Maybe if there is a pile of burning tires in the infield the Nascar fans will smell it and be attracted.

Renshaw tried it. They threw him out.

:lol:

Two TT's - 38k and 52k.

LOL. Schleck is hosed. He starts the race 4 minutes down.

But... look at how many fans partied and got tanked for days on that mountain stage this year?

and we all know it's easier to get drunk at higher altitude, I'm a fan of mountain stages. Flat stages are boring

I'm a much bigger fan of the sprints. No fun watching guys totter up hill for an hour as the camera cuts back and forth and you can't keep it straight. A few exceptions, of course - Andy's fly away in the Tour and the Cobo/Froome duel up that radio tower hill in the Vuelta were both excellent. But give me a gorgeous perfectly-executed HTC sprint train any day. [sob!]

But then again on the sprint stages I figure out when it's likely to end and try to start watching with like 10k to go - so I miss most of the ads they want me to see.

A couple of questions for the sprint fans:

1. Since some (all?) of you skip the first couple of hours of racing do you really care if they ride them? With modern radios and team strategies early break aways just don't succeed so what if they just all started say 25K out, let their trains line up and jockey for control and then went for the finish?

2. It seems to me that the main contest of the TDF is still the general classification. Sprint finish stages tend to not effect overall standings much if at all. Doesn't it make sense to have more mountain and ITT stages compared to sprints? I'm not talking about eliminating sprints all together or anything, but 4 mountain finishes, ITTs and the prologue seems a little light to decide the GC.

ever since the mountain stages were added in the 1930s, the mountains are where the race has been won almost every single year without fault. it's because the margin of victory (or defeat) can be so much greater than any flat stage.

when you see a top rider identified as an 'all arounder' what it means is that they can climb mountains AND do at least one other thing well.

the action doesn't happen fast when climbing the mountains, but they are telling moments when a key rider breaks away or bonks. sprinting has a lot more of a immediate action feel, that's why you have sprint points through the stage.

my favorite stages are when someone who isn't a climber manages to win a mountain stage. invariably, that rider is a great descender.

"Thiiiisss is the daaawwning of a braaaaaave new world!"

Let's face it, folks. The 2011 was STACKED to give Andy the best possible chance of winning. On balance, it contained more mountaintop finishes and fewer miles of solo TT than the TdF has ever seen. Sadly for Andy, he blew it. I doubt we will, in Andy's career, see another TdF skewed that far toward pure climbers who lack TT skills.

It sounds as if the 2012 route is a return to the normal balance - perhaps still toward the climbing end of the spectrum, historically speaking.

The only way to make flat stages interesting is to eliminate race radios and time checks (yes, even the motorcycle boards). I don't see that happening.