CyclistOpinion: How to fix the Tour de FranceThe Tour de France 2024 concluded in Nice with Tadej Pogaar taking a third overall victory ahead of Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel in a race surrounded by discussions over breakaways, jersey points allocations and combativity controversy. With another Tour ticked off, theres still work to do to get the format perfected in time for the 2025 race, which is scheduled to set off from Lille.Last week, I attempted to reform the polka dot jersey classification. This week, I take the reforms to a new level and build my ideal Tour de France. Ill cast a critical eye on some of the existing conventions, quirks and rules of the race and try to add a new dimension to the Tour de France with the viewer and riders in mind.In this fantasy world, I would take over Christian Prudhommes role as race director, what could go wrong?More invitee teamsA.S.O./Billy CeustersThe more, the merrier, right?After the Tour shrunk the total amount of teams in the peloton the UCI squashed the number of riders in Grand Tour rosters from nine to eight, there is now ample space for more teams to rejoin.Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto-Dstny are WorldTour level teams in all but name. In the current format, TotalEnergies and Uno-X are the only real invitee teams given that Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto-Dstny receive year-long invites to WorldTour races.To add more numbers, the race should look to invite more squads from cyclings second division. With such a strong UCI ProTeam scene at the moment, there are some real candidates who could add an interesting element to the racing. In this age of stale breakaways, more invitee teams could also spice up the escape group and add extra impetus into the early morning moves.It could make a world of difference for the likes of Q36.5, Tudor Pro Cycling or Polti-Kometa to take on the Tour de France for the first time. If we dont give them the chance to shine at the worlds biggest race, we wont know what were missing out on.Earlier this year at the Giro dItalia, Tudor demonstrated that new invitee teams can rival the big WorldTour teams. The Swiss squad secured a top ten in GC on their Grand Tour debut and featured in several stage top tens too. Related Posts Paris 2024 Olympics Cycling: Events, schedule, TV guide and everything you need to know Is Pogaar vs Vingegaard cyclings greatest ever rivalry? How to fix the Tour de France King of the Mountains classification Is this the end of Tour de France breakaways? Road stage good, prologue badA.S.O./Billy CeustersOpening day prologues are a dirge and should be confined to the deepest darkest corner of Room 101. A 7km-long prologue through a rainy northern French city. Ill pass.This arcane style of Grand Tour opening is a dirge for the viewer. They provide big splits on day one and give too much of a window into how the riders are feeling. Often the prologue dramatically dictates the mood of the first week of racing. Im glad this formula is slowly fading out of fashion at the Tour. Since 2018, only one Tour has opened with a time-trial. Long may this continue.Instead of the prologue, we need to advocate for a proper road stage on day one. With this approach, anyone and everyone can end up as the first yellow jersey, from Lukas Pstlberger to Romain Bardet or Mike Teunissen. The first stage never goes to plan its proper racing. An opening day road stage is like a mini Classic in itself. To add, all jerseys can be awarded accordingly on a road stage, including the polka dot jersey, which rarely gets a look in during a prologue.While were at it, lets have the Grand Dpart somewhere fun. Im not talking about a sportswashing petrochemical nation, it would be neat to see somewhere like Ljubljana, Montral or Edinburgh host the races curtain call.Include more gravel and cobble stages A.S.O./Charly LopezAs controversial as they are in Grand Tours, gravel and cobble stages add a je ne sais quoi to the Grand Tour programme. Often, these days spent on more Classics terrain have provided exhilarating days of racing. The gravel stage of this years Tour on the ninth day of racing was undeniably one of the most exciting. Stage 5 of the 2022 Tour de France saw an action-packed rollercoaster day on the cobbles. Likewise, the image of Vincenzo Nibali caked in mud at the 2014 Tour lives on as one of the most iconic images of that years race.I think that a stage on cobbled or gravel roads should be included more often in the Tour, maybe even at every Tour if the races geography allows. This will give teams an extra dimension to factor into their roster. The riders spend a significant chunk of the year racing Classics on gravel and cobbled roads so why not honour that part of the sport at the Tour?Perhaps this would encourage more GC riders to tackle the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix during the spring. For ASO, the organisers behind the Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix, this would be in their best interests.Revive the combination classificationPascal Pavani/AFP via Getty ImagesCombined jersey, I mourn your death every day. I miss seeing the second place in GC riding in a distinctive jersey. It makes them so much easier to point out in the pack. More importantly, whats not to love about an extra jersey on the front row of the start line?The combination jersey honoured the most all-round rider in the Tours three open classifications: the GC, points and KOM standings. The riders with the lowest combined placings would wear the jersey. If this were employed at the 2024 Tour, Tadej Pogaar would have won with a total of seven points (one point from GC, four from the points classification and two from the mountains classification). Evenepoel and Vingegaard would have been tied for second place on 15 points a piece.Before the 2017 Vuelta a Espaa, the combined jersey was emblematic of the races runner-up. Now the youthquake has struck the Spanish race and we are left with no combination jersey at a Grand Tour. The Tour de France used to have a combined jersey for 15 years between 1968 and 1989. It was this crazy Jackson-Pollock style mish-mash of all the Tours jersey colours that resembled the interior of an early 2000s McDonalds restaurant. Maybe the jersey design needs a rework, but the principle is there.Read our full deep dive into the combination jerseyBan