2015 'PRO' cycling discussion
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I had the same feeling. Too little, too late. They kind of underplayed Quintana's potential, by racing for Valverde at the same time. I'd rather see all or nothing performance. Quintana was wayyyy too chill about the 3 minutes deficit. From daily interview, I thought he was very very confident to leave things so late (all those chasing attacks for Sky didn't help).
Or perhaps, we are overanalysing this, perhaps Movi knew well they couldn't beat Froome so they would rather fancy a double podium. (This was unlikely still, seeing how Quintana performed on the last two mountain stages.)
I had the same feeling. Too little, too late. They kind of underplayed Quintana's potential, by racing for Valverde at the same time. I'd rather see all or nothing performance. Quintana was wayyyy too chill about the 3 minutes deficit. From daily interview, I thought he was very very confident to leave things so late (all those chasing attacks for Sky didn't help).
Or perhaps, we are overanalysing this, perhaps Movi knew well they couldn't beat Froome so they would rather fancy a double podium. (This was unlikely still, seeing how Quintana performed on the last two mountain stages.)
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I think Froome had more left, and would have been able to counter everything Movistar/Quintanta could have thrown at him. Maybe not if there had been a 4th week, but there isnt't one.
Movistar doing SKY's job, pulling on ascents and chasing Bertie was the stupidest thing IMO at this Tour. having two guys capable of winning the whole race they played it rookie-safe, like they even weren't interested in challenging Froome, or didn't know how to do it.
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Seriously? A few incidents and it's crisis time?tymon_tm wrote:djm wrote:djcharlou wrote:Yes this guy !
Where's the police ??
Apparently the sheets he were wearing read something "The Jews" and there was a crescent and some other sign on there. Pure luck it wasn't one with worse intentions, could've gotten ugly. I was thinking about the cancelled Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt this year, due to a foiled islamist terror plot..
that looks scary. and a day after this, and that car incident, a bunch of fanatic muslim girls beat the shit out of some girl sunbathing in her swimsuit. France clearly isn't coping well with it's issues, and I fear those kind of incidents may one day happen during a cycling race. if police can't stop a maniac in Place de la Concorde, a vast square isolated from fans, it shows their security methods are outdated at best.
Crisis is what the U.S. has. Ferguson, Sandra Bland & 204 mass shootings in 204 days!
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russianbear wrote:Wish more stages had the motorbike along side the finishing straight side camera view. I understand it's not logistically possible in a lot of places, but would be lovely to see it exploited more.
Not sure if you are familiar with watching track and field but they run a camera along a sort of rail on the inside of the track. That would be absolutely fantastic for the last 200m of a sprint finish to have one of those zipping along the barrier.
Marin wrote:I think Froome had more left, and would have been able to counter everything Movistar/Quintanta could have thrown at him. Maybe not if there had been a 4th week, but there isnt't one.
Froome was dripping time on the occasions Quintana attacked. Froome would have loved to have won Alp d' Huez , he was just not strong enough and at one point the gap to Quintana [4km] I thought Quintana might get the win. There was a few times in the 3rd week when Thomas had to ease up, Froome nodded "no" to Thomas upping the tempo. Lucky they had Movie chasing down the attacks. Thomas was Stronger than Froome for a lot of the tour.
It all made for a great race but Froome will need some significant ITT time next year to beat Quintana.
If Bertie just goes for the tour and is in good form then he can beat Froome again, like in the Vuelta.
Nib is the unknown factor. I'm still not convinced about his climbing against the best but he is a true racer and very smart and can make early attacks stick.
If they can all stay healthy and be in form then it has potential to be better than this year.
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KB wrote: I hope they don't go back to having two long TT's because it penalises the climbers. I thought 2012 was awful to watch as due to the TT's it allowed Wiggins to follow the other riders rather than make an individual effort on the climbs.
The Tour has never been about climbers, puncheurs, sprinters or roulers. It's been about finding the best overall rider in a 3 week stage race. Some years it will favor the climbers more than the TT'ers, other years it will be vice versa.
I enjoy the years where they feature more climbs and uphill finishes, but some years I miss the TT.
I think this years tour had a good mix of everything, although I would have liked to have seen a 30-40 km TT somewhere in there. I liked the fact that they opened with a short timetrial to get things started. The northern stages were interesting, but they also seemed to take a lot of energy out of the GC riders.
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ultimobici wrote:Seriously? A few incidents and it's crisis time?tymon_tm wrote:djm wrote:djcharlou wrote:Yes this guy !
Where's the police ??
Apparently the sheets he were wearing read something "The Jews" and there was a crescent and some other sign on there. Pure luck it wasn't one with worse intentions, could've gotten ugly. I was thinking about the cancelled Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt this year, due to a foiled islamist terror plot..
that looks scary. and a day after this, and that car incident, a bunch of fanatic muslim girls beat the shit out of some girl sunbathing in her swimsuit. France clearly isn't coping well with it's issues, and I fear those kind of incidents may one day happen during a cycling race. if police can't stop a maniac in Place de la Concorde, a vast square isolated from fans, it shows their security methods are outdated at best.
Crisis is what the U.S. has. Ferguson, Sandra Bland & 204 mass shootings in 204 days!
