NotAsFat

Nothing so sinister as that. Time trialing tends to attract "heftier" riders, who don't like hilly courses. TT organizers (not the grand tour organizers) pander to that preference, because they want a good turnout, and flat courses become the norm for TTs including TT stages in the grand tours.

Of course the Pro Tour teams can afford any damn bikes they want. But the norms for what constitutes a "proper" TT course get set at the grassroots level, where big, strong riders who don't like to climb, ride bikes that aren't built to climb well on courses that don't require them to climb.

Oh, please. TT has become all about the aerodynamics. I hate saying anything good about the UCI, but before they put their foot down about frame design and rider position, TT, pursuit, and 1-hour bikes had gone beyond the ridiculous and reached the utterly absurd. Google "Trek Y-foil", "superbike bicycle", and "Obree superman" if you have any doubts of it.

In my original post, I didn't advocate a mountain TT. I advocated a course with a mixture of terrain, with enough climbing to penalize riders who can't climb, enough flats to penalize riders who can't do anything but climb, and enough duration to create more tactical/strategic choices for the riders. An example would be Habas to Laruns, via the Côte de Barcus (cat 3) and the Col de Marie-Blanque (cat 1). Elevation profile can be seen here. Habas is at the 18.5k point on the profile, Laruns is at the 140k point.

The fundamental truth about TT is that the team with the biggest budget for wind tunnel testing has an advantage over the others. Even a scrawny little $h!t like Rasmussen could turn in a credible TT performance with enough coaching.

Only if you're trying to be obtuse.

And Obree built his first 1-hour bike for about £70. The fact that a few individuals can do well on a modest budget doesn't mean they wouldn't do better with a big budget.

MDcatV

Keep on bumpin' and sellin' not as fat, you're bound to find someone to agree with you ... I'm setting the over/under at page 5.

cat4ever

Define "best". I'm not getting it. Your time trial idea still favors the guy who doesn't blow up. Is that the best? No climbing skill, no sprinting skill, no FTP skill used in your idea. It's a STAGE race. Your idea would be a one day race at best. You get a flat or any other mechanical and the entire race is over.

NotAsFat

What no climbing skill? Did you read any of my posts other than the one you replied to? I not only stated that I wanted a hard climb or two, I even linked to an elevation profile of an example of what I wanted. It was basically the first half of the Stage 10 course of the 2000 Tour. It had a Cat 3, a Cat 1, and the descents down the hills. As for sprinting skill, the sprinter's primary skill is wheelsucking. I stood up and cheered when Cancellara caught the ba$tards with their bibs down in Stage 3, this year.

And who said the riders couldn't have a support car? If they have a mechanical, they can have a new wheel, or a whole friggin' bike from the team car. I said I wanted to get back to the good old days, not the bad old days, where a rider with a broken fork carried his bike to a blacksmith's shop, forged a replacement fork, and got a time penalty because the blacksmith's kid pumped the bellows.

To summarize, I wanted an individual time trial that was:

• Longer than normal, to give the riders more strategic/tactical choices.
• A mixture of flat, climbing, and descending, to punish riders who are weak in any of the three disciplines.
• Limited to "normal" road equipment, to make it about the riders, not the teams' wind tunnel budgets.

MDcatV

Well said, if you're trying to demonstrate being completely ignorant of bicycle racing.

cat4ever

Why do you hate TT equipment?

daytonian

Would the results be any different with a regular road bike? The best GC riders will still dominate.
If TTing was totally about aero bling shouldn't Sastre of done better on his P3 like Cancellara and Zabriskie.

NotAsFat

Name a top sprinter who could climb or time trial worth a damn. All they do is wheelsuck their betters until the last 200 meters then steal the race. ****'em.

Duke of Kent

TT: Tom Boonen, Thor Hushovd, Stuart O'Grady.

Climb: Bettini, Valverde (TT and Climb), and Freire (to a certain degree for El Gato).

MDcatV

Zabel. For that matter, there are a few climbs in races that "sprinters" win like milano san remo, flanders, and worlds every year, yet the winners of some of those races include the likes of Cipollini, Petacchi, Boonen, and Friere. Name a top climber that wins 10x/yr., can navigate a pack at 60 kph then increase their speed with azzes, elbows and barriers in their way at the end of a 200 km day in the saddle. Oh yeah, they're just wheelsuckers.

If you want to blab on about bike racing, spend your time learning about the sport, or go out and race your bike, instead of trolling on internet forums. There's more to it than the tour de france.

