Tour de France 2024

[eth-dog]

I watched the Presentation. Most of it was pretty shit, the Mayor of Nice talked I swear to Goda for 20 minutes. Was terrible.

Basic outline:

2x ITT's totaling 60 km worth of time trialing
4x hilly stages
7x mountain stages
8x flat stages

It's a terrible route quite frankly. 8 flat stages is a legitimate joke. Most of them are long and boring too. I don't see MVDP riding this, reckon he's going to the Giro instead. There are only 2 mountain stages in the first 13 stages. Going to be a bore fest up until that point. Very disappointed that stage 7 is an ITT instead of a TTT as well.

Obviously the big 4 (Vingegaard, Pogacar, Roglic and Evenepoel) will target this. The interesting thing will be whether teams like Bahrain, FDJ, Trek, Movistar, DSM, Jayco and EF send their front line stars to try to win this or target the Giro.

 

[yaco55]

It's a better route than the Giro - A variety of riders will get the chance to strutt their stuff - I am interested in what Jayco do ? Think S.Yates will do the TDF but it's a toss up which sprinter does the TDF - What i do know is that the sprinter that does the Giro will also be at the Vuelta.

 

[eth-dog]

It's a better route than the Giro - A variety of riders will get the chance to strutt their stuff - I am interested in what Jayco do ? Think S.Yates will do the TDF but it's a toss up which sprinter does the TDF - What i do know is that the sprinter that does the Giro will also be at the Vuelta.

I still think that would be a mistake. You ride Yates to be a contender for the podium at a minimum and this year the Tour course worked out perfectly for that as well as not having Roglic or Evenepoel riding it. With all the Big 4 (in the past 4 years, the only Grand Tours they haven't won are the ones they haven't finished) he's not a great chance at a podium.

In addition, this course is perfect to attack it primarily for a sprinter with so many flat stages. Split the Giro between Yates and Groenewegen, who are used to riding in tandem and give Ewan a good lead out train with Bling, Stewart and O'Brien and have Eddie maybe having one climber to support him (Zana)

 

[Vader]

I still think that would be a mistake. You ride Yates to be a contender for the podium at a minimum and this year the Tour course worked out perfectly for that as well as not having Roglic or Evenepoel riding it. With all the Big 4 (in the past 4 years, the only Grand Tours they haven't won are the ones they haven't finished) he's not a great chance at a podium.

Assuming you mean Rog, Jonas, Pog, and Remco as the big 4... none of them won the most recent GT, and 3 of the 4 finished it. Rog, Jonas and Remco were all present, and all finished behind Kuss.

In addition, this course is perfect to attack it primarily for a sprinter with so many flat stages. Split the Giro between Yates and Groenewegen, who are used to riding in tandem and give Ewan a good lead out train with Bling, Stewart and O'Brien and have Eddie maybe having one climber to support him (Zana)

Good - the Tour should have something for every type of rider. It shouldn't all be pan flat, for the sprinters. Nor should it all be hilly and/or mountains, for the mountain goats.

 

[eth-dog]

Assuming you mean Rog, Jonas, Pog, and Remco as the big 4... none of them won the most recent GT, and 3 of the 4 finished it. Rog, Jonas and Remco were all present, and all finished behind Kuss.

Good - the Tour should have something for every type of rider. It shouldn't all be pan flat, for the sprinters. Nor should it all be hilly and/or mountains, for the mountain goats.

I keep on forgetting that Jonas didn't end up winning the Vuelta. But yeah, the 4 are really the dominant riders of GC riding. Prior to that the only times someone else won one of them was Geoghegan Hart, Bernal and Hindley at the Giro, only one of which any of them rode with Remco in 2021 and he abandoned during stage 17 IIRC.

The perfect parcourse for me would be having:

1x ITT
1x TTT
6x flat
6x hilly
7x mountain

Spread over the three weeks. 3 flat in the first week, 2 in the second and one in the third.

I do like the finishing ITT though. But it's so flat, there should be at least one less flat stage and one more hilly stage at a minimum as having more flat stages than mountain is ridiculous.

 

[Over The Post]

'I'm in shock': Nice Tour de France finish masks 'very hard' route

The Tour de France will miss Paris for the first time in over a century due to the Olympic Games, as organisers set the stage for a repeat of the race's most heartbreaking finish in history.

www.abc.net.au

 

[eth-dog]

Cav, it's the flattest Tour in years.

