Campeonato de los Andes 2012

[Alkworld]

Tour completed, hopefully you like it

Ok, short summary:
1) nice up-and-down stage
2) another nice up-and-down stage
3) difficult TTT
4) easy hill sprint stage
5) easy hill sprint stage
6) medium sized hills and some flat afterwards - I always like those
7) easy hill sprint stage
8) long flat, easy mountain, tough mountain (a bit too simple, usually easy win for the best moutain rider)
9) easy hill sprint stage
10) extremely tough mountain and quite a lot of flat afterwards - interesting stage
11) easy hill sprint stage
12) long flat, tough mountain
13) easy hill sprint stage
14) The TT looked easier when I first saw it. If it's one of those 100%-all-the-way TTs, then it's boring, if the energy is not sufficient, it may get really interesting.

I definitely like the beginning from 1-3. But then IMO there are too many of those typical hill sprinter (or classic sprinter) stages in the middle, I miss one or two really difficult mountain stages (sth like 1 or 2, maybe even a bit harder), also some more back-to-back moutain stages, even a real flat stage instead of a hill sprinter stage. It also looks a bit too easy for riders with bad regeneration, as there are two kind of flat stages after the TTT (I like the TTT itself) and the TT would be the final stage. And almost all difficult stages are followed by a simple one. The riders need to suffer more!

[NoPikouze]

I also think there are too many stages with hills but a flat final part ("hillsprinter") and not enough stages with multiples mountains. Maybe switch one and it would be better.

[Robyklebt]

I criticize too

First Alks criticisms, I like to criticise that too.
- Not many hard stages one after another. Actually, that can be good. That's something Aix's Andes tought me last year. I thought, bah.... never 2 hard days in a row, always a break.. blaaa. BUT, IMO it made the racing more interesting. Those stages were all raced harder than if there had been another hard stage after. So.... changed my mind a bit on that one. hard-easy-hard-easy can turn out to be quite good. Agree that at least once for something like the Andes there should be: hard-hard. or even hard-hard-hard. But... hard-soft-hard works out well too!
- The TTT: I don't actually like that one too much. After 2 fairly hard days, IMO not good. It just kills the 2 first days a bit. And the TT in this length might turn out to be too decisive again, like it was in 2011


No my route criticism:

1 hard stage. Is the first climb El Escobero? Where exactly do we go out of Medellin? But good.
2 Hard stage
3 TTT, that I don't especially like in this position and with that difficulty (a team like mine will do well, Trapani-Ramirez (dammit, if he's not dropped downhill, grr)-new climber (hopefully)-Legrand-Sekiguchi to finish, they will make a good time with the climb at the end. But like in 2011 if will just eliminate newer teams that simply can't bring a team like I, or other oldies can, from the GC fight mostly. Becaues we "big teamers" then most probably can control it as well.
4 Easy stage, don't mind that one
5 Easy stage again, even easier.. .so ok, while 4 is for stronger riders, stronger hill sprinters, nr 5 can be for a beat weaker guys too. For example 4is for r/Quick, 5 can be for Alighieri. (Well... the one now, not the one in 2,5 months..)
6 Hard stage with a flat finish. What medium size hills does Alk see? 11km a 8,7 the last climb.. .the one before 21 km a 8,3%... medium size, pff. Excellent. And especially with an easy day before, an easy day after, it can be an interesting attacking GC stage.
7 Easy stage, can almost be one for flattish sprinters... ok, they're not there, but a 50-55 sprinter with a team could hope to come back there. After 6 like it.
8 Hard finish: Have to admit don't like that one tooo much. Too hard the finish, with the RSF problem at high percentages where siebs become very strange... mmh.. ignoring that problem, ok, why not.
9 Easy stage: Here agree, after an easy one like 8, that will be hard for the last km, no need to put a softie like this. Haaard one much nicer. Oh, ok, the one before is murderous for helpers (but not for leaders..)
10 Ultrahard mountains.. what is the average there... for me again too unrealistically hard somehow, but ok. will allow the same thing as on 6 of course. Good from that point of view
11 Easy down to the coast with some hills. Ok
12 Back up, hard mountain day. Hate it .Not because the stage is bad, but because it could have been much better IMO. Keep going! Up to the road that passes north of Chimborazo, or even down to Ambato, why not a downhill arrival for once?
13 Easy stage: And have to admit, don't get this one at all.
14 TT. IT's a circuit. horror. the riders will have to start in "staffeln" Takes a long time. HArd circuit though, like that part