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not a crisis, but definitelly something to seriously take under consideration when planning sporting events like this. it's not like he demonstrated inside the crowd, he actually got across all the police and security and gotten into the very middle of the road, among the cyclists. how could police miss a guy dressed in white sheets, especially after Charlie Hebdo and all that recent turmoil?
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this year was probably the first time since.... 2010/11 where i looked fwd to turning on the tv for stages. Would watch again.
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Kermithimself wrote:KB wrote: I hope they don't go back to having two long TT's because it penalises the climbers. I thought 2012 was awful to watch as due to the TT's it allowed Wiggins to follow the other riders rather than make an individual effort on the climbs.
The Tour has never been about climbers, puncheurs, sprinters or roulers. It's been about finding the best overall rider in a 3 week stage race. Some years it will favor the climbers more than the TT'ers, other years it will be vice versa.
I enjoy the years where they feature more climbs and uphill finishes, but some years I miss the TT.
I think this years tour had a good mix of everything, although I would have liked to have seen a 30-40 km TT somewhere in there. I liked the fact that they opened with a short timetrial to get things started. The northern stages were interesting, but they also seemed to take a lot of energy out of the GC riders.
I think some of the climbers and GC hopefuls today would tremble at the TT km's that featured in the TdF not so long ago. The first long time trial in 1987 at Futuroscope was 87.1km. The winning time was 1:58:12 if my memory serves. And there were two more time trials to come - the TT up Mont Ventoux and the closing TT at Dijon where Roche finally overhauled Delgado. And before all those, there was the prologue and the TTT in Berlin, in the first two days. The climbers today don't know how lucky they have it.
tymon_tm wrote:honestly this parade is pretty dull, I get cyclists need to let go, celebrate and fool around (at least some of them) but from TV perspective it's pointless.
For the GC, yeah. But it's a sprint stage. They do still have some of those in the GTs y'know. They even still have jerseys for it! If the Champs is pointless, every flat stage that isn't right on the Atlantic coast is pointless.
I don't agree. every flat stage can go in a very different way - a bunch sprint, an escape, a solo escape.. in Paris however, it's the same predictable scenario over and over again. plus the camera angle, from the motor riding along, looks very weird. ITT, or a more technical, crit-like course would be more entertaining I suppose.
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tymon_tm wrote:honestly this parade is pretty dull, I get cyclists need to let go, celebrate and fool around (at least some of them) but from TV perspective it's pointless. take this year, rain, cold, riders having no intentions to ride at all, pottering around and still having to complete full 10 or 11 laps on slippery roads of Paris. not to mention the timing - race ended about 8 pm, many fans went home, many viewers switched to news or some tv shows (sunday evening prime time, hello!). IMHO ASO could work a bit on that, try to introduce at least some rivalry, or at least don't neutralize the time. it would be almost impossible to gain 1 minute in Paris, but if the difference between leader and runner up would've been closer to 20-30 seconds, then who knows.
The neutralization is a proforma. Has it ever happened that a leader has lost 20 seconds on the final stage finish in Paris? Would Nairo Quintana, the climber, enjoy beating Froome with the help of, say, a MickeyDee bag eating away Froome's RD? Imagine the GC contenders fighting like mad together with all the sprint trains, fighting like mad to place their sprinters on the front on the most important stage for the sprinters. Throw some bonus seconds in there for the top 10 and you'll have a real crash fest.
The last stage is just transport to the sprint. I enjoyed it, anyway
This year there were no true transition stages - now that is boring shi*. Kudos for avoiding that.
ITTs could be entertaining hadn't it been for the fact that there is absolutely no international cycling tv producer out there able to portray an ITT (or TTT) in an interesting manner. The complete chaos and poor presentation of split times makes most TTs very boring to watch. How many split times were there on the TTT? Despite all riders having GPS transponders.. they definitely were not used to their full potential, one can imagine there being an infinite amount of splits. TV graphics should be good enough to make a decent presentation for entertainment. With today's broadcasts you're better off timing splits with a stop watch yourself. (/rant)
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djm wrote:Despite all riders having GPS transponders.. they definitely were not used to their full potential, one can imagine there being an infinite amount of splits. TV graphics should be good enough to make a decent presentation for entertainment. With today's broadcasts you're better off timing splits with a stop watch yourself. (/rant)
I totally agree with this. I was really disappointed with the 'new' technology. I didn't seem to add anything at all. Many of the time gaps or speeds indicated on screen didn't even seem to be correct. There were moments on climbs where the times jumped about wildly despite the real gaps barely changing at all. I will still enjoy watching cycling no matter what, but the broadcasters are missing out by not getting their act together and improving their coverage for new viewers.
As much as the underpass on the final stage has little significance in the outcome, I still cant believe they haven't managed to provide shots from inside the tunnel. Other sports have only been doing this since forever, how freaking hard is it for the ASO to organise a camera to show what's happen during the part of the lap? I feel like as inconsequential as this is, it sums up how 'in the dark ages' a lot of cycling coverage is. I'm confused by shortfalls in coverage, considering that the ASO also runs the Dakar rally which in many ways has more challenges in getting decent quality pictures and information to the viewer, but yet still manages to do a reasonable job
Ahillock wrote:Giro and Vuelta are more exciting that TdF. This year just showed that again. Can't speak for Vuelta yet, but the 2015 Giro >>>>> 2015 TdF.
You can keep telling yourself that, but the quality of racing in France was better than in Italy this year. We'll just have to see what happens in Spain