Of Bergs and Cotes...

by Chris... on Jun 6, 2008 5:10 PM EDT in News

[ed] This is the companion to my Breton post earlier about how the Tour parcours is actually kind of cool. Basically, this is a Giro percorso vs. Tour parcours series. Which ends in about 15 more column inches.]

To hear them tell it, the Tour's entire fight with the ASO is over ensuring a dope-free peloton (and otherwise seizing total control, but that's for later). The idea is that a dope-free race will be one where riders have a little more trouble staying together on the climbs. So to make for a fun race to watch, the Tour has thrown in a pretty huge number of climbs:

Stage 1: four minor climbs (all Cat-4); uphill near finish
Stage 2: four climbs, including Cat-3 Mûr-de-Bretagne; uphill near finish.
Stage 6: Massif Central: 4 rated climbs, two Cat-2 climbs including closing 11km Super-Besse.
Stage 7: five climbs, including Cat-2 Col d'Entremont and Pas du Peyrol; last climb 9km from finish.
Stage 8: Four more minor climbs (3s and 4s); downhill run-in.
Stage 9: Pyrenean stage including Peyresourde and Col d'Aspin, both cat-1, and five other rated climbs.
Stage 10: Col du Tourmalet and Hautacam, hors categoire climbs, plus two minor ones.
Stage 11: Cat-1 Col de Portel, two others.
Stage 12: back over the Portel, one other climb
Stage 13: three minor climbs
Stage 14: approaching the alps, two cat-4 climbs
Stage 15: Into the Alps... hors categoire Col Agnel, cat-1 Prato Nevoso finishing climb
Stage 16: two more hors categoire climbs: Col de la Lombarde, Cime de la Bonette-Restefonde
Stage 17: All hors categoire, all day: Galibier-Croix de Fer-Alpe d'Huez
Stage 18: Cat-2 Croix de Montvieux, three others
Stage 19: two final rated climbs (and assorted undulations)

This isn't exactly a huge upgrade over last year, where stages with 4-5 small rated climbs still ended in sprints. But the inclusion of the Massif Central will add an element often missing in the Tour, and lifted straight from the Giro: stages where the Classics-type climbers can score handfuls of precious seconds on the more standard contenders. Remember, Danilo DiLuca won the 2007 Giro by maximizing his gains in stages like these. Now you have the Valverdes and Cunegos, both of whom thrive on the shorter climbs and will be presented with some interesting choices about how much effort to invest in the first week... given their likely status as among -- but not atop -- the list of favorites. Then you have two opening stages which aren't killers but still include some late climbing; alla Bettini as they're known in Italy. Will anyone get tempted out here? Probably not a true GC favorite, but an enterprising lad who feels like sporting yellow for a few days... and there will be dozens of guys in that category.

Anyway, for once there seems to be more going on at this Tour than the interminable Green Jersey battle that, once we have reached the point where we can't take it any more, suddenly gives way to the overall battle. Now, you'll have scores of KOM points, intriguing stage battles, and maybe even some French teams getting involved. Like I said in the earlier post: this course, while maybe not as spectacular as the Giro parcours, is designed for three weeks of good, clean fun.

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Hmm...

First I must say that I love this years Tour course. I love all the hills. I love the Massif Central coming into play and I’m totally looking forward to stage six in particular.

That said, although I can see the Tour’s versions of Di Luca or Ricco- Valverde and Cunego, not to mention others of that ilk, livening up particular stages, I see the GC winner as being someone who still plays it conservatively. Someone who attacks on certain climbs but doesn’t risk too much in their attack so that they don’t have the gas to defend their gains the next day. Yes, someone who nails the TTs and climbs well enough to keep others from gapping him too badly.

I just see that the old days when one rider would do this huge effort to trash his opponents on one mountain stage only to have one of those opponents do the same to him on the next are over. Tactics have naturally evolved so that scenario doesn’t happen anymore. The only people to get away on a serious break are riders with no chance for the GC. Guys like Sella. Or if the peloton messes up by gazing at their navels, guys like Landis. The Landis escapes will be rare however. This can still be fun to watch but we won’t be returning to the good old days.

The only realistic alternative to the conservative GC winning strategy is the super GC team, last practiced by Lance but also practiced by other dynasties in earlier times.

To really make a change in strategies one needs to radically change the course.

