We can’t wait for next year 👊 How do you like the route of @letour? #borahansgrohe #TDF2024
"That's what the Classics are for" - BORA - hansgrohe's Ralph Denk joins in criticism of gravel on 2024 Tour de France route but remains hopeful of taking overall victory
CyclingThursday, 26 October 2023 at 12:00
BORA - hansgrohe will be expecting to be right in the mix for the Maillot Jaune at the 2024 Tour de France following their acquisition of Primoz Roglic. With the route and profiles now revealed, there are points of contention but overall, team boss Ralph Denk is quite pleased.
"It's well known that I'm not a fan of pavement and gravel sectors in Grand Tours," the 49-year-old is quoted by his team following the announcement that stage 9 will include sectors on gravel. "In my opinion, that's what the classics are for."
Denk isn't the only team boss to criticise the introduction of gravel. Both Jumbo-Visma boss Richard Plugge and Soudal - Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere have also been vocal in their displeasure at having a gravel stage in the Tour de France, but race director Christian Prudhomme quickly responded in kind, saying; "All stages have their place in the Tour de France."
“At first glance it is a balanced Tour de France. It is exciting for the fans that the GC favorites have to show themselves in the first week and the decision about yellow will probably only be made in the final time trial,” Denk continues, glancing at the remainder of the race profile. “The two time trials and many meters in altitude meet our plans. We are now analyzing the route in detail, comparing it with the Giro and making our plans.”
claps 4visitors 539
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Mas... Challenge Pogi!!! Ha Ha Haabstractengineer20-12-2024
- They (USA Cycling) raised their permit fee from from $95 to $125 and the minimum insurance charge went from $300 to $400.JoeyB20-12-2024
- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024