Interesting Start For Discovery

I agree. And beyond that, Boonen was heavily, heavily marked everywhere
he went all weekend. He was still able to cause a lot of trouble and to
affect the outcome of both races. QS may have blown it in Het Volk,
ultimately, and the race was genuinely screwed up by the Lotto/QS
rivalry -- but they won three out of four big races that weekend, so
that's not too bad.

Everyone seems to want to either rip Devolder, or suggest he's cruising
or on his way to Lotto, but if you're talking about Discovery, talk
about Van Den Broeck who was extremely strong and without whom Hoste
couldn't have had his result. And Hammond, who was strong, but didn't
have enough to get into the final racing.

And if you're Devolder, you probably don't 'cruise' through the
important races on your schedule in any given year when you have a
career that is likely as not to be measured in single digits. How does
that make sense?

amit wrote:

The rule of thumb is that a pack can close down 10 secs. per kilometer
on a break. The top of the Poggio is less than 6 kms from the finish so
a break needs something like a minute in front of the sprinters teams
to make it to the finish, we can maybe shave it down to 40 sec or so
because of the technical descent. Still, that's asking the attackers to
gain a lot of time on a fast short climb. Moving the finish closer to
the Poggio does increase the odds of a non sprint finish though.

FWIW, I think the rule (I thought it was 6 sec/km, 10 sec per mile)
applies well at the end of a Grand Tour stage, where typically a break
has been away for a long time, and is fairly blown, while the peloton
has been loafing along - well, not loafing - and has a full
sprinter's team doing the pulling. It would work for reeling in an
all day break in a race like Paris-Tours, too. But it's a little
different for a last minute escape at the end of Milan-Sanremo,
where the sprinters' helpers are winnowed down in number and
almost as tired as the escapees. You can't give Bettini that
much time that close to the finish - Jenko's numbers seem
to bear that out.

On 2006-02-27 07:03:10 -0500, "Kenny" said:

Yeah but Stijn Devolder is riding like crap. He was a big
disapointment this weekend (besides Peter VP ofcourse).

OTOH Hoste seems to be back at his 2004 level.

Kenny

Somebody over on the other side want to fill us in about Gert Steegmans
(Davitamon), and what his history is with Boonen (alluded to he
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006...06/?id=results ). Is he
playing the same role as Devolder did last year?

I missed the visuals on this since KBK seems to have never shown up on
a.b.m.s, even though someone seems to have recorded it and not gone out
in such fine weather... Teasing *******.

jesset wrote:
I missed the visuals on this since KBK seems to have never shown up on
a.b.m.s

But it did! http://binsearch.info/?