Tour de France 2006 king of the mountains Michael Rasmussen says he is disappointed with the 2006 Tour de France route. The structure of the stages means that the mountains jersey will not necessarily go to the fastest climber next year.
The problem, says Rasmussen in his diary on feltek.dk, is that the actual climbing comes too late in the stages. "This years route was a bit different, because the mountains were right at the beginning of the stages, and then you could simply go to get the points you needed, if you had the strength," says Rasmussen. "Next year there are about 50 km flat riding before reaching the mountains of respectively the Pyrenees and the Alps. That makes it a bit of a coincidence which riders will make it in the different breaks. It will not necessarily be those who race fastest uphill. Of course that makes it a bit more difficult."
