reef58

When you have people complaining that Wiggins is not a pure climber I am not sure what else to say.

chasm54

Had you paid attention while you were watching your twenty Tours, you'd have noticed that it is comparatively rare for them to be won by "pure climbers". Indurain, Armstrong, Hinault, Merckx, Anquetil, LeMond - none of them were "pure climbers". Almost all of them, with the partial exception of Merckx who could win under any circumstances, won by time-trialling better than anyone and being good enough in the mountains to defend their lead.

As for sprinters leading over mountain stages, Freddie Maertens won the Vuelta while winning a majority of the stages. He was a sprinter, and there are no shortage of climbs in that GT. Sean Kelly won it also. Neither Sagan nor Boasson Hagen is a pure sprinter, it is quite clear that they can climb pretty well.

You don't give much sign of knowing what you are talking about, however many Tours you have watched.

cincipeddler

No one is complaining?? Wiggins himself would readily admit he is not a mountain goat.....he has a big engine and is similar to big mig, another rider much maligned during his tour career as sucking the life out of a race!

I don't see where i claimed pure climbers won the race????......the reference was about the fact that not even pure climbers made any noticeable sustained attack!

I don't pretend to be a tour expert, i watch it as i enjoy it very much, after all it is a spectator sport, and this year it was disappointing, waiting for something to happen and it never did.....i always push for mates and work colleagues to tune in and last year got a few people hooked as it was dramatic all the way......this year nobody saw the appeal and took the piss out of me for watching it!

boze

I have to agree with Cincipeddler: the mountains were consistently disappointing. Nobody could threaten and Sky had no reason to do anything crazy otherwise. I'm sure it was tactical on Sky's part and there's nothing wrong with that. And every Tour is so many races in one there's always plenty of entertainment throughout. Still, nobody could argue this was a competitive Tour for GC. It would have been considerably more dramatic if there was a seesaw between a stronger climber on a rival team and Wiggo working to cut his loses until the next TT.

I do love Wiggins though. I'm glad he got his no matter how it shook out.

Also, get off Cincipeddler's back. If some folks thought the mountains provided enough drama then that's fine too. He's obviously not some no-account just because he feels otherwise. We watched maybe two instances over three weeks where somebody made even the most fleeting GC-related attack on a climb and it was always over before they event went to commercial. Wiggins himself said, "What attack?" at one point and it was about the defending champ.

seypat

Congratulations to Wiggens and Sky! I think Sky's dominance bodes well for next year's season. The other teams will look at Sky's organization, preparation and execution in this GT and see how they can improve their own teams. My lasting image from this TDF will be Wiggens motoring along with 3 or 4 Sky guys in front of him, on every stage, in every situation, totally dominating the other teams. If another team would try to do anything, I mean anything, the Sky train would roll over them. Somewhat boring to watch, but amazing never the less.

cincipeddler

I think that is exactly the point..........it was complete dominance from sky and VERY professional............sadly it made for poor viewing, thankfully peter sagan introduced himself to the world!

Ken Brown

I have been following the tour for almost 30 years and this final week has the least excitement I can remember. This is no-one's fault, Sky is simply too good. Hats off to them.

I can't help but let my nationalistic bias come through and speculate that we might have had a good competition between Nibali and Hesjedal for third had Ryder remained healthy. Unfortunately we will never know.

nun

I heard an interesting bit on BBC radio last night that claimed the peak power data they had from this tour was 10% less than the the late 90s and early 2000s. I think this was a weaker tour than most remember if you were to just consider power output, but it was fascinating to watch. The reason there weren't big mountain time gaps between GC contenders was that they were all riding as hard as they could, at least until Cadel got sick.

Andy_K 

There were a lot of memorable moments in this year's tour. There just did happen to be a good GC battle in the mountains among them. Personally, I found Evans' win last year every bit as boring as Wiggins' win this year. I'd like to see the winner ride away from everyone in the mountains, but that isn't always going to happen.

seanthebear

Power's down because no one's doping. Wiggins himself revealed that the Sky train runs at 450 watts up those hills. Anyone wanting to attack off the front and stay off needs to hit 500 watts and maintain it for 20 minutes. Not going to happen unless you're juicing.