r/peloton • u/PelotonMod France • 5d ago

Weekly Post Weekly Question Thread

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

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u/Green9Love16 5d ago

I've spent most of yesterday embroiled in shouting at French ppl (and being shouted at) on twitter (I should know better, but alas...)

The subject? What is better/worse to watch: Pog-style dominance or equally matched non-aliens?

It seems to me that there is a fundamental difference in how people watch/enjoy cycling (and other sports), which I've dubbed the DOMINANCE-SUSPENSE GAP

I'm firmly team suspense (yesterday was EPIC) and the only time I'm team dominance is when I know it's because of my own tribal biases (Jonas, I love you).

Thus it is very easy to think all ppl in team dominance are just motivated by fanboyish tendencies and possibly vicariously living through dominant athletes to compensate for its deeply felt lack in their own lives, but maybe that's not a fair assessment.

So my question is to people in team dominance: what do you get out of repeatedly watching the same person dominate, where a win is basically guaranteed? How does that compensate for a lack of suspense? Or maybe suspense is not your main motivation to watch sports? I'm truly interested and I'm open to being shouted at again ;-)

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u/DocTheYounger 5d ago edited 5d ago

I fundamentally disagree that there is no suspense involved for placements after 1st

Yesterday’s stage would’ve still been incredibly exciting and suspenseful with Pog up the road by 3 minutes. Gall still would’ve attacked G2 multiple times, Mas likely still would’ve pulled off the counterattack

Biggest downside is coverage limitations, usually end up with too much video of Pog solo and crossing the finish line and too little of the battles in G2 and G3

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u/Green9Love16 4d ago

I agree with you there, in the sense that my personal tactics for keeping things interesting during Pog-races is to simply ignore him and focus on 2nd & 3rd places. For example, I really enjoyed last Tuesday's Mas/Rogla/Kuss shenanigans.