steam master

I was very disappointed. It was boring.

Jed19

Yeah, it was not that great. Especially when the most talented climber of his generation (Contador) was not there.

steam master

you are right. i dont like contador but he was exciting to watch and was probably the best rider in the tour.

correct me if i am wrong, but it looked like wiggins teamate could have beaten him but slowed down instead.

Jed19

Yeah, Froome could have put some time on Wiggins. How much time, and whether he could have won the whole GC shebang is another kettle of fish altogether, as Wiggins is a much better time-trialist than Froome. The truth though, is that Froome was hired as Wiggo's domestique, and he stuck to his job description.

Bacciagalupe

And you're basing this on how many years of TdF history? 2 or 3?

Plenty of TdF's have been won with a strong team and conservative tactics, notably Anquetil's 5 wins. It happens because in many cases, a strong team conservative tactics are a good way to win. Kinda hard to argue with success.

Plus, the great thing about the Tour is that it involves much more than just the GC. E.g. this year you had France taking 5 stages, lots of new talent (Sagan, TVG, Pinot), a fairly intense Polka Dot competition....

eja_ bottecchia

Except for Voeckler's facial expressions, Gilbert scaring the $hit out of a little girl, and TeeJay winning the white jersey, yes a very boring TdF.

Snoozeville...(yet I miss it).

eja_ bottecchia

^^^this^^^

Laggard

Then you are a boring person.

When you have more than two tdfs under your belt you will learn to enjoy and appreciate all aspects of racing, not just the GC.

Athens80

Watch it again and look out for Cancellara, Cavendish, Fedrigo, Froome, Goss, Greipel, Kessiakoff, Millar, Morkov, Pinot, Rolland, Sagan, Sanchez, Sorensen, van Garderen, Voeckler, etc. etc.

There's plenty to watch beyond the GC leader board.

zonatandem

If you call it 'most boring', then why did you watch it?

cthenn

Of the ones I've watched, yes. Really, it's hard to compare to 2011, one of the best I've seen, but overall, I'm already starting to forget what happened from day to day. Apart from Voeckler a few days, and Froome's hilarity on Stage 17(?) when he kept looking back and motioning for Mr. Wiggo, there wasn't much to take away from this years edition. Oh yeah, I remember Greipel kicking Crashy Farrar in the head and then winning a stage, that was pretty awesome.

downtube42

+1

Alekhine

Ya, there are other things besides the GC to spice up a tour, absolutely. I think people are making the mistake of not indicating that they are talking about the GC comp exclusively, instead saying it was a boring tour, and as people are correctly pointing out, it just wasn't. I found Voeckler's and Sagan's stories this year very exciting. I don't see any reason why the question of this year's GC being something of a Bore de France is particularly illegitimate though. It's okay to say it. I've been enjoying this event and others longer than many here have been alive, and yes, I was less than enthusiastic about the 2012 GC comp as it unfolded.

That said, to answer the OP, sure - there are other tours in history that compete with it and even supersede this year's GC in the snooze department. To some extent any GC comp where the first place finisher thrashes the field from beginning to end is in its way boring or at least not so suspense-filled, and there have been plenty of those, including probably the most celebrated tour ever with Merckx in '69. The difference in that case is that Merckx was such an exciting rider and went all out and blasted the field on more than just the TTs (and of course won everything there was to win). It's just exciting to watch a superman do his thing. People look forward to interesting mountain stages and GC contender stage wins that aren't TTs. That's just the way it is. The desire to root for the underdog is an old one too, so people want to see a visible struggle between worthy adversaries, preferably with some seesaw component in the standings or even made-up time on a stage over the leader, even if the underdog loses in the end. Added to this, just about any tour where some current top class rider(s) are absent can be disappointing for some before it even begins, or tours where a big name drops out mid-ride, etc (Ocana!). Lots of variables, and this year's tour had a few of the negative ones in the same hat. Funny enough, I found it exciting in those moments this year where Evans bonked in the mountains.