Okay I’m nattering here….

by ursula on Jun 6, 2008 6:21 PM EDT 0 recs

OK, consider this

Astana ain’t coming. The frontrunner is Cadel Evans, famous for doing well in the tour with no help whatsoever. Secondary favorites are guys like Valverde or Menchov or Rogers, guys who shouldn’t be making assumptions about their chances just yet. It’s much more wide open than ever. No patron. Not really any super strong teams, are there?

Now are the B- and C-list guys getting interested?

"If writing too much about the Classics is wrong, I don't want to be right."

by Chris... on Jun 6, 2008 7:03 PM EDT up 0 recs

Oh yeah

I totally agree with you that this Tour is wide open. And I love that. And what would be the most fun is if someone without much of a team around them gets the early lead. (That IMHO does not include Cattle as his team is saying that McEwen is getting no help for the sprints this year and having Popo and Matt Lloyd at least allows Evans some protectiuon.)

I’m just looking at the large picture which says if a GC guy gets the lead in the first set of mountains he will defend it with his team to cut down on the breaks so that his chances of losing are as limited as possible. The only time that type of scenerio changes is if the GC guy really has no team around him and for the past couple of decades the closest we have to that was Floyd. The extra climbs we have this year make the standard operating proceedure harder but, again, IMO, not that much harder.

For instance, say Valverde strikes quick, before the Pyrenees. His team will be deep enough to try to defend all the way to Paris so really we will be waiting to see if he bonks on some mountain (less likely than what happend to Floyd since again Valverde will have a team towing him up every hill) or he produces a bad TT. And for all the fun the Giro was, it basically came down to the same: would Bert’s form get to him before then end because otherwise no one was gonna ride away from him.

As with Valverde, so with Menchov, so with Rogers, so with Cunego. Here’s an anology, a baseball one: From 1920 and the Ruthian revolution all the way to the late 60’s the conditions of baseball stayed the same. However during that time period the strategies to win became more and more orthodox: three run homers and walking and a strong rotation, preferably with at least two pitchers with a serious fastball. Alternative strategiues slowly fell by the wayside. Speed disappeared as the effects produced by big beefy hitters who uppercut every ball they saw won game after game. It wasn’t till the 70’s that things changed and they changed because the conditions changed: the pitchers mound was regulated, a whole bunch of new ball parks favored different types of hitters, the DH rule, etc. So I’m saying that until the Grad Tours fundamentally change their courses the strategies will stay the same if not get more and more refined because the courses keep favoring those same strategies. This year’s course is a step in the right direction but the organizers need to go further. I think in time they will.

by ursula on Jun 6, 2008 7:41 PM EDT up 0 recs

Just to interject, have you seen the *Lotto team listed at cyclingstartlists.com

AERTS Mario
CIONI Dario David
EVANS Cadel
HOSTE Leif
MCEWEN Robbie
POPOVYCH Yaroslav
VAN SUMMEREN Johan
+ 2 from:
BRANDT Christophe
TJALLINGII Maarten
VANSEVENANT Wim
That’s a super-strong team: remember how well Hoste did last year? With his unsatifying Spring, I’m thinking he’s going to be very motivated to do even better…

"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, Taming The Bicycle, circa 1880.

by Ruthann on Jun 6, 2008 9:52 PM EDT up 0 recs

OK

this year may be different. As recently as last year, though, he had Horner and nobody else to help.

"If writing too much about the Classics is wrong, I don't want to be right."

by Chris... on Jun 6, 2008 10:52 PM EDT up 0 recs

I like the odds of Jens! wearing yellow!

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. - G. Marx

by flying dog on Jun 6, 2008 7:39 PM EDT 0 recs

hm

not a bad guess.

"If writing too much about the Classics is wrong, I don't want to be right."

by Chris... on Jun 6, 2008 7:49 PM EDT up 0 recs

One interesting piece of news from Denmark

that I haven’t seen much about in the international media is Carlos Sastre’s call for full backing in the Tour. Sastre is normally very modest in his comments but a few weeks ago he made an interview saying he was preparing to go full out for the win and wanted the whole CSC-team to be focused on this one goal. No stagehunting or going for team-classificaction if he had his way. He was prepared to shoulder the full responsibility for the teams success/failure . If Riis’s dares to put all his eggs in one basket we might see a very focused CSC with guys like Jens! and the Schlecks setting aside their own goals as long as Sastre is in the running. Jens! in yellow doesn’t look too likely in that light.

by Jens on Jun 7, 2008 4:25 AM EDT up 0 recs

I can understand his frustration with the team stage hunting.