So... somehow like the first half better.
What's missing IMO is:
At least one downhill finish.The one on stage 9 doesn't really count
A second series of harder stages (one is there 1-3, a second one probably not bad either)
The good old fantastic early Andes stages., The one that starts at sea level or almost, and goes up up up up.then on top some flat... or maybe some more up and down, .. Tamuco-Tuquerres would have been one for example.
No Sogamoso (FABIO PARRA) actually no Boyaca at all
No Fusagasuga (LUIS HERRERA)

[Alkworld]

- The TTT: I don't actually like that one too much. After 2 fairly hard days, IMO not good. It just kills the 2 first days a bit. And the TT in this length might turn out to be too decisive again, like it was in 2011

Ok, you convinced me. But then my prefered way would be to have a relaxing stage before the TTT and a quite hard one afterwards (I just think of EM's Dauphiné, which was decided after the hard TT on a medium difficult stage).

6 Hard stage with a flat finish. What medium size hills does Alk see? 11km a 8,7 the last climb.. .the one before 21 km a 8,3%... medium size, pff. Excellent. And especially with an easy day before, an easy day after, it can be an interesting attacking GC stage.

Andes: 1500m climb = medium hill (or better: mountain) In the Alps I'd call that sth else.

At least one downhill finish.The one on stage 9 doesn't really count

100% agree

[Woddeltown Team]

Thank you for your criticism.

1&2 seems okay for you.
Switch 3&4 and it is okay for you?
Then Stage 5 could stay.
Stage 6 okay for you
Stage 7 okay
Stage 8 i will try to include another mountain or take a different route to make more difficult.
Stage 9i will do a complete new route to make a 2nd hard day
Resting Day
Stage 10 is okay
Stage 11 might okay too

That is my solution for the 1st 12 days

The last days could be changed completly:
Stage 12 flat ITT
Stage 13 a Middle Mountain Stage
Stage 14 a Hard Mountain stage.


Your Opinion about that?

[Alkworld]

After all it's your own tour And with a few more changes (like you already suggested), the character of the Campeonato is still present. So don't let us influence you too much.

[Robyklebt]

Agree with Alk... you design, we criticize, if you think, yeah, those 2 are right, ok, change a bit if you want, if you think, bah, thought this was nice, but those 2 say blaaaaaaaa.... then leave it as it is!

[Woddeltown Team]

Stages 1-7 in new order
Stage 8 is new added.

[Woddeltown Team]

Campeonato finished

[Team Saller]

Campeonato finished

New presentation would be nice

[lesossies]

And the rest day after the 9th stage ?
or no rest day at all?

[Hansa]

if the campeonato de los andes are done we can but the profile in the racecalendar?

[Robyklebt]

Just clicked through the stages and...

Is the mintact completely random or was there actually any thoughts involved in that mess?