Also lol at suggesting Groves is any chance of riding the Tour barring a Phillipsen injury

 

[yaco55]

At the end of the day, Jayco want Yates and Dunbar to ride GC and neither parcours suits Dunbar with the amount of ITT km's, so you send your best rider to the TDF. Anyway, Yates and Pena have spent the week in Taiwan for their sponsor Giant and do the Taiwan KON tomorrow.

 

[Orange Agent]

The climbing is earlier than normal, I think that's what Cav is getting at. I actually think this is better, sprint stages with some fatigue in the legs likely end up being a bit safer. Cav has only ever cared about his own interests.

For Jayco, IMO Yates can chose his races and Ewan needs to fit in around it. Teams racing has changed, nobody is going with 5 man lead out teams or sole GC leader with a whole squad of mountain domestiques. You need multiple options.

Whether there is interest in the Olympic RR could be a factor in starting here or the Giro for some. Trade teams probably don't like it but bike sponsors would value it high and for some riders the once every 4 years chance could be the clincher. I think Remco given the team he now has should go Giro/Olympics. The Olympic TT looks very flat and fast which should suit him.

 

[Over The Post]

I'll just leave this here. TdF 1962, back when they did things properly:

View attachment letour2.mp4

 

[eth-dog]

So the main riders are in. Some have their full squad out, some have 9 listed, Intermarche have 13 listed.

Main GC guys: Vingegaard, Pogaçar, Rogliĉ, Evenepoel; Carapaz, Yates, Bernal, Gaudu, Rodriguez, Geoghegan Hart, Mas; Leknessund, Gee, Bardet, Meintjes, Haig, Bilbao, Lutsenko, Gall, Martin, Ciccone

Main Sprinters: Bennett, Philipsen, Demare, Cavendish, Bauhaus, Coquard, Pederson, Jakobsen, Groenewegen, Ackermann, De Lie and Kristoff

Main puncheurs: Cort, Williams, Matthews, Van Der Poel, Girmay, Healy, Ballerini, Laporte (pending fitness)

I'm interested in how the teams like Ineos choose between Bernal and Rodriguez, or Lidl Trek with Geoghegan Hart and Ciccone, but the most interesting ones for me are teams with riders in all three types of rider like Jayco with Yates, Groenewegen and Bling; Israel with Gee, Ackermann and Williams and Uno-X with Leknessund, Kristoff and Cort balance it.

Stage one will be a fight between the bottom group and maybe Pederson or Coquard. Girmay and MvdP likely favourites for stage one, but I'll be barracking for Bling still.

 

[Vader]

Velo News is reporting that the UCI are going to try some new rules, to try and make the peloton safer.
https://velo.outsideonline.com/road...n-on-race-radios-fix-cyclings-safety-problem/

Yellow Cards
These will be handed out at the end of each stage, for minor offences - such as littering, drafting (presumably for TT stages only), sticky bidons, and riding on sidewalks. Like soccer, one yellow card is a warning, 2 is a suspension.

Race Radios
OK... anyone with a memory knows that the riders went on strike last time the UCI tried taking them away. This time the proposal is to limit them to 2x radios per team. I think the theory is that it reduces the team director's ability to be screaming in their ears as they approach the critical points in the race, thereby making the racing slightly less furious - and thus less dangerous. Not sure if, or how, it will work in reality.

Moving the 3km Finish Safety Zone
We all know that riders who are held up by a crash, or a mechanical incident, inside the last 3km, receive the same time as the group they were in. The plan here is to extend that 3km limit out, potentially as far as 5km, depending on the amount of road furniture to be negotiated. Race Directors will have the ability to apply for extensions, presumably informing the teams/riders of the modified conditions before the start of the race. I like this rule change.

Time Gaps on the Line
Currently riders are given the same time if they cross the line within 1 second of the rider in front of them. If every rider in the peloton crosses within 1 second of the rider in front of them, then everyone gets the same time as the winner. However, if there are any small gaps in the peloton, then riders behind the gap receive a different time. This results in everyone, especially the GC riders, having to go flat out all the way to the line. It's proposed that 1 second rule be extended to 3 seconds. This has the potential to calm the rest of the peloton down, allowing the sprinters to do their mad dash, while the GC riders can relax a bit more, knowing that they're relatively safe from any time gaps on the line. I like this rule too - though I'd only see it applied in sprint stages, definitely not mountain top finishes.

 

[eth-dog]

Velo News is reporting that the UCI are going to try some new rules, to try and make the peloton safer.
https://velo.outsideonline.com/road...n-on-race-radios-fix-cyclings-safety-problem/

Yellow Cards
These will be handed out at the end of each stage, for minor offences - such as littering, drafting (presumably for TT stages only), sticky bidons, and riding on sidewalks. Like soccer, one yellow card is a warning, 2 is a suspension.