Would disagree to a slight extent with Bacciagalupe about all 5 of Anquetil's wins, though his characterization of Anquetil is pretty true. He was primarily a conservative rider whose godlike TT skills did most of the trick, not unlike Wiggo. But it's not just the winner and his team tactics that makes it boring or not. It takes two (sometimes more) to tango, and it feels like people are disappointed with Wiggins'/SKY's competition more than anything. Conservative GC riders and TT specialists who are workmanlike in the climbs still have to deal with not-so-conservative competitors, particularly in the mountains, and those competitors can make for a wildly exciting GC comp no matter how boring the winner's tactics are - or even better - the comp can make that conservative rider drop his conservatism (and his support). The 1964 tour was especially dramatic with regard to what people want out of a good GC, and the duel between Anquetil and Poulidor on the Puy de Dome absolutely dwarfed anything in this year's GC comp suspense-wise. To be fair, it dwarfed most GC stories and was a very close race, with Anquetil not taking the maillot jaune until very late and only beating Poulidor by 55 seconds overall. I have a photo of those two practically leaning on each other on the Puy with looks on their faces that are pretty similar to death - that's exciting. The 1961 tour (Anquetil) on the other hand was even more of a total whitewash than this one.

steam master

I remember at least 3 stages where the "favorite" sprinters jumped and then quit after about 2 seconds. It really seemed to be that they didnt care and didnt want to put in the effort.

There didnt seem to be any competition in the mountains.

colombo357

Nobody cares. Nobody.

steam master

says the person who took the time to respond.

cbuddy2005

I don't know if I would say boring, but it was lacking something this year IMO.
Lacking a truly dangerous attacker from the GC--i.e Contador. Yes, there were attacks, but not much got away. Yes, Sky was dominant, too dominant for a very interesting tour? To me it seemed I was watching a lot of tour, waiting for the action to come that really didn't materialize. I always like to see attacks, especially in the mountains. Did this year seem less mountainous? Maybe some changes in years to come? No radios and smaller teams maybe. 9 guys a team seems like a lot. Maybe limit the number in the field/team members on certain days--maybe this will change the look of the tour and limit some of the crashes. I dunno, maybe all the tv coverage has me wanting to see action all the time. Maybe I have forgotten how tough each stage is and it can't be all action. Also seems there are limited tactics in this kind of a race and everybody knows them so breaks don't get away often enough?

daveF

The 2012 TDF was not boring. However, this thread is.

Which do you prefer? A relatively clean peloton or each rider bringing 4 bags of blood to the start? Maybe 2006 with Floyd falling apart & losing huge amounts of time one day. A transfusion for recovery that evening & the next day riding away from the peloton all day.

colombo357

Irrelevant.

I would agree that the GC aspect of the tour wasn't particularly suspenseful, but nobody cares about how "disappointed" you are. The tour isn't about you, contrary to what you'd like to believe.

canam73

So then what was the most boring TdF? Because even if none were truly boring, one of them was still 'the most boring'.

Maybe not ever, because most of us weren't alive for the early ones, but say of the last 30 years.

steam master

I tend to disagree. I am the fan, the consumer, the reason the tour is put on. I pay for the tour. If fans are disappointed they watch less and then races go away and people like you cry because they cant ooogle their favorite men in spandex. Think of Georgia and Colorado and many others.

Now dont tell me no one cares about me and what I think because I AM IMPORTANT.

tagaproject6

Midnight Biker? Is that you?

steam master

I usually go to bed around 9:30

DiabloScott

I think it was one of the Indurain years... I can't remember which because they all seemed the same. Also, Indurain was the most boring winner.

Keith99

Bolding mine.

I agree. Just want ot emphasise that if one was looking only at teh GC race 69 was over pretty early. But Merckx was the unAnquetil. He was not satisfied to defend, he attacked. I'm pretty sure that by midway through stage 17 everything was settled (save mathematically or Eddy crashing out) but it was the end of the stage that became the thing of legends.

There was plenty in this years tour. Plenty to go with on how Green would play out until fairly late. With a not a pure sprinter in the mix there wa a lot of interesting tactical decistion made. (and one could anticipate just where the possibilities were). But these went unnoticed until after the fact.