[Robyklebt]

Ok, a bit more in depth.
Of course I would put the mintact earlier generally, but ok, designers decision. If that's what Woddel wants, ok. BUT, there are really lots of things that for me simply make no sense:
stage 1 2 km before the mintact there is a 7. Why not there? Of course I would put it one climb earlier, but as I said Woddels decision. Just why where it is?
stage 2: It's 14 km from the end and in the middle of a long climb. To me simply makes no sense there
stage 3 12 km mintact. The likely desicive point come 20 km earlier, why not include it? Ok, short mintacts?
stage 4: The TTT km 33 of 58. Mmh, traditionally TT and TTT have been full mintact. Doesn't need to be that way, but this not being an easy TTT maybe a full mintact TTT would have made sense? Downhill, flat, climbs, which might need some adjustments in some teams. Don't want to drop the downhill sausages early, don't want to drop the mountain beefsteaks early. Maybe a few adjustment needed, in 30 seconds... mmh, could be difficult sometimes.
stage 5: 11 km mintact. here there seems to be consistency with the short mintact policy. A thing that will be kicked out soon.
stage 6: Km 155 of 196. Longer than usual, but the place kind of little sense? Km 147 to 154 are 2x15, 3x10,1x0, 1x6, 1x8. 30" tact. Then 155 is a 0, that's mintact, like the 2 last km of the climb 12+10. Then downhill and flat. Why there? 147 my place, seeing that Woddel likes short ones expected to see it at 185 actually, but here we get 2 km climb in mintact and the stuff before not?
stage 7: See nr 5
stage 8: 240 of 260, in the middle of a climb, but in a flat part... why not at least where a climb restarts, or starts?
stage 9: Here we get 18 km (actually 19, but have been making that calculation error the whole time, so let's stick with it)... what for? 3+5+7 are way shorter. What's the need here to put it earlier? Here consistency flies off.
stage 10: km 59 of 168??? In the downhill of the first lap? What's this?
stage 11:Back to 11 km, which at least is consistent with earlier stuff
stage 12 TT Km 16 of 41. OK, in a TT time should be less of a problem, see no problem with not having it all 1' tact. But why exactly km 16?
stage 13: 21 km mintact. Which is more than other similar stages get, Why here longer? What's the point in this "long" mintact if even stage 2 where more should happen get's only 14 km?
stage 14: km 99, right in the middle of nothing. What for there? I can see km 114, would be consistent with some of the very short mintacts before, I can see 107, siebkm restart, I can see 102 where the orange km restart. I can see 88 where I would put it, and where the climb before starts. But 99? There's nothing there.

So.. just seems all over the place. ultrashort kind of a policy, but not general. And not in a sensible way as I see it. If it was "short mintact" ok, while I like longer ones, can live with short ones, designers choice. But here just seems to be really random at times. middle of a climb stage 2, TTT sometimes after 50% of it, then a 41 km mintact just to get a flat km and 2 climbing km of the last mountain, then a 109 km mintact that for the first 30 km makes no sense at all, then all of the sudden 21 km mintact in an easier stage where usually it's 11-12..
So again, what is this?

[lesossies]

I could make some changes if wanted.
1min tact is for TTT IMO better. I´ll change it.

[Robyklebt]

No no no no no no no no

I think it should remain designers choice! Not leso choice, grrr!

And since Woddel re-awakened and posted something the other day, I hope he wants to change some of the things...

[Woddeltown Team]

Sorry, that RSF is noch my life and i had to do other things the last weeks
The min-tac is not random

Stage 1: yes could be 2kms earlier, haven't seen it
Stage 2: Yes could be at 125, but I guess normally noone who is interestend in GK will attack before km 150, so for me there was no sense to set the min-tact earlier
Stage 3: Short mintact. I don't think that the last mountain is that decisive, but we see it in the race. When I am wrong..mea culpa.
Stage 4: Okay, so can be changed. I don't like TTs that much, so I wanted to short it
Stage 5: The same as on stage 3...maybe a decisive point is at km 156km but online maybe, because it is a long way to go to finish,.
Stage 6: This was sent wrong...sorry for that, it should be at km 146. Yes i know, completly different than on stage 5 or 3, but i think that it makes sense. So please change it Leso
Stage 7: The same as on stage 3
Stage 8: A very long stage, so difficult to set it because of the time. I tried to find a solution between importance for the race and not make the race too long. I could set it at km 252 or at 215km. Very difficult and i think nearly everybody would do it in another way.
Stage 9: Don't understand your problem
Stage 10: Fick die Ziege...sorry I think I just forgot to set a minute takt and get an automatic one. I guess a change to 146 makes the most sense.
Stage 11: 50km from the last climb to finish, so why not shorten it up?
Stage 12: Automatic One
Stage 13: It makes no difference for me if start here 25 km, 15km oder 10km before finish..so where is the problem?
Stage 14: the same as on stage 13..where is the problem with 96 on such a short stage?

