Possibly. How much difference would it really make? These guys ride with power day in, day out, I'd bet they could gauge power extremely accurately even without the meter. Biggest impact would likely be for the post-stage analysis in terms of tracking total workload across the team and managing their recovery.

that would be awesome if it were true. Even better would be to ban race radios, and just rely on the domestiques shuttling back and forth to the team cars and split boards on the motos, like in the old days...

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This was a decent read.
https://www.velonews.com/...19-tour-route_480418

The French despise Sky. They create a route with a huge TTT. I don't get it.

It's 28K. That's not long. And there is only one other 27K TT. That's hardly any time trialing at all.

Climbing stages have become Chris Froome staring at his stem, rather than guys going by feel and imploding because they went too hard too early. He wants more dynamic racing.

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Comment was more to the affect that any TTT has on the race is giving Sky riders an advantage. Get rid of it completely. It'd be cool to have a TTT prologue maybe 8k, something that won't affect the individual race so much.

You do realize Froome is not looking at power numbers? He went into how that head position helps him breath and he rarely looks at power during climbs. He actually said if he tracks any metric it is HR on climbs at it lets him know how his body is responding to the race.

Most serious cyclists do not use power in races or use it only in specific situations. It is great for training and tracking load but not that effective for in race use. If PM are removed it will have zero effect on racing. You can still calculate power based on speed/grade/weight on climbs and or pay more attention to HR.

Thibault Pinot and Raf Majka beg to differ.

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I'm laying out the rationale. Not saying it's true.

I think race radios have a more chilling effect on tactics than power meters, anyway.

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+1

Let's just go back to 1910 Rules:
You must start and finish the stage on the same bike you started on in Paris.
You must carry all tools, food and clothing with you from start to finish of each stage
No outside assistance except at checkpoints or start/finish

at least in 1910 they were allowed to use gears.

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That, and bring back the Poe

True but you still have to hang with the peloton regardless of your power. No powermeters can mean more aggressive racing = more exciting racing. the TDF has to do something because ratings and viewership is dropping

Hell yeah! And woolen jerseys and 300+ kilometer stages. We could force the riders to smoke, too. No borrowing the blacksmith's shop to fix your broken frame, either.

even that is not true though, sky are not the best at TTTs. BMC, sunweb and quickstep have generally been the top 3 TTT squads the last few years. sunweb and bmc have had top GC contenders. movistar do pretty well too. oddly enough, it is really only the french guys that lose out with TTTs. of course bmc are gone for next year it remains to be seen whether porte still has a decent TTT time, or if in fact he can finish the race...

Prudhomme said he would like to get rid of them, but that is is ultimately up to the UCI. I think it would be really funny if they banned them, but didn't tell anyone. Nobody would even notice. Froomey would still stare at his stem while riding the Sky train, Bardet, Martin will continue to launch attacks that go nowhere, and Old Man Nairo will continue to be a wheelsucker until he gets dropped on "his own terrain."

As far as radio bans go, it would definitely have an effect, but not sure it would be a good one. Maybe a breakway survives a flat stage because the peloton miscalculates without the directors doing the math for them? In the mountains I could see it causing the dominant teams to give less of a cushion to the breakway for fear of messing things up.

They could just look at what the Vuelta has done over the years, to make their tour more exciting. The TDF has been predictable since basically Miguel Indurain.
It's the same shit every single year. Couple of attacks that get brought back by sprinters team. One or 2 that survive. We get 9 days of flat stuff where the only entertainment is which sprinter will fuck up the sprint. Then a TT. Few days in the mountains. Couple of flat days. Few more days in the mountains. Et voilà!
The vuelta mixes things up, has shorter stages that entice riders to take chances. The Tour is just boring.

Get rid of power meters, radios and don't let moto leads tell the peloton how far back they are to the breakaway. Lump all this together and every single stage would be epic. Later in the race, guys would be dropping like flys from doing Vo2 max work trying to catch the breakaway instead of riding their power numbers and reeling them back in.

Love this idea!

You think that professional cyclists will race differently because they don't have a powermeter on their bike?

How did you come to this conclusion?

Again, what? Doing vo2 max efforts gets guys dropped? And they don't get dropped because they ride to power numbers?

Not in one race... more from accumulation of fatigue over the course of the tour. They won't be able to keep up with the peloton in the later stages from giving too much in the early stages.

Who are "they," some random cat 1s who accidentally ended up in the tour? Or was this all supposed to be pink?

We'll never know.