It would be interesting to see how the tour this year as respects toughness/effort etc compares to an average two week training block. This was the first “tour” I have done and for me, looking at intervals.icu, I had a decline in fitness over those two weeks which didn’t totally surprise me TBH. SO! was it hard enough and should it be made more of a challenge next year. The vertical line is prep day one and it ends on the 19th
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No
I’ll leave it as short as that.
Actually, maybe I’ll add:
Was “The Wahooligan Tour” tough enough? Who knows, there’s never been one before, it can be open to debate.
Was “The Wahooligan Tour” a proxy for The Tour of Sufferlandria? NO
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Sorry @ozmadman, The Wahoolimabob Tour is not, was not, and never would have been called The Wahoominati Tour. I had to edit your thread title to make it clear that The Wahoominati were opposed to the name The Company chose for the former Tour of Sufferlandria.
Acceptable names would have been:
- The Tour
- The Tour by Wahoo X
- Tour X
and others.
The Wahoominati’s distaste for the term Wahooligan was made clear in their mocking and consistent use of the term Wahoolimabob among other names and while understanding that The Company wanted to expand their ridership by travelling outside the borders of Sufferlandria, and that a name change was subsequently in order, the name The Company landed on was just, to quote one of the wahoominatus, “Blech”.
The wahoominati are always watching 
#twaaw.
Xoom Xoom!
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No worries! misunderstanding on my part. Didn’t know someone could edit another’s thread/post??
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I feel the first two, and the last two stages were hard enough.
I ended up with bursitis after overdoing it on the Stelvio so apparently for me, it was hard enough ha!
I think as the tour, it must have been too easy or I wouldn’t have made it past stage 2. To do so I still had to dial down percentages and struggle through it.
I understand them wanting or needing to adjust the overall intesity and length post pandemic and as subscriber numbers potentially fall.
At the end of the day it raised almost 200 last of yesterday so mission accomplished😎
As a non-top-flight athlete with full time job and many off job stressors at home, that was my experience.
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The Company has provided certain forum privileges to certain members. The responsibility is not taken lightly. Rule of thumb: correct for clarity.
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Tough enough? For what it was, yes. Or at least maybe, don’t think it was meant to be “tough”. Engaging enough? Nope. Not compared to The Tour that came before anyways. I rode it, finished it… and that was it. Meh.
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To answer your OP though, was it tough enough?
My 2 cents. The Tour is what you make it.
My more than 2 cents.
To a certain extent, (I know this approaches heresy) I think The Tour has always been what you make it. While the sheer brutality (and fun) of some of the stages from the before times was not evident in The Tour or the route this year, The Company has been moving in this direction for quite some time. Even The Sufferfest, prior to The Invasion I believe, was moving to a more thoughtful, sport science informed approach. Tweaks were being made to individual workouts to make them more completable yet still delivering a wollop. The past few Tours of Sufferlandria had Focused and Get Me Through It options.
This year was my first Wahoolimabob Tour (hopefully the name changes next year 
). I had done 7 Tours of Sufferlandria prior to that. Each year my goal was to give it 100%. That rarely meant reaching all the targets in each of the workouts in each of the stages but it ALWAYS meant putting in an effort I was proud of, that is the ethos of Knighthood.
So, if this year’s tour wasn’t “enough” for some people, and if future tours aren’t enough, we all have options to make it more of a challenge where we can be proud of our efforts. The “easiest” way to do that is to increase the intensity but a bunch of folks added their own extra bits. @DameLisa wore a GOAT suit for some stages, a couple of old timey Sufferlandrians added a day to each side of the tour and added workouts to the “easier” stages. I added the climb up the Stelvio in level mode to follow Stage 7’s TGTTOS, calling it Stage 7b. When I reached the summit, I was tired and sore but exhilarated at achieving something I never would have done had it not been Tour time.
I think (I hope) as Sir @Rupert.H mentioned in a prior post, that The Company really does takes all of the feedback they’ve got from folks during this year’s experience to improve things going forward. In any case, the wahoominati will be watching #twaaw.
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We must not lose the sight of the fact that the tour is to raise money . First and foremost that is what it is for and that is what it achieved.
I know some of us like to smash ourselves to pieces , we wear it like a badge of honour, and from such suffering brings a deep comrade , dark humour, support and all the things that make us what we are. I would have like the smash myself to pieces option, with options also , for those weary, injured, for those to whom life got in the way. Yes there was something missing when compared with past tours of whatever name you call them, but back to the first point, we raised money for a good cause.
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Yes you could always add more to make it tougher, but part of the point of the Tour is that we all do the same workouts together. Maybe some of us dialed it down a bit, but relatively speaking we all fought the same battle. It is partly about the shared experience.
