Madagascar:
It's cold. Almost enough to make this very short and eliminate it from contention for the third Donks-vote. Very cold. Some snow. Even in New York City. I suppose more in the hills/mountains on stage 2-3. Hm, might be out.
Stages itself, nice actually.
Let's start with flat, only 4, but all easy for flat sprinters, max 5 if I got it right. So 4 safe ones, 0 other possible, ok for me.
Rest: Prologue - mountain - hill for some early GC action, but not big differences. Next the TTT after the rest day, good, no rest day just punishes active teams the day before too much IMO. And some have to be active. TTT more clarity in the GC, but 36 km not huge differences, but considering the overall difficulty of the HC stages probably big enough to be decisive. Next GC stage 8, nice climb, downhill, nice, you need a complete climber here, not just a climber. I have a problem with the 13 18 3 though, that looks very much like incorrect reading, GPS, look at google maps for the climb, terrain. When the road reaches 590, for +/-500 meters it's flat. It heads south, then north again, looks like 20-30 meters apart. That's just bad reading, most likely it's a much more regular climb. Last GC stage the last one, a bit longer MTF. So generally small differences everywhere, a good TTT even without big differences important, winning 40" there could very well be enough. GC for climbers, unless there's a dangerous escape going through, more focus on middle mountain stages. 4 of them. Like the concept, more for classics, but GC pretty safely for climbers,
And since Lenny keeps harping on mintacts... let's talk about those. Very bad and actually insulting to sprinters, it shows how little you value sprinters. 10km? Would you put 10 km mintact on a 20km mountain finish? No. Why not? It's the same thing. Dangerous attacks for sprinter teams don't only go in the last 10 km. Depending on how many they are the time the big danger can be km 30 to 15 to go. You can't put in your top rider yet. It's nr 4-3-2, even 2 is dangerous dangerous, you can't control the last 15 km with just one guy. And not every sprinter team has 88 88 88 89 flat riders. So (very much depending on the composition of the group of course) it's exactly those earlier km that you sweat. And by having that in the 30" tact, you just make the task harder for the sprinters. They can't miss a km, they can't go get a coffee, an ice cream from the freezer (I can because I'm very close to the kitchen, I'm back in 10") You say if a guy goes and I have my nr 4 in tempo, even if I miss 2 km he's only at 10"? Well, those 10" might be enough with enough followers and mass. And in mountains if I have a classic in tempo, miss 2 km and a climber is 50" ahead.... if I go in tempo with a second climber I still get him (20 km from the end, easy) If I only have one climber... need to get cooperation from others, hard. But here nothing changes if I miss those 2 km or not... If that climber goes that early you have the same problem, if you have nothing more, you either chase with your leader, thus weakening him or you have other teams that help chase. If anything in the sprinters case it's more critical to react right immediately, but for some reason you decide to show your disdain for sprinters by making there job harder. Something you would never do for climbers. A 10 km mintact on a sprint stage is an abomination that has no place in this game IMO.
Madagascar Baobabs:
Now this one is difficult to assess. No popup profiles, and from stage 6 to 10 the profile goes to 4000 meters, making it hard to understand much from the profile itself.
The link for the popup profile for stage 8:
http://www.radsportfreaks.de/radsport/p ... ension=c4f
For other stages just replace the file name. here antananarivo_faratsiho (That's one of the reasons I usually name my stages after a tour, so here I would have called them madabaobabs_01, numbering up to 11, (don't change now, otherwise we have it double) then much easier to get all the popups right (I usually just copy an old one and change it to whatever I want)
The tour: I'm not sure it really is what the designer wanted it to be? Not a single stage for climbers seems to me. Stage 4 the closest, depending on how steep the downhill is and how long the flat. Last stage similar, the climb not hard enough to make differences, then seems flattish for 2 or so km? IMO even if the GC is not for climbers, they should get some stages at least.
4 flat sprints
2 hill sprint, (9 seems sure, 6 pretty likely)
TT+TTT
3 middle mountain stages.
Don't like the location of the TTT either of course, punishes active teams, favorite teams by having them not have their riders fit.
Somehow I don't dislike this as much as I should, it has a certain charm, like that it's only 11 days too, but not enough to get my vote, nothing at all for climbers (or 2 very doubtful stages) IMO is too little. Make it 2 MTF, and the tour is already much much better. 4 flat sprints and 2 hill sprints, lots of sprints, but that's ok, limit like Design, but why not. 2 MTF, hm, then there's only 1 real middle mountain, that that not enough.. hm,
Last one tomorrow, or later today maybe, will see.