NotAsFat

I don't hate TT equipment. I just think it's become too specialized (and too expensive). The typical TT bike doesn't climb worth a damn. It's not particularly good for descending, either. TT course layouts pander to this specialization, which breeds even more specialization.

The cost of top-level gear and setup is also ridiculous, in spite of UCI efforts to curb the worst of the excesses.

Time trialing, over a mixed-terrain course, can probably tell us more about who's really good than any other cycling discipline. But TTs rarely get run on mixed terrain anymore. They're flat, flat, flat, and if organizers slip up and put a Cat 4 climb in the course, they make sure to cut the length of the course to make up for it.

I'm really not surprised that time trialists hate my idea. Most of them get into time trialing because they don't like climbing. Hell, I don't like climbing, either, but I recognize that it's an essential skill of a well-rounded rider.

cat4ever

And you hate sprinters too from the looks of it.

And we're STILL talking about STAGE racing, not a ONE DAY MIXED TERRAIN TIME TRIAL, as in the subject line. Unless "TDF" means something other than what I think it does.

As for time trials being flat, look to the climb at the end of the Tour of California's prologue, TT's in the Tour of Georgia, and several of the past TT's from the Vuelta and stage 16 of 2004's TDF (Tour De France). I believe that one wasn't flat. That what I can think of off the top of my head with little thought. I'm sure I can dig up a load of non "flat flat flat" time trials, but I have work to do.

NotAsFat

2007 TDF Results
Stage 13 (54 km, 166 starters): 141st place - Thor Hushovd +10:18, 157th place - Tom Boonen +11:08.
Stage 19 (55.5km, 141 starters): 123rd place - Thor Hushovd +9:42, 131st place - Tom Boonen +9:56.

Valverde's a GC man who can sprint when he has to, but he's not in Boonen's or Hushovd's class as a sprinter. He might win the occasional pack sprint, but few people would bet on him to do so.

Duke of Kent

No, Valverde would be a hilly Classics guy who is trying to turn himself into a GC rider. As someone who took 3rd at the 2006 WC, that's not too bad.

2006 TdF Prologue:

1 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Crédit Agricole 8.17.00 (51.43 km/h)
2 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel 0.00.73
3 David Zabriskie (USA) Team CSC 0.04.21
4 Sebastian Lang (Ger) Gerolsteiner 0.04.80
5 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears 0.04.92
6 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Team CSC 0.04.93
7 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile 0.06.30
8 Paolo Savoldelli (Ita) Discovery Channel 0.08.02
9 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak 0.09.26
10 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears 0.10.09
11 Serguei Gonchar (Ukr) T-Mobile 0.10.11
12 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick-Step-Innergetic 0.11.21

Big Maggie: 2004 Paris Roubaix

1 Magnus Backstedt (Swe) Alessio-Bianchi 6.40.26 (39.11 km/h)
2 Tristan Hoffman (Ned) Team CSC
3 Roger Hammond (GBr) MrBookmaker-Palmans
4 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Fassa Bortolo
5 Johan Museeuw (Bel) Quick.Step-Davitamon 0.17
6 Peter Van Petegem (Bel) Lotto-Domo
7 Leon Van Bon (Ned) Lotto-Domo 0.29
8 George Hincapie (USA) US Postal Service presented by Berry Floor
9 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick.Step-Davitamon


Tom Boonen: 2005 Paris Roubaix
1 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick Step 6.29.38 (39.88 km/h)
2 George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team
3 Juan Antonio Flecha (Spa) Fassa Bortolo
4 Magnus Backstedt (Swe) Liquigas-Bianchi 1.09
5 Lars Michaelsen (Den) Team CSC 2.43
6 Leon Van Bon (Ned) Davitamon-Lotto 3.49



Stuart O'Grady: 2007 Paris Roubaix
1 Stuart O’Grady (Aus) Team CSC 6.09.07 (42.181 km/h)
2 Juan Antonio Flecha (Spa) Rabobank 0.52
3 Steffen Wesemann (Swi) Team Wiesenhof Felt
4 Björn Leukemans (Bel) Predictor-Lotto 0.53
5 Roberto Petito (Ita) Liquigas 0.55
6 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quickstep-Innergetic

asgelle

What's your point? In those stages, neither was in a position to win the stage nor did they care about time for the GC.They made the time cut and saved their energy. All in all, a pretty successful day.

Duke of Kent

Agreed. They CAN if they want to, but why waste energy and sacrifice their chances of getting a stage win, and getting to Paris? That's not what they are paid to do.