It was Jens! who towed Oscar to the 30 minute gain. I’ll never understand that none of the other teams chose to close the gap, they were given ample opportunity to force Floyd to stay in yellow. If Riis was thinking about only about Sastre in yellow it may very well have turned out differently.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. - G. Marx

by flying dog on Jun 7, 2008 7:25 AM EDT up 0 recs

He wasn't so much expressing frustration

He simply said that he is 100 % committed to winning this year and wants team backing. I didn’t get the feeling he was miffed about previous mistakes.

by Jens on Jun 7, 2008 9:11 AM EDT up 0 recs

2007 Giro change

I think last years Giro might the forerunner of a change. This years Tour is similar. I think they are trying to set up things so that some “classics” riders could get the lead – Then the mountain guys would have to attack to try to break them. You need the classics strong men to have strong teams for this to work, and of course you need to not be crap in the TT’s. That is the favored scenario though – you will have excitement all the way and people cracking one way or another.

This also brings up the point that this can only really be done if there is a real necessity of people really having to ration themselves. If everyone is “enhanced” enough to plough through things then it becomes the conservative. You will always have some conservative folks – you just want to encourage the aggressors also. If they see they can win even 1a quarter of the time they’ll be out there.

by Markk on Jun 6, 2008 9:51 PM EDT 0 recs

What Markk said

in about 15% of the space I used…

"If writing too much about the Classics is wrong, I don't want to be right."

by Chris... on Jun 6, 2008 10:51 PM EDT up 0 recs

Teams

I think Ruthann possibly made my point better than I have. Look at that Lotto team she has posted. Packed. And almost all of them are dedicated to take pressure off Evans, in essence shortening the race for him.

Or take last year and Rabobank- which makes the point that even if a rider is doping the team tactics that ALL of the big teams are following these days are followed regardless of if doping is present or not. Chicken got away on stage 8 then had his teammates working wonderfully through the rest of the mountain stages before he was booted. His whole team was there to help him defend his lead.

I say that this standard strategy is even more true in a (hopefully) cleaner peloton where the protected rider needs even more protection from his mates. Just look at the proposed startlists for this Tour and its full of riders who are a) wholly dedicated to protecting their leader and b) could welll win the Tour if they were the protected ones. Popovych. Dekker. LL Sanchez Kirchen. etc. Yet unless they have an ego like Rasmussen’s they won’t do anything but protect their leader. I think you could design a course that loosens that bond, or at least makes it plausable that any of several riders from the bigger teams could steal the victory much like the Monuments are in part great because their courses foster ambiguity in strategies.

by ursula on Jun 6, 2008 10:30 PM EDT 0 recs

You've pretty much hit it on the head

I think the rider we’re really talking about here is Evans. He can ride a hilly classic, i.e. Fleche this year, and he can TT with the very best. I think we would be jumping the gun saying that Valv Piti and Il Piccolo really have a chance. As wide open as it may be, it’s not really that wide open. Evans, Menchov, Sastre. Those are the top three, just not sure which order. I wondered last year what the outcome would have been if Evans had a stacked team just to help him and not waste energy on RobbieMac. I think we’ll get that opportunity this year. Sastre is super consistent and could maybe do something with the right team ready to work for him and him alone. That could be something. Menchov is super talented and if he comes in with the right mindset, legs in good shape, and a team to support him, he could very well win. I know what everyone says about the Vuelta, but Menchov has TWO grand tour wins already, which however you look at it, is two more than any of the real GC contenders. That means something and cannot be overlooked. I don’t count Cunego or Valverde as real GC contenders, because I don’t really think they are.

If I just had one more gear, I...

by SpunOut on Jun 7, 2008 11:21 AM EDT up 0 recs

Cunego don't

but Valverde maybe.

I remember Evans last year respond every attack from others guys, always alone…

in one stage, i dont remember what, Evans respond 4 or 5 times before doppred back by Contador, Rasmussen

I just heard the commentator say: “Evans try to close the gap”

by semprenaroda on Jun 7, 2008 11:37 AM EDT up 0 recs

There's a generally accepted notion that

In order to win a GT you have to first podium and then it’s possible to win. While Valverde has podiumed at the Vuelta, he hasn’t podiumed at the Tour yet and his TT is still not up to snuff. Once he’s podiumed and gotten his TT up to snuff, then he can eye the win. But, until that time, I don’t think he really can.

If I just had one more gear, I...

by SpunOut on Jun 7, 2008 12:41 PM EDT up 0 recs