Tour de France 2016

re: green jersey. This conversation seems to be always taking place as people try to find the right balance between overall rider and best sprinter. Keeping it tilted towards the former makes a much more interesting race. Remember when Thor attacked the day after Cavendish was relegated to make it clear he was the rightful jersey winner? That was awesome.

Yup, Watching 80kg Thor on his solo Alpine escape in the green jersey was great - and funny af. The peloton obviously had it in for Cav that year, and just let Thor go.

As for Sagan, sure he'll always pick up points going in breaks and on lumpier stages when the pure sprinters are nowhere, so it's hard to see him challenged any time soon.

Who knows, maybe Gaviria can at least make it a contest?

Thor never wore the Points jersey that year, but yeah was an awesome stage watching him scalp the 2 French breakaway riders.

Does anyone even watch the intermediate sprints?

2009, Thor wore the green jersey for almost all the second half of the race, including his lone break in the Alps, a couple of stages after Cav's relegation. His mad fast descent of the Aubisque to catch and pass Moncoutie and Roy was 2011.

(Not sure if I've misread your reply or if you misread mine, but either way, no biggie!)

Loads of wishful thinking on this thread today, I'm glad I missed it so I didn't have to argue with all of you at once.

Anyone who thinks a salary cap is possible in pro cycling should be laughed out the door. They can't agree on a unified race calendar, so how on earth could they ever agree on major financial changes?

Sharing tv revenue? Have none of you read this - http://inrng.com/2014/01/problem-revenue-sharing/ ? There is no revenue to share is the bottom line, the best case is approx €2 million a year per team, but even that figure is a best guess and likely inaccurate.

The banning race radio fallacy? First off, rider safety is paramount, so unless you're prepared to accept more injuries and even deaths, the team directors should be able to warn riders of approaching hazards and race radio is the only viable way of doing that. The race organisation also need a communication channel to team directors and riders. On the tactical front, all the team director can see of most of the race is, if they are lucky, the arse end of the peloton and a tiny tv feed, with a delay of around 30 seconds, on the dashboard. So if someone attacks, the riders have to make a judgement call there and then, not wait for the director to realise what's going on half a minute later.

Banning powermeters isn't going to change anything - do you seriously think Froome checked his powermeter when he went after Bodnar and Sagan on the crosswind stage to Montpelier? He saw a move and made a split second judgement to react to it (and well before his DS even knew what was going on), he didn't look at his computer and think, "I'm doing 450 watts now, will probably have to do 600-700 for 30 seconds to get across, hmmm, what shall I do?" He just went. On the stage that Bardet won, Poels PM wasn't displaying his watts, but he still rode a tempo that was right for Froome and hard enough to discourage anyone else from attacking. Riders at this level know what their threshold feels like and can hold it for minutes without recourse to a PM.

Reducing the teams might weaken the stronger teams a bit, but if Sky went to the Tour with a team of Froome, Thomas, Rowe, Stannard, Peols, Landa, Nieve and Henao, they'd still be formidable (and most of you are trying to guess who I've left out).

The fundamental problem with the GC battle at the Tour is one of risk, do you risk losing the race in the hope of improving your GC position, or do you sit tight and react to opportunities should they arise? The teams who are looking to win the Tour, and realistically, only three teams started the Tour with a genuine ambition to win, might be prepared to risk all to win, but the teams filling the other top ten positions are, generally, happy to hold on to what they have. To make the sport 'more exciting' then that is what you have to change.

BAANG!