team time-trialsA.S.O./Billy CeustersThe great time-trial exclusion zone expands with the banishing of the team time-trial (TTT) discipline. The best thing the Covid pandemic did was remove these messy farces from (most) Grand Tour schedules.The TTT is a confusing afterthought for teams. To be honest, they really shouldnt have to deal with them. The format for the TTT is constantly changing with novel rules and tricks to spice up a complicated and pointless event. Whether the race requires the fifth rider to stop the clock or the first rider across the line, its bamboozling even for the most astute cycling viewers to keep up with.I have a simple solution. Get rid of the damn things. Lets put team team-trials on the naughty step once and for all.The growing presence of superteams also threatens to skew the results from these kinds of stages. In the few TTTs at the WorldTour level in recent years, the usual super team suspects like Visma-Lease a Bike, Soudal-QuickStep and UAE Team Emirates seem unopposed.Elsewhere, the UCI have removed the team time-trial from the UCI World Championships schedule. With this, teams are also becoming less specialised in this rare discipline. So, whats stopping the Tour de France from outright vanishing them from the Tour forevermore?A proper breakaway awardA.S.O./Aurlien VialatteBreakaways are a quirk in our sport that we all know and love. With 21 stages on offer, it feels only fair for the break to garner some respect for being brave enough to ride in a small group for three or four hours in front.At the Giro, the Italians honour the breakaway in an arbitrary and fair way with the Fuga prize. For every kilometre spent up the road, a rider receives one point. Its a simple system and properly rewards the breakaway. There is no reason why this system cant be carried across to the Tour to decide the most combative rider at the end of the three-week race.Over the past couple of Tours, the super-combative prize has ruffled some feathers. Final week recency bias and a backstage jury have clouded the result to many fans dismay. For instance, Jonas Abrahamsen spent 19 more kilometres in the break at the 2024 Tour de France than Richard Carapaz, yet the Ecuadorian took the prize on top of his King of the Mountains victory.A transparent points-scoring system like at the Giro would offer smaller teams a real chance of taking home some prize money as well as TV time and recognition. Principally though, its time to disband the secret underground jury dictating the winner of the Tours combative award.Daily best French rider prizeA.S.O./Billy CeustersThe Tour de France is all about the French. Currently at the Tour, the best team and young rider from each stage are awarded a prize. To give an extra incentive for French riders, it shouldnt be too difficult to add in a special prize for the best French rider each day. This prize could be added to the podium or sign-on ceremonies like the other stage bonuses at the moment. A prize money incentive could also drive extra interest in the award. Im sure the Tours official cheese partner, La vache qui rit (Laughing Cow), would be open to supporting this motion.For context, Guillaume Martin of Cofidis finished as the best French rider on six stages, and Martins teammate Bryan Coquard would have taken the best Frenchman prize on three occasions.At the end of the race, the best French GC rider could also receive a special honour. The French arent going to win the Tour de France anytime soon, so it only feels right to elevate the best Frenchman at the end of the three-week-long race. Hopefully, this would encourage more GC panache from the likes of Groupama-FDJ, Arka-B&B Hotels and Cofidis after fairly disappointing Tours. A final time-trial on the Champs-ElysesA.S.O./Billy CeustersI am sick and tired of explaining to casual viewers that the Champs-Elyses procession is a GC walkover that doesnt affect the overall classifications. Its a four-hour-long tourism advert filled with champagne photo ops and aerial shots of Parisian landmarks that culminate in five kilometres of serious racing.The Tour de France is 21 stages long, not 20. Lets stick to the principle of racing and have the riders compete to the very last day. For this, lets sprinkle in cyclings necessary evil: the time-trial.Its a gamble to end with a time-trial. If the GC battle is over much like it was at the 2024 Tour then a time-trial can be a non-event. However, theres always a chance that a Lemond vs Fignon battle could emerge. Also, a final days time-trial would give every rider a chance to soak up the applause and garner some TV time when viewing figures are often at their highest.Why the Champs-Elyses?A.S.O./Pauline BalletMy gripe with the Champs-Elyses continues. The Tour de France gets swallowed up in the French capital. For anyone who has been to Paris for the Tour, you will know that the race does not feel at home there. Bluntly, the procession into Paris feels like an inconvenience for the city. The French capital also has no real cycling culture outside of the yearly Champs-Elyses sprint.The 2024 Tour de Frances finish in Nice was warmly welcomed with a weekend-long festival of cycling. There were fireworks and a Tour-themed drone light show for crying out loud. This would never happen in Paris. In one year, Nice challenged the Tours century-long Parisian tradition.After the success of this Grande Arrive experiment in Nice, we could be on the verge of seeing more French cities stepping up to host the Tours final day. Marseille would be a great choice, as would Toulouse or Lyon who rarely feature at the Tour.In terms of the Tours carbon footprint, a shorter journey to Stage 21 would be sensible. A long transfer from the Alps or Pyrenees to Paris requires a long-distance logistical operation. In another French city closer to the mountains, the environmental impact of travelling across France would be reduced greatly. Also, the riders wont have to spend the day travelling from one side of the country to the other just to feature in the big Champs-Elyses tourism advert. Related Posts Paris 2024 Olympics Cycling: Events, schedule, TV guide and everything you need to know Is Pogaar vs Vingegaard cyclings greatest ever rivalry? How to fix the Tour de France King of the Mountains classification Is this the end of Tour de France breakaways? The post Opinion: How to fix the Tour de France appeared first on Cyclist.