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bigger achievement in the TdF

2K views 35 replies 19 participants last post by  55x11 
#1 ·
Which is a bigger achievement in the TdF, finishing in the Top 20 or winning a stage?

If you say "winning a stage," how about Top 10 vs. winning a stage?
 
#2 ·
dennis1215 said:
Which is a bigger achievement in the TdF, finishing in the Top 20 or winning a stage?

If you say "winning a stage," how about Top 10 vs. winning a stage?
The only thing anyone remembers is who won the race, who came in second, maybe the jersey winners, and who won some of the stages.

The only people who care about the top 10 or 20 are riders looking for contracts and directors looking for riders.
 
#3 ·
Stage Win. Jerseys are better (except white), podium is better. Everything else is not as good.

IMHO, of course.
 
#6 ·
mohair_chair said:
The only thing anyone remembers is who won the race, who came in second, maybe the jersey winners, and who won some of the stages.

The only people who care about the top 10 or 20 are riders looking for contracts and directors looking for riders.
a stage win secures local immortality for a European racer. They can retire, return to their hometown, and run the central bar with their podium pic displayed over the bar...
 
#7 ·
Mootsie said:
You have a 1 in 198 chance of winning a stage.
You have a 20 in 198 chance of finishing in the top 20.
there are 20 stages, so chances are about right, in fact for an average not-well-rounded rider winning a stage is much more of a possibility than getting top 20. But winning a stage is still much better than finishing, say, 18th on GC. Who cares?
 
#8 ·
Mootsie said:
You have a 1 in 198 chance of winning a stage.
You have a 20 in 198 chance of finishing in the top 20.
thats a 1 in 198 chance of wining each stage over 21 stages which is like a 21 in 198 chance of winning a stage in the tour

i think stage wins from breakaways is more about luck than a high GC placing or its a sprinters orgy so i give more respect to GC placing
 
#9 ·
A stage win, fer sure. I consider each Tour stage to be equivalent to a semi-classic in difficulty and stature, some going into HC of course. No matter how "unimportant" the stage, you're still up against the strongest, most motivated field of the whole year and on any given day there are dozens of guys who will give it all for the win.

A top 10 is definite resume material also. Top 20, that's more inside baseball, contract negotiation material.
 
#10 ·
tinkerbeast said:
thats a 1 in 198 chance of wining each stage over 21 stages which is like a 21 in 198 chance of winning a stage in the tour

i think stage wins from breakaways is more about luck than a high GC placing or its a sprinters orgy so i give more respect to GC placing
Actually the math is off. You have an equal chance for each stage, 1 in 198, so your odds of winning a stage are always 1 in 198.
It's sort of like saying your odds of getting a heads while flipping a coin increase every time you flip it, but in reality it's always 50/50.
 
#13 ·
limba said:
I think coming in the top 10 or top 20 may be HARDER then winning a stage but winning anything is always better.
Maybe, but there is no glory for anything less than 3rd place on GC. You don't get to stand on a podium. You don't get a trophy. Basically, you get the same thing that everybody else gets who finishes the race.

Win a stage, and it's something special.
 
#14 ·
Mootsie said:
Actually the math is off. You have an equal chance for each stage, 1 in 198, so your odds of winning a stage are always 1 in 198.
It's sort of like saying your odds of getting a heads while flipping a coin increase every time you flip it, but in reality it's always 50/50.
No, the math is correct - chances of winning at least *a single* stage for a given rider in a 21-stage Tour is (assuming everyone has the same shot every time) is very close to 21/198. It's actually 1-(197/198)^21 which is basically 10% - the easiest thing is to consider chances of NOT winning a stage, which is 197/198 and then consider the probability of that happening 21 times in a row... Basic probability 101.

It's like asking what are the odds of getting at least one flip to come up as tails when you throw a coin 21 times vs. throwing it only once - obviously the odds get very close to 1 as
 
#18 ·
#19 ·
55x11 said:
No, the math is correct - chances of winning at least *a single* stage for a given rider in a 21-stage Tour is (assuming everyone has the same shot every time) is very close to 21/198. It's actually 1-(197/198)^21 which is basically 10% - the easiest thing is to consider chances of NOT winning a stage, which is 197/198 and then consider the probability of that happening 21 times in a row... Basic probability 101.

It's like asking what are the odds of getting at least one flip to come up as tails when you throw a coin 21 times vs. throwing it only once - obviously the odds get very close to 1 as
seriously? You would model this assuming a uniform distribution?
 
#20 ·
tubadude said:
wrong assumption. makes the math pointless
Well duh! (you have better model of probabilities of stage wins for all 198 riders?! please share).

The point was - *assuming* that obviously naive model, the *math* of original poster is correct, and whoever was criticizing was wrong.

Your point is akin to saying all math is pointless because, for example, no train is ever capable of traveling at uniform speed from point A to point B.

Whether math *model* is good is a different question, I was responding to the criticism of the math, not the model.
 
#23 ·
yikes! the math here is starting to sound like my thesis. i think its silly to nitpick about distributions and exact probabilities on a road bike forum. sometimes the best model is the simplest one that brings out your point and in this case, as 55x11 pointed out, it is that a high (top 20ish) GC placing is not necessarily easier to achieve than a stage win. im sure you could get the odds for each stage from the bookmakers and calculate which is more achievable for each rider but all you're really proving is that you have too much time

edit: oops this was meant as a general reply to this thread of conversation and not directed at the post this ended up below
 
#25 ·
Coolhand said:
Which do you think earns you more on the transfer market?

I would think finishing in the top 20. It shows that you have the ability to climb, a much higher level of consistency and puts you among the top riders in the world. A stage win could truly be a fluke. If you are young and in the top 20 it shows potential for the podium, and if you are older it shows that you can provide support.
 
#26 ·
dennis1215 said:
Which is a bigger achievement in the TdF, finishing in the Top 20 or winning a stage?

If you say "winning a stage," how about Top 10 vs. winning a stage?
As a general proposition, I would say that winning a stage beats a top 20. But, not all stages are created equally and, obviously, finishing, say, 4th or 5th in the Tour, is a lot more important than finishing 19th or 20th.

Sometimes, a rider does not have to win a stage or a high final place to achieve something big in the Tour. The best example that comes to mind is Thomas Voeckler's performance in the 2004 tour. He did not win a single stage and finished 18th. But, he got the yellow jersey on an escape where the favorites allowed a large time gap to develop and then wore it for 10 days, fighting tooth and nail to keep it against overwhelming odds. Voeckler became a national hero in France and his prestige in the peloton still rests on those 10 days in July 2004.
 
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