Bit disappointed you didn't address my unicycle proposal

I don't see what the problem with the Tour is. Froome won, he's on the wealthiest, strongest team but he's also, obviously, exceptionally talented and showed that he can improvise as well as anyone. Bardet was second, proving that a good rider from a smaller team can still do well. And Quintana was third because he didn't have the form and no amount of team work could change that. Porte didn't lose out because of a poor team, he was unlucky, mostly. Yates showed his talent and also that three week races are hard to win because, er, they are three weeks long. Much like Chavez in the Giro.
The green jersey went to the best all rounder, by some margin, and the polka dots has rarely rewarded the actual best climber, this year being no exception, but it wasn't a bad tussle in the end.
Dimension Data were successful despite their budget. They were clever enough to believe in Cavendish and to sign Cummings and Boasson Hagen, neither of who did as well at richer squads.
The Tour always starts out with people talking about five or six riders who might win it and after a week there are always only a couple left in with a chance. And it's harder than any other race. There was an American rider during the Giro saying he would rather do a stage with five mountains there than any mountain stage in the Tour. Why don't riders attack more? They are knackered and they are up against the best teams having brought the best riders in the best form.
The Tour is always disappointing and it's always brilliant.

I think we can all agree that Millar should not be allowed to wear hats.

I misread yours! Or to put it another way, we were both right....

Unless he's on a unicycle.

As for the green jersey, it should go to the most consistent daily finisher. Points should only be awarded for the competition at the finish line, so scrap the intermediate sprints or have a separate competition for them, and give equal points for all stages.

But, frankly, it and the polka dot jersey are sideshows to the main event.

Bring back the combined jersey...

^ yes! well funky design-wise too

@andyp #2656 & @WillMelling #2659 well put! conservatism is still the strongest force in the cycling world. enjoyed the heck out of this TdF though.

When I was a bairn and first started watching the Tour, I thought the green jersey was for the winner of the previous day's stage. I still maintain there ought to be a jersey for that.

Agree with AndyP about intermediate sprints, but Sagan would still win. On the flat/lumpy stages he never finished outside of the top 3 to my knowledge. Phenomenal.

Be interesting to know what would happen in previous years if the intermediate sprints were dropped - who would have won? Damo, you're on holiday.

A large budget for top riders does not necessarily make a top team.....England football team are a collection of good individual players, but not a good team?

Back in the year that they changed the points system to give Cav a chance to win the jersey, he still had to go out and do the work hunting for every point that he could get. The only person I see doing that now is Sagan. He isn't winning the green jersey simply because he's the best rider in the peleton, he's winning it because he's working for it in a way that no one else is interested in.

Cav could easily give Sagan some competition for the jersey as could a number of other riders in the peleton. There's no guarantee they could beat him but it's certainly possible. But they would have to be ready and focussed on moping up every point available. It's difficult to counter all the points Sagan can get from being in a breakaway but not impossible. No half-hearted rolling out the front of a peleton when there's still a few mid-stage sprint points to be mopped up. No giving up on a stage finish because you got boxed out of the sprint and rolling in somewhere between 15th and 20th.

Sagan isn't unassailble. But if you want to challenge him for the green jersey, you will need to play his game and work as hard as he does. I can understand why rider's don't though. It would be a lot of effort for a risk of coming in the second place you could probably get just by focussing on stage wins. I guess no other rider wants it enough.

Very true, but the nature of the pure sprinter is to stay out of the wind, and only appear in the last few kilos. Sagan is an entirely different beast, there is no way Cav could go toe to toe with him day after day and still be fresh enough to win the stage. Someone like Degenkolb would be a more obvious foil for Sagan, someone who shares a few of his attributes, or maybe Alaphillipe? The French press have been describing him as the new Sagan.

And Sagan gets into the break to pick up sprint points on Mountain stages, literally no way you'd see a pure sprinter do that, apart from maybe Greipel who seems to like it, certainly in Flanders anyway.

Really, think about it. Sagan. Penultimate mountain stage: pulling (alone, no-one took over) about 70k to help get Kreuziger into the top-10, some climbers in the group even struggling and having to let go... The next day, Champs Élysées: almost beats André Greipel in a sprint. I don't see anyone else doing that, to be frank. Who can you think of?

Hinault, Merckx.

Alaphillipe isn't in the same league as Sagan.

Tempting. Where is the data?

Well certainly not yet anyway, but he can climb, he can sprint, he's got great hair and an eye for the ladies.