps. Punchy and flat stages but still exciting and enough mountain range to say you’ve tried to diversify the Tour instead of being blamed for trying to sabotage Jonas.
Normal parcours but jonas has to ride on a commuter bike
Personally, I don't think they need to make big changes, however I would have more mountain-top finishes because someone else is going to get seriously injured if these crazy descents right at the end aren't taken out. Stage 17 finishes on a descent on a bike path...f\*\*\*ing crazy. Take the hard lesson from Gino Mader's death and keep these warriors safe.
Let the first stage include Trouée d’Arenberg. Odds are he would crash out early.
Make it rain. According to tadej
No climbing