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Tour de France 2019

Pathetic Shark said:
Now there is way too much bad vibes about his victory. If he wasn't a Brit, everyone would be hammering in the same vein as the other alleged dopers.
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Absolutely agree 100%.

My issue with the doping is the manner in which the general public have the belief that it's on cyclists that dope, they may wish to check out the amount of athletes who were subsequently banned after the 2012 Olympics.
 
murphthemog said:
Ok, final stage, no one can attack the lead.

Question, should it go straight to the Champs Elysees for the sprint?
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Last day of the tour is a parade and only becomes a race on the last lap on the Champs. The year Wiggins won it and lead the lead out for Cavindish for the win was magnificent, first time the Yellow jersey had lead a train for the final sprint on the final day, one of the best memories ever from the tour.
 
murphthemog said:
Ok, final stage, no one can attack the lead.

Question, should it go straight to the Champs Elysees for the sprint?
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I'd say no as the preamble gives the majority of the riders who have got this far the chance to chill, drink some champagne, build up some camaraderie and generally feel good about making it to the final day. Where as if you went straight into the sprints then there's no time for that.
 
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HappyHacker1 said:
Last day of the tour is a parade and only becomes a race on the last lap on the Champs. The year Wiggins won it and lead the lead out for Cavindish for the win was magnificent, first time the Yellow jersey had lead a train for the final sprint on the final day, one of the best memories ever from the tour.
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Good call, that is an abiding memory for me, Wiggins in yellow flying round the last lap trying to set it up for Cav.
 
The best final stage finish, and we all hate the guy, will have been Vinokurov and his solo escape with a few hundred to go. While the sprint trains just set themselves up around that tight S bend he just cut through it and put the hammer down.
Did I mention that we hate this guy?
 
upsidedown said:
That was a pretty impressive Winners speech :D
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He did well, he had best get used to making them as I can’t see anyone challenging him for a few years unless they have a flatter edition of Le Tour.

Very impressive performance 👏
 
It's actually quite remarkable that there hasn't been a French winner of this for so long.

Especially when you see what team Sky / Ineos have done and ultimately throwing resource at this with some high level coaching basically gives you a chance of winning every year - even with the 2nd and 3rd choice riders.

Surely a french sponsor would pony up to do similar and get an elite french team together, with some top international talent to support.

Seems that Alaphillipe could be the French man they can build around.
 
Grant85 said:
It's actually quite remarkable that there hasn't been a French winner of this for so long.

Especially when you see what team Sky / Ineos have done and ultimately throwing resource at this with some high level coaching basically gives you a chance of winning every year - even with the 2nd and 3rd choice riders.

Surely a french sponsor would pony up to do similar and get an elite french team together, with some top international talent to support.

Seems that Alaphillipe could be the French man they can build around.
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I'd say Pinot is a better bet. Alaphillipe is more of a one day rider who will struggle in the high mountains, where as Pinot has the potential to be a great climber. Although I suppose they could design a route to play into Alaphillpe's strengths, but I imagine that would also bring a lot of others into GC contention.
 
Bardet and Pinot are Frances best chance, both suffered tough luck in this years tour but no one said it was easy, as said above, Alaphillpe isn't really a GC contender despite being in yellow for so long and surprised everyone with his efforts and no surprise he was the combative prize for the TdF.
 
Hacker Khan said:
I'd say Pinot is a better bet. Alaphillipe is more of a one day rider who will struggle in the high mountains, where as Pinot has the potential to be a great climber. Although I suppose they could design a route to play into Alaphillpe's strengths, but I imagine that would also bring a lot of others into GC contention.
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I'm sure Alaphillipe is young enough to focus his training for a year or so to get leaner and better in the mountains, as opposed to having the strength for a one day race.

Whoever it is, they must be able to follow the Ineos methodology.

This is basically as follows;
* concentrate the best rider solely on the Tour de France, building everything around that. i.e. not putting a lot into the Giro
* build a team of top GC / mountains guys to support (this is where the ££££ comes in)
* don't focus on other competitions or stage victories during the race
* disciplined coaching and training regime focussing on the marginal gains

Obviously money is a factor, but cycling is hardly Premier League soccer i.e. it's millions a year, rather than billions in terms of budget. I'm sure the likes of Sky and Ineos are not putting sums that other big corporations couldn't afford if they wanted to really give their guys the most support.
 
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