I was a big fan in the years between Lemond and Lance. Jalabert, indurain, Pantani were exciting, no Americans but I still watched. I even cycled through France in 96 following some of the routes Jalabert and Indurain took when they fell apart in that race. I too found this years tour boring.
mark b wrote:
It's not boring! OK, the result has never been in doubt, since before the start of the race if we are being honest, but there are other things to look.
The Green Jersey points competition, the King of the Mountains competition were invented for just this sort of tour - one where the overall winner is known well before the end of the three weeks.
This year the green, polka dot, and white have been settled for awhile too. I still like watching it, and Sagan, Majka, and Yates have given us more excitement this year than Froome has. Today is fun, but not a lot of drama.
They've barely mentioned the team standings this year. Seems like that was a thing in some previous years.
Coach wrote:
I was a big fan in the years between Lemond and Lance. Jalabert, indurain, Pantani were exciting, no Americans but I still watched. I even cycled through France in 96 following some of the routes Jalabert and Indurain took when they fell apart in that race. I too found this years tour boring.
My fiancé and I are planning to cycle along some parts of the tour next year as well. How was it? Any advice?
This was 20 years ago and probably the best trip of my life. It's a great feeling to climb and have cars honking and cheering you on unlike here in the northeast when drivers curse you out for being on the road with them. I spent July in the Jura mountains and Alps traveling from Dijon into and around lake Geneva. Then into the Italian Alps and lake towns. I used the trains when needed. I took the train back to Paris and watched the last stage, Riis' coronation as he took laps around the Champs Elysse and as the peloton caught the breakaway riders. More exciting than any marathon I witnessed.
I went with a cycling tour, don't remember the name, and spent some time on my own as well.
Can't give you specific advice other than do it.
Well, the Liquigas team disbanned in 2014. Let's face it. The Tour will never be the same without hearing Phil Liggett saying "leaky gas"...
What are you idiots complaining about? If you don't enjoy watching, you can always play Pokémon Go.
The TDF is a 3 week race. The athletes competing are incredible.
The Tour is the most prestigious but most cycling fans know it is far from the most exciting race. The Giro and Vuelta usually bring more excitement and more challenging mountains.
The best races, by a long shot, are the cobbled classics in the spring. It is just awesome seeing the rouleurs hammer those cobbles at 50+ kph. Each sector is like an entire stage of the Tour with guys crashing, having mechanicals or getting dropped because they can't take the pace.
I've always loved the Tour and enjoyed it this year, but it was not the best year. There were some good stages, yesterday was good for instance. On the other hand Sky, with their depth and tempo, made the mountain stages somewhat boring; today in particular was a big disappointment, with so little time separating 2-7, I thought we'd see more attacks on the podium. It appears the only team interested was Astana, and their guy cracked early, I think he left it out there yesterday, but at least he tried. Again, I was very disappointed that there were no attacks on the Plane'.
Sagan wrote:
Only memorable thing that happened this year was Froome running up the mountain.
That's a good idea. Have them do it with no bikes.
mark b wrote:
It's not boring! OK, the result has never been in doubt, since before the start of the race if we are being honest, but there are other things to look.
The Green Jersey points competition, the King of the Mountains competition were invented for just this sort of tour - one where the overall winner is known well before the end of the three weeks.
It is slightly worryng that the dominance of Team Sky is so total. Their depth of resources, both financial and human (the two go together) means a much less talented rider than Froome would have a good chance of winning with the support from this team. Froome is being helped in the mountains by domestiques who would be team leaders in most other teams. If Sky continues to target the tour like this other teams will admit defeat and switch their attention to other tours as their main goal for the year. This will ultimately damage Le Tour and the sport itself.
Agreed. Also I feel that the Tour is so tainted by Lance that winning it more than 3 times will be met with more scepticism and negativity than praise. I would like Froome to mix it up and go for the Giro next year, don't dominate this race and be put in the same bracket as pond weed Lance.
People on a running forum are calling cycling boring? Hahahahaha...
Neither sport is really a "must dvr" event. Two activities that are much more interesting to actually do than watch......although I watch races (running, cycling, triathlon, etc.) and the rest of the family just rolls their eyes....lol.
Rato_ wrote:
mark b wrote:It's not boring! OK, the result has never been in doubt, since before the start of the race if we are being honest, but there are other things to look.
The Green Jersey points competition, the King of the Mountains competition were invented for just this sort of tour - one where the overall winner is known well before the end of the three weeks.
It is slightly worryng that the dominance of Team Sky is so total. Their depth of resources, both financial and human (the two go together) means a much less talented rider than Froome would have a good chance of winning with the support from this team. Froome is being helped in the mountains by domestiques who would be team leaders in most other teams. If Sky continues to target the tour like this other teams will admit defeat and switch their attention to other tours as their main goal for the year. This will ultimately damage Le Tour and the sport itself.
Agreed. Also I feel that the Tour is so tainted by Lance that winning it more than 3 times will be met with more scepticism and negativity than praise. I would like Froome to mix it up and go for the Giro next year, don't dominate this race and be put in the same bracket as pond weed Lance.
I would say that if Froome could get anywhere near Lance's level then thats something he should 100% go for. Interesting that your take is that being too good is a bad thing...
all cycling races are boring wrote:
Sagan wrote:Only memorable thing that happened this year was Froome running up the mountain.
That's a good idea. Have them do it with no bikes.
Robert Young's run across France. Beating the bikes for the kids. Viewers get a bonus for correctly guessing which support vehicle he rode in for the day.
1921
Even the green and the dots have been settled since very early.
Literally nothing to watch.
This TdF was not too bad and I thought Froome was one of the most entertaining cyclists this year (attacking on a descent, attacking on a flat sprint stage, running up a mountain, crashing then a riding a teammate's bike to the finish). What was boring is that Sky is so strong that they make any sort of attack in the mountains basically suicide. The push the pace grinding away every GC contender and Froome really only has to fend off a few people's tired attacks by himself for a few K.
Worst in years wrote:
Even the green and the dots have been settled since very early.
Literally nothing to watch.
The dots weren't settled early. Voss then Stuyven then de Gendt then Majka then Pinot then de Gendt again then Majka again since stage 15.
And there have been some razor thin finishes on some of the sprints.
One of the things that makes watching the tour so odd is the complete silence on Lance. He dominated the tour for 10 years and now his name is so anathematized that he's never mentioned at all. It's almost like the tour didn't exist for 10 years or they lost all video footage for a decade. It's weird to watch these famous roads and climbs of the tour where Lance did so many memorable things and it's like those events never happened. And I agree he shouldn't be mentioned because he brought such shame and disgrace to the entire sport. But it's weird and awkward for such a big part of recent tours to be completely missing.
This tour was interesting a bit in the first week or so, but then got relatively setteled. In some ways it was like NibalI 2014, you had Contador immediately crash affected, Porte with an early mechanical that took him out, and then Quintana completely not showing up.
So it was basically Froome vs non top tier GC guys and a Quintana with his D game. If Quintana had been even a shadow of his normal self we would have had a pretty interesting Tour for a while.
Some Murray wrote:
ish wrote:All we learned in this tour is that Chris Froome has a better motor in his bike than anyone else does.
Track may not be a clean sport, but how can people possibly enjoy watching cycling knowing that these cheating f*cks are putting motors in their god damn bicycles?
Because they're not. The race is scanning the bikes and it's pretty easy to control.
Try to keep up.
Just because a bike has been scanned, that doesn't mean there is no motor. It's kind of like Lance never testing positive. In all likelihood, Lance had many positive tests for PEDs. The powers that be just kept it under wraps.