Formula 1 grid-style start for "dynamite" Tour de France stage in Pyrenees

Strange.  Seems like some daft novelty idea dreamnt up over one to many bottles.

What next?..tandems, tricycles fancy dress?

maybe the gc contenders should have to ride holding an egg on a spoon- that could be interesting.  gimmick.

It would be even more fun if they went with a 60's Le Mans style start, i.e. the competitors have to run to their bikes, clip in and scoot off.  That would be hilarious, seeing them all clip-clopping along on their cleats.

Mind you, Froome has good running form, as demonstrated on Ventoux 2016.

I can see how some of the GC teams won't wait for their full team and just go for it. If they have a couple of domestics nicely placed in the top 40 they could easily form a small group to start an attack from the off. Don't give others a chance to get their teams in order and it's like stage 19 of the giro all over again. It only needs one GC contender feeling fresh and everyone else will have to follow or risk being left behind

anyone planning anything will wait for their teams, anyone not planning anything will keep well out of the way.

I was picturing a Le Mans style start... everyone running to their bikes in their clicky clacky cleats...

17 stages in, short (65k!) full gas mountainous stage from the off with all the GC boys on high alert. 

It could be chaos at the start, totally a novelty, but why not. The question will be, will the 20ish GC boys wait for their team to get around them or will the 160ish other riders race to gather around their GC leaders.. 

Or is it ideal for an unexpected or rather uncontrolable breakaway from the start by a top 20 GC guy?

I'm all for it, a very unpredicable stage. 

The Giro and the Vuelta have raised their games over the past few years and have left LeTour behind imo. I do feel like the TdF is throwing the kitchen sink at this tour novelty wise.. but I'm pleased that they are doing 'something', it always gets boring to watch at times over the three weeks! (Blasphemy!!)

While I can see what they're trying to do, I have a feeling that it'll just end up with most of the top 10 riders pedalling fairly slowly at the start while their teams assemble, it's not like at the vuelta a few years ago where contador led the mugging raid with the help of movistar while team sky where all gathering near the back. If the top 10 are all starting together they'll mark each other if anyone tries to pull away, and unless one of them is on an awful day (unlikely to be the case on the first climb) then they're not very likely to put the hammer down and leave their team mates behind. Perhaps they should start the stage in reverse grid order, let the lower placed riders try to get into the breakaway and then see the GC riders close them down or catch up with team mates who could help them.

How about sending one team off at a time every 30 seconds, in a random order decided at the start (Poulidor picking names out of a chapeau)? Ought to take 11 minutes and could well throw a chat among les pigeons. 

I like the sound of that. Be interesting to see if the teams go for it.
Froome should have no trouble making a 65k break for it...

I'm in the Pyrenees next week doing this exact route, first time cycling in the mountains so thought I'd do this one and half of stage 16 too!  Be good to see the race after getting to know the roads!

Way to go on decreasing rider safety as chaos ensues as some from the lower placings bomb through whilst the front riders wait for their team mates, there are far too many crashes between riders as it is what with the risk taking and liberal use of common sense, this is just another crash right at the start waiting to happen.

Hopefully the teams will tell ASO to fuck off and stop pricking about with something that has worked just fine for a long time.

if they want to make things more interesting they could have a team time trail at the beginning of week three, they could give bigger bonus seconds for stage finishes and indeed not give the breakaway sprint points/bonus seconds because rarely are they ever contested as a proper sprint just some mates agreement and the proper sprinters are usually mopping up a few points in the peleton which is why the likes of Cav wasn't always that bothered.

As we saw in the Giro, 'boring' SKY managed to win the race by employing superb tactics and with a rider prepared to go all in and absolutely bust a gut especially on the descent whilst his tactically naive opponent flapped about like a flat fish waiting for others to take up the chase couldn't hack it on the descent and thus lost the GT, what a fucking noob!

Maybe they could have a salary cap of the team, maybe they should give a handicapp to the team with the least green/environmental ethos, maybe they should allow bikes to be as light as a rider wants.

The current 6.8kg limit is a joke and indeed most riders are well over that for fear of reprisals. An extra 1-2kg that you have to drag up the steep shit on a three GT makes a difference, it might not be a huge amount but ask any rider if they can shed that in bodyweight without having any detriment in power output/wellbeing and they'd bite your hand off, this rule alone is the one that is the worst from a technical POV and should be relaxed.

Difficult to imagine how this is going to work in practice and it could be chaos as teams try to push through the peloton in order to get to their leaders.

However what this does show is that race organisers are trying to think of ways to spice up the racing both for riders and the audience. Not all ideas are going to work, some won't work 1st time but eventually something will stick and it will be a revelation.

Load of cock. What will probably happen is the teams will talk among themselves to decide what they want to actually do once they set off.  

No need for silly modifier rules in cycling, there's enough of that in motorsport like F1 and touring cars with silly grid swaps and weight penalties. What next, yellow jersey to wear a 5kg backpag and run Quando hubs?

I'd be curious to see if the leader's domestiques will attempt to improve their position in the lead-up to this stage to play defense.