theclaud
Openly Marxist
With my usual effortless ability to align with the least popular view about everything, I've voted for Brittany or Northumberland (although having ridden a 100-miler from Berwick to Edmundbyers via Alnwick and Rothbury, and having chased a Brompton piloted by a cucumber-fuelled @MarkA up the A68 and failing to reel him in by so much as an inch, I am mystified by @User482's claim that the latter is flat). I don't know Brittany, but I have a thing for peninsulas.
I like hilly terrain, although I also like riding with those in The Fridays who don't. I think it's a good thing for the Tour to avoid pushing people to their limits every day (it is a holiday, after all), but on the other hand tiredness is not all in the legs, and I think there are many things more exhausting than a few lumps in the profile. Poor surfaces, narrow two-way paths, the concertina effect of large groups at small-capacity junctions, wiggly nonsense with lots of low-speed turns, not having a proper lunch, relentless headwinds...
It's going to be a swings-and-roundabouts thing. Belgium has crap paths, and approaches to towns that might as well be Farnborough, but all of those Farnboroughs have a Grote or an Oude Markt with big cafes and nice beer. And there are waffles and moules frites and Carbonnade. The Netherlands has duff beer and grumpy roadies and horrible suburbs, and inspires infrastructure fundamentalists into unaccountable and tedious raptures, but it also has sweet lanes, routes across things, long lines of poplars, lots of water, and windmills serving giant pancakes. I like France because we get to ride on the road there, and because it's mahoosive and varied, and there is Calvados and cidre and cheap wine to make up for the duff beer. On the other hand half of it appears to be closed at any given moment, and one might accidentally order something related to Andouillettes.
I like hilly terrain, although I also like riding with those in The Fridays who don't. I think it's a good thing for the Tour to avoid pushing people to their limits every day (it is a holiday, after all), but on the other hand tiredness is not all in the legs, and I think there are many things more exhausting than a few lumps in the profile. Poor surfaces, narrow two-way paths, the concertina effect of large groups at small-capacity junctions, wiggly nonsense with lots of low-speed turns, not having a proper lunch, relentless headwinds...
It's going to be a swings-and-roundabouts thing. Belgium has crap paths, and approaches to towns that might as well be Farnborough, but all of those Farnboroughs have a Grote or an Oude Markt with big cafes and nice beer. And there are waffles and moules frites and Carbonnade. The Netherlands has duff beer and grumpy roadies and horrible suburbs, and inspires infrastructure fundamentalists into unaccountable and tedious raptures, but it also has sweet lanes, routes across things, long lines of poplars, lots of water, and windmills serving giant pancakes. I like France because we get to ride on the road there, and because it's mahoosive and varied, and there is Calvados and cidre and cheap wine to make up for the duff beer. On the other hand half of it appears to be closed at any given moment, and one might accidentally order something related to Andouillettes.