Overall: 6 out of 10
***
Courses: 7/10
Why is the KOM not at the top of the KOM?
Riders: 5/10
Sagan, Roglič (the former ski jumper), Evenepoel, Nibali, Dumolin, Pinot… Where you at?
Race coverage: 9/10
Matt Stephens is such a treat.
Race excitement: 5/10
Oh, another reduced group sprint with a 0% chance of a breakaway succeeding? How exciting.
***
The Virtual Tour de France had its moments – close sprint finishes, blood-bursting KOMs, and some of the biggest names in the sport being viewed through a laptop camera – but overall, I found it disappointing.
After months without a live sporting event other than marble racing, the Virtual Tour de France on Zwift was something I was really looking forward to. But in the end, I believe it fell short.
The courses were alright, but Stage 1 was boring, and probably confusing for thousands of viewers who had never heard of “Watopia” before. It’s a made-up world, after all.
A trip to Richmond, I think, would have been 10x more exciting. You know how the Tour usually holds their Grand Départ outside of France? What better time to hold it in the US, on an awesome course where fan-favorite Peter Sagan won his first World Championship, when logistics are no problem. Opportunity missed, I’d say.
The new Zwift courses in France were decent, with reduced group sprints at the end of each stage. But it was the climb up Ventoux that produced the most eye-popping numbers. As a wattage guru, I got excited.
I didn’t know 7w/kg for 26 minutes was possible, but apparently that’s what Michael Woods (EF Pro Cycling) did to win Stage 5 of the Virtual Tour. It took some careful video/Strava/Zwift-overlaying for me to figure out his actual Zwift weight, but eventually I settled on 60kg as opposed to the 64kg that a number of news outlets reported solely based on his Strava activity.
It’s pretty sad how proud I am of that discovery.
What disappointed me most about the Virtual Tour was the lack of enthusiasm from the teams, and especially the riders. I may not be an expert, but doesn’t a Wahoo Kickr have to be plugged in in order to use it on Zwift? Maybe Chris Froome was using an unreleased, wireless Kickr.
To have Egan Bernal race the ultra-flat Stage 3… Why? To see Simon Yates get dropped on Stage 5 before the race was even hard… And then to show and talk about him on the livestream doing 110w… Reminds me of French TV camera panning to a disheveled Warren Barguil 18 minutes off the back in a third-week stage simply because he’s French. We love you Wawa.
It doesn’t make sense to me, why they can’t even try. I know these riders and teams are worried about the sandwiched season coming up in August, but come on. At worst, a Zwift race could be a one-hour power test. More likely though, it’s less than an hour as sweetspot-to-threshold with VO2max surges. I know for a fact that these riders train harder than that. It’s one day, one race. You get paid to ride a bike and put on a show.
That’s my opinion. And I respect that everyone has their reasons. But as a cycling fan, I was utterly disappointed.
The saving grace was watching Edvald THE BOSS Boasson Hagen churning out 500w for an entire race, mashing the pedals under his squat rack, the Norwegian grimace of pain chiseled onto his face, and launching his 1200w sprint at LITERALLY 1km to go, holding on for dear life and still finishing 9th.