Race Radios
OK... anyone with a memory knows that the riders went on strike last time the UCI tried taking them away. This time the proposal is to limit them to 2x radios per team. I think the theory is that it reduces the team director's ability to be screaming in their ears as they approach the critical points in the race, thereby making the racing slightly less furious - and thus less dangerous. Not sure if, or how, it will work in reality.

Moving the 3km Finish Safety Zone
We all know that riders who are held up by a crash, or a mechanical incident, inside the last 3km, receive the same time as the group they were in. The plan here is to extend that 3km limit out, potentially as far as 5km, depending on the amount of road furniture to be negotiated. Race Directors will have the ability to apply for extensions, presumably informing the teams/riders of the modified conditions before the start of the race. I like this rule change.

Time Gaps on the Line
Currently riders are given the same time if they cross the line within 1 second of the rider in front of them. If every rider in the peloton crosses within 1 second of the rider in front of them, then everyone gets the same time as the winner. However, if there are any small gaps in the peloton, then riders behind the gap receive a different time. This results in everyone, especially the GC riders, having to go flat out all the way to the line. It's proposed that 1 second rule be extended to 3 seconds. This has the potential to calm the rest of the peloton down, allowing the sprinters to do their mad dash, while the GC riders can relax a bit more, knowing that they're relatively safe from any time gaps on the line. I like this rule too - though I'd only see it applied in sprint stages, definitely not mountain top finishes.

I like all of them apart from the race radios. And yeah, that time gap thing should be reserved for sprint stages only.

 

[Vader]

I like all of them apart from the race radios. And yeah, that time gap thing should be reserved for sprint stages only.

Given that the reason for the rule is to improve safety, it seems logical that it would only be applied in sprint stages. Riders losing control and crashing is generally not a concern on mountain stages.

Not sure what they should do on "hilly" stages, which could still result in a fairly large bunch sprint - albeit without the insanity of a fully flat sprint stage.

 

[eth-dog]

Given that the reason for the rule is to improve safety, it seems logical that it would only be applied in sprint stages. Riders losing control and crashing is generally not a concern on mountain stages.

Not sure what they should do on "hilly" stages, which could still result in a fairly large bunch sprint - albeit without the insanity of a fully flat sprint stage.

From memory the last time race radios were removed the races were even quicker and more dangerous. So that'll be interesting.

And yes. Stage one looks exactly like that sort of profile.

 

[eth-dog]

Saturday it starts!

 

[Orange Agent]

Expecting a big first week.

 

[Bigelow]

who will be the highest placed Aussie ?

 

[eth-dog]

who will be the highest placed Aussie ?

Haig. Hindley will be working for Rogliç and Harper for Yates. None of the rest will be climbing with the front group.

 

[yaco55]

No chance of haig being the highest placed Aussie. has shown no form in 2024.

 

[eth-dog]

No chance of haig being the highest placed Aussie. has shown no form in 2024.

There are 6 Aussies. We can dismiss Bling, Durbo and Drizners off the bat unless the others all crash out. Leaving Harper, Hindley and Haig. Hindley in particular will do a lot of work for Rogliç, so will be sacrificing his time more. Haig vs Harper could go either way but Harper has crashed out in the last two races he was in so I'm choosing to back Haig.

There's not a lot to choose from. None of the three are in particularly strong form. I doubt any crack the top 20 unfortunately.

 

[Over The Post]

Stage 1 Florence > Rimini

It’s rare for the Tour de France to start with more than 3,600 metres of climbing – in fact it’s never happened before! – and it’s also the first time that the race has visited the home city of Gino Bartali. The succession of hills in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna are likely to be the setting for an immediate and testing confrontation between the contenders for the title, particularly the climb into San Marino (7.1km at 4.8%), where the race will add a 13th name to its catalogue of foreign visits.

 

[Over The Post]

The climbing is earlier than normal, I think that's what Cav is getting at. I actually think this is better, sprint stages with some fatigue in the legs likely end up being a bit safer. Cav has only ever cared about his own interests.

End of the tour is two massive days in the mountains followed by an ITT on the last day. Going to be spectacular if they are fairly close at the top of the table.

 

[largebus]

No Sepp Kuss, a stronger field and coming back from that crash, it'll be easily his best victory yet if Jonas can defend the title.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Is it just me, or is Bridie O'Donnell too much of a try hard?


Not everything she says annoys me, but a decent chunk does.