[Robyklebt]

Leso, NOW you probably should change the mintacts that Woddel wants to change!

[lesossies]

I did it like Woddeltown Team wanted it.
OK now ?

[Robyklebt]

Ah yes, ok (a bit late, but if the ape doesn't post he's reasonably happy)

But the ape complains again. Nothing to change, but Woddel:

I'm not really happy with parts of the tour.... Not planning to check too much, just yesterday, and today I zoomed into the map again, and.

Yesterday we went over this mountain:



We came for the back, went over somewhere on the left of the picture, then straight down and over the lake, then crosscountry down to the valley.. Ok, I was pretty sure it wasn't a road the moment I saw the stage, but thought maybe a hiking track or something, which I'm not a big fan of, at least dirt tracks, maybe unrideable, but theoretically something for cars/jeeps/bikes there...but this is just pure fantasy, which of course I don't like at all. I'm not really a fan of crosscountry pure fantasy races anyway.. but in the Andes even less. It has a long history of some sort of realism. Cerro, Rasmussen and Aix as far as I know never went more fantasy than dirt tracks. Rideable ones too (I think), with which I really don't have a problem, not enough paved stuff around sometimes. But here a stage that turns out to be really pure fantasy? Ape don't like!

Then today: Zoom in the map and you see: the road and our route pass through different parts. Ok, some stuff is obscured by clouds, but a bit to the west of the cat one the clouds disappear if you zoom in. And.... switchbacks, clear road.. .while we go down straigh. Following the google map roads, that are, once again, wrong. What to do? Easy: Check with OSM. And while they are not always where they should be, or sometimes not there at all, here they are. In the visible places. Go to tracks4bikers or bikeroutetoaster, do it with OSM, then switch to satellite, zoom in too where you can see the road, and. Fits perfectly. In reality (or OSM readings at least) todays stage wasn't a series of climbs and downhills at high percentages, but simplified:
14 km a 2,x percent average , ok, one slight down km... but otherwise just slightly up, getting steeper.
5 km 7% average
6 km 3 % average
10 km at 6%. average

After 35 km first top at 3978

Roughly 1 km at 4% down, then a bit over 3 km up at 5,4%.

After that? Looong downhill 26 km at 6,1% average, then ONE climb, 3,6 km at 8,0%. Then dooooooown 44km at 6,3 average. Here a few short flat parts, 1-2 km... but no more climbs.

Completely different stage. While we go cross country again, check with the "terrain" view, clearly discernable there that the google maps road makes no sense, the actual road, or at least the osm road (in parts on satellite view no road visible, but again, unlike the google maps road where there is a road it fits, plus by checking with terrain it actually makes senes where it's not viewable) does and makes for a normal stage.
So if too much is obscured by clouds, check with OSM!
Don't plan to check past stages, but pretty sure with all those 20 20 20 climbs we had similar stuff was going on... .just hope it was like today, follow google maps instead of OSM and not complete fantasy like yesterday... might check some of the future stages... zoom in in the map... hehe. But please, let's have road or track andes, designed as precisely as possible, not fantasy andes... because then we could just forget the names of the places and make it stages from Ape Town to Roby City!

[Robyklebt]

I did it like Woddeltown Team wanted it.
OK now ?

Oh, maybe not after all:

I had interpreted this

Stage 12: Automatic One

as that he didn't put any mintact for the TT today, so it got him an automatic one 25 km... and that he would have no problem with km 1 as usual...
But ok, not that I care too much at this point