Voodoo76

Exactly, if they did anything other than just make the time cut they would be letting thier team down. Have to save it for the days when the whole team is suffering to put them in position. \\

NotAsFat, contrary to the modern Lance Armstrong view there is more to Professional cycling than the TDF. The Sprinters are a side show and know it. Cut em loose and any one of these riders is very talented in his own right.

NotAsFat

I'll confess that I don't care much for sprinters. They sit in the pack, letting their teammates do the work of chasing down breakaways, and only in the last 200 meters to they finally come out to snatch the glory.

I don't see what's so radical about my suggestion. Yes, it's longer than the norm, and yes, it's hillier, but so what? If one guy manages to ride away and pick up 4-5 min on the field (which I think is unlikely), then every other GC contender in the field is going to spend the rest of the tour attacking him. He'll have very little help, other than his own teammates, chasing down the breaks, especially in the mountains. He'll either defend his lead, or he won't

As to the nature of TdF time trials, I did a little digging, and this is what I found:
1998199920002001200220032004200520062007To summarize the last 10 years of TdF time trials, we've had two mountain TTs, two Cat 3 climbs, and two Cat 4 climbs. That's six, count'em, six, categorized climbs in ten years. Four years (2000, 2003, 2005, 2006) had NO categorized climb. No TT (actually, no YEAR) had more than one categorized climb, and with the exception of the two mountain TTs, no TT had a climb more difficult than Cat 3.

I think the above numbers prove my point that the TdF TTs are too specialized, where climbing is concerned. You're either doing a mountain TT, which is ALL climbing, or a flat TT, with practically no climbing. I think it would be an improvement if TdF TTs had a more varied mix of climbing, descending, and flat terrain.

roadgator

You seem to be missing that the TT's are largely there to balance out the climbing stages. It doesnt matter weather it comes in a TT or a road stage, the climbers will get their time on the hills. Its not like they don't climb in the TDF, its just not in TT's.

The tour organizers like to play to the extremes, and that makes it more interesting--not to mention gives a variety of riders (not just GC men) the chance to win, which is VERY important to sponsors. The day's stage will either be all about climbing, or all about flat speed (generalizing) but over the coarse of the entire tour, the best rider WILL have to excel at all the disciplines you mentioned.

What would be the point of distilling an entire tour into one day? If that is what you are looking for, watch a spring classic. If you want the drama to unfold over 3 weeks, with lots of ups and downs (not just on the TT course) watch the TDF. No one stage is decisive, but every stage counts.

Bob Dopolina 

+1.

That was their job that day. Avoid the time cut and recover. GC is not at issue.

NotAsFat

That's a good point, possibly the first rational argument I've seen in this thread. Although the practice of running mountain TTs weakens the argument that it's a conscious decision.

If they substituted a mixed-terrain TT for, say the last flat stage before the mountains, it would preserve the current flat/mountain balance and would only penalize those riders who were too specialized to be true GC contenders.

But the fact is that the GC men usually don't win stages anymore. The Tour has become like a big chess game, with GC men satisfied to just put a few seconds into their competitors. If he didn't wear a bright, yellow jersey, you'd have a hell of a time picking the GC leader out of the peloton (and if he rode for Saunier-Duval, you'd never find the SOB ). Seriously, we got stages for the sprinters. We got stages for the climbers. We got stages for the fat boys who can't climb. We ought to have a stage for the all-rounders, too.

It would force the GC riders to drop the chess game and ride more aggressively. Landis didn't go on his amazing ride to Morzine to show what a great rider he was, he did it because he was desperate to get back in the race after cracking the day before. A little less calculation and a little more desperation would make for a much more dramatic tour.

Duke of Kent

Apparently you missed the last TT in most the GT's for the last 5 years or so. Damn near everyone at the top was a GC guy.

Gee, I wonder how that works?

cat4ever

**********?? something like 5 of the last 6 stages of the tour in 2007 were won by "cg men".

The you have Lance who won a stage or two in his day....

Duke of Kent

Methinks the OP has watched very few bike races, probably does not race himself, and those two add up to produce his profound lack of bicycle racing tactical knowledge.

Keith99

Anymore? Try to name one Tour winner who won a non-mountian, non-TT stage that isn't named Eddy or Bernard since WW II.

Wouldn't surprise me if those 2 have more Non-Mountian non-TT stage wins since WW II than all other Tour winners (for the years they won). There are a few guys who were G.C. contenders who picked up flat stage wins when trying to get back time, but never got back enough to win.