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I would be curious to know how this year’s fundraising compared to past efforts.
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On another post I’d suggested for future years The Company consider a “base” route and a more “challenging” route that adds extra stuff to the base route. Maybe they’ll consider that.
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I like this idea a lot and certainly more than the old nuclear/focused/get me through it. Your idea is more akin to when you sign up for a charity ride and choose from the 50K, 100K or 200K (or whatever) route. 
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Thanks! Good comparison! Now, is The Company watching? We know the wahoominati are 
They’re always watching. #twaaw
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Don’t remember where, but in some thread pre-tour I tallied TSS for this year’s “tour” vs. the previous 2-3 and the overall TSS was down 20-30% over the 100% (nuclear) effort of prior years.
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That HAS been the primary goal in years past. My feeling this year was the company decided a (product) tour was as or more important than the fundraising for DPF.
My two cents, based solely from this forum, is that user engagement was down, motivation was down, and nor did I see a sizable number of new folks jumping in over prior years. Also, as of today fundraising is at approx. $200k, which I also feel is down from prior years. Can’t remember for sure, but I do feel like we raised more money with the ToS…
Again, purely anecdotal, and I sincerely doubt the company is ever going to confirm or deny any of this, but I’m hoping they catch a clue and bring back a real ToS next year. You want to demo your product for new users? Between the 14-day free ride offer and the (now) monthly challenges, I think you have the demo thing well and covered.
Give us back the Tour of Sufferlandria.
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“You want to demo your product for new users? Between the 14-day free ride offer and the (now) monthly challenges, I think you have the demo thing well and covered.” (Haven’t figured out how to do a real quote)
Spot on
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Some very good points raised here. I don’t race and the number of cycling events I participate in has declined, partially due to the pandemic but also a surprising number of sportives have been dropped, so I always looked forward to ToS as a challenge to prepare for. Over the years (and I have done all the Tours) there have been some truly insane stages that hit you like a bar fight at the Nine Hammers Tavern and getting through was not only a badge of honour but also gave you something to write about on Facebook. In addition to the rather, uh, tepid Tour this year, there was definitely a decline in the endearingly goofy banter. Splitting it between Facebook and the Wahoo Forum probably didn’t help. I don’t do charity rides because I just want to ride my bike because it is fun and that is all (I donate a substantial amount to charity each year by just sending it in) but ToS was an exception and I was happy to support this worthy cause with fellow Sufferlandrians again. I hope that the “specialness” of the Tour, whatever it will be called in future, can be regained.
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As a returnee this year the sum of the accumulated changes was perhaps more apparent to me than if I’d been experiencing the changes in slow time.
For me TWT was TWT #1 but not recognisable as a TOS (9-days, zany fun, tough gig with dial down as required).
But investor returns (surely being demanded) are more likely to be driven by science and broader/‘mass’ market appeal/value than what is perceived to be too narrow/off-putting to the mainstream I guess.
It seems most unlikely to me that the direction of travel will 180 and that for the Sufferlandrian’s that want TOS events then it’s simply up to them to make that happen.
Which is what has happened in a small scale, short notice way already. Sir Mike Baxter led the way with a 9-day event (733 TSS) event in Feb and I created Fluffy’s Grand Tour of Sufferlandria 2023 (9-day 810 TSS) which ‘embraced and extended’ TWT (7-day 542 TSS).
At least three of the previous TOS were over 1000 TSS over 9 days.
Pre-notification : Fluffy’s Grand Tour of Sufferlandria 2024 will be 3rd-11th February 2024.
Initial Spec:
- 9-days. At least one SUF vid each day,
- plus open to excursions beyond border / 2nd SUF vid on some days.
- 800 ish TSS
- challenging Final Stage
- dial downs/ 50 hour day enabled rest days to be managed by riders to ride through all 9 days without illness/injury;
- dial ups available to those whose 100% 4DP numbers @ daily performance seem to deny the science;
- Bib design: yes; poster design yes (self-print); badge design yes ( self print /display)
F.G.TOS can be ridden to raise funds for DPF/other charities of riders choice in addition to TWT #2, whose stages Fluffy will try to incorporate - if the 2 different Tour’s dates do overlap for 2024.
If the dates don’t overlap then there will more opportunity for more people to do a Tour (date-wise) and if dates aren’t a factor then they have more choice as to what motivates them to do one or the other - or both! (mwaahahahaa).
TWT “AND” TOS
not
TWT “OR” TOS
= WIN WIN
at least in my book
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For most people, yes. Fir me, i had to dial back a few rides. Now before you say “Huh”, ive been ill. Not something fun. Start with teeth isses and add in a ear infection. Not something you want to have. So, this year’s Tour wasn’t what it could be. However, I’m looking forward to bigger and better.