in message , Paul Cassel
') wrote:

Somewhat new to bicycling and the racing.

I look at the standings posted by Bob Martin and from my viewing on
Versus. What sort of deficit is reasonable to make up at this point
based on historical efforts?

Frex, is Hincapie's almost .5 hour deficit something that has been
overcome by others in the past? At what point can we say that someone
with a deficit of X minutes is effectively out of the running for the
overall winner?

Very occasionally, very strong riders have got away in long breaks. It is
possible for a rider to make up a half hour deficit, but it isn't very
likely, and in any case Hincapie isn't the quality of rider to do it.
Vino, however, still is a danger man, even injured and at eight minutes
back. In fact Vino is so tactically erratic that he's probably more
dangerous in his present position/condition than if he was tootling along
in yellow.

However, the other side to getting away in a long break is that if the
peloton sees you as a danger man you won't be allowed to go. Super
climbers can make a break succeed on a hard mountain stage even with the
peloton against them, because if you can get over a col with a reasonable
gap you can sometimes stay away on the descent (particularly if you have
three or four guys with you). Anyone else will only get into a successful
break, fundamentally, if they're permitted to.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Morning had broken. I found a rather battered tube of Araldite
resin in the bottom of the toolbag.