Tour de France 2025

[DieselnDust]

7 minutes ago, gerriemtb said:

Thanks, @DieselnDust 
That is what I thought.

And yet the team is still integral in the performance of the team leader and has a big influence on the outcome. Kuss not being there this year comes to mind - not that I believe it would have changed the results - Pog was in a league of his own and Jonas performed excellently given the happenings of the year.

I would love to see a TTT in the TdF - it adds to the entertainment 🙂

Yeah the teams still have an influence but in the past the swing could be as much as 3minutes on a single stage. Game over when that team then sits on the front for days on end and launches their GC contender in the final 5km before a mountain top finish. ASO will continue rey and manipulate the stages to try and deliver as close racing as possible. The newer format of shorter faster stages seems to be delivering the necessary entertainment. A short TTT could make an entrance but these always have to be near the start of the tour while teams haven’t lost riders yet

[gerriemtb]

5 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

Yeah the teams still have an influence but in the past the swing could be as much as 3minutes on a single stage. Game over when that team then sits on the front for days on end and launches their GC contender in the final 5km before a mountain top finish. ASO will continue rey and manipulate the stages to try and deliver as close racing as possible. The newer format of shorter faster stages seems to be delivering the necessary entertainment. A short TTT could make an entrance but these always have to be near the start of the tour while teams haven’t lost riders yet

Awesome, thanks for the insights!

[lechatnoir]

43 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

No major reason other than it was felt it had too much of an influence over the final outcome. Same reason they shortened individual time trials from 60+ km to <40km.

Big Mig was the champ of the 70km ITT. That will exclude so many of the peloton from GC standings, and I suspect organisers see TTT as similar - having the GC favourites get excluded from being ultimately competitive because they had a poor team effort was perhaps seen as detracting from the overall competition?

But it's face it, seeing a well-drilled team in a TTT is pretty special.

 

EDIT - I can imagine a poorly measured effort on a 70km ITT will see boatloads of time shipped

Edited July 23 by lechatnoir

[DieselnDust]

14 minutes ago, lechatnoir said:

Big Mig was the champ of the 70km ITT. That will exclude so many of the peloton from GC standings, and I suspect organisers see TTT as similar - having the GC favourites get excluded from being ultimately competitive because they had a poor team effort was perhaps seen as detracting from the overall competition?

But it's face it, seeing a well-drilled team in a TTT is pretty special.

 

EDIT - I can imagine a poorly measured effort on a 70km ITT will see boatloads of time shipped

A TTT could be used to determine team placing rather than individual GC. That could then provide a spectacle without killing the GC race

[NC_lurker]

1 minute ago, DieselnDust said:

A TTT could be used to determine team placing rather than individual GC. That could then provide a spectacle without killing the GC race

Or just have bonus seconds available for the first 10 teams. So time gains capped to the max available bonus seconds. Same theory as green jersey points just applied in seconds.

I seem to remember they did something similar to this the last time there was a TTT at TDF. I'm fairly sure they capped the max possible time loss.

[dexterdent]

I would love to see some version of the old school "intergiro" jersey at the TDF:

"In its initial inception, the calculation for the intergiro was similar to that of the general classification, in each stage there is a midway point that the riders passed through a point and where their times were stopped. As the race went, their times were compiled and the person with the lowest time was the leader of the intergiro classification and wore a blue jersey until 2005"

This has some very specific advantages:

1. A jersey for the pure breakaway rider, and creates some excitement in the middle of the stage

2. Could make for some exciting strategies

3. You can adapt the points for green and polka to make them a little more "pure" as you don't need them as much to create action. e.g. on a flat stage, put three intermediate sprints; on a mountain stage, put one before the mountains / hills and none after.

[Jewbacca]

1 hour ago, DieselnDust said:

Yeah the teams still have an influence but in the past the swing could be as much as 3minutes on a single stage. Game over when that team then sits on the front for days on end and launches their GC contender in the final 5km before a mountain top finish. ASO will continue rey and manipulate the stages to try and deliver as close racing as possible. The newer format of shorter faster stages seems to be delivering the necessary entertainment. A short TTT could make an entrance but these always have to be near the start of the tour while teams haven’t lost riders yet

I remember reading an article about how the smaller teams were at too big a disadvantage in a TTT with the big budget teams able to absolutely dominate due to the depth of their squad and race selection options.

It was deemed too weighted in favour of the big spenders, apparently

[Irvin85]

34 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

I remember reading an article about how the smaller teams were at too big a disadvantage in a TTT with the big budget teams able to absolutely dominate due to the depth of their squad and race selection options.

It was deemed too weighted in favour of the big spenders, apparently

That and also the fact that ASO have tried for a number of years to get a French rider in the yellow jersey by the time they reach Paris. The French have had a number of pure climbers in the past view years but none of them particularly great against the clock and apart from Alaphilippe most have been on smaller French teams. 

I think they have given up on that, hard to see anyone beating the two top dogs over the next 5 years and there is no young french prospect looking to fill the void left by Letour, Pinot etc. 

Edited July 23 by Irvin85

[DieselnDust]

47 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

I remember reading an article about how the smaller teams were at too big a disadvantage in a TTT with the big budget teams able to absolutely dominate due to the depth of their squad and race selection options.

It was deemed too weighted in favour of the big spenders, apparently

This is one of the issues that leads to an unentertaining GC battle. Imagine we had a TTT this year. The gap could have been much bigger than 6min

['Dale]

Meanwhile, the other Slovenian GC leader is on the mend.

[DieselnDust]

1 hour ago, &#x27;Dale said:

Meanwhile, the other Slovenian GC leader is on the mend.

Ya read that he has broken vertebra in his back!!

I reckon he’s now broken every bone in his body and is ready for a Tour de France GC  win in 2025

[peepeekaitjie]

13 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

and is ready for a Tour de France GC  win in 2025

impossible, he crashes on average every 19th race day

[DieselnDust]

21 minutes ago, peepeekaitjie said:

impossible, he crashes on average every 19th race day

Bigger… we’re two days short of Paris 

 

[babse]

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cofidis-issues-statement-after-guillaume-martin-blames-heavy-look-bike-and-lack-of-power-meter-for-cofidis-poor-tour-de-france/

 

Someone is LOOKing for a new bike sponsor 😜 

[shaper]

On 7/22/2024 at 6:50 PM, Vetplant said:

After winning at #TdF2024, Tadej Pogačar "cancelled his performance because he was too tired" #paris2024 He will be replaced by Domen Novak in Slovenia's top four in the road race on Saturday, August 3

(I'm telling you guys... vuelta is going to happen) 

 

 

Canceled in protest rather than being tired it seems https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/24/tadej-pogacar-says-decision-not-to-select-girlfriend-helped-sway-olympic-no-show

[Frosty]

1 hour ago, babse said:

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cofidis-issues-statement-after-guillaume-martin-blames-heavy-look-bike-and-lack-of-power-meter-for-cofidis-poor-tour-de-france/

Someone is LOOKing for a new bike sponsor 😜 

Perhaps he should LOOK at IPT, and ask the former TdF winner for some tips.
But 7.7Kg without a computer/PM is rather bizarre.

 

Now he knows how I feel on my 8.8Kg steel bike,trying to compete with other toppies on their (probably) sub-6.8Kg bikes that only get weighed at Provincial and National champs. Except I choose to  ride it, and don't have a sponsor (nor a team). 🤪

Edited July 24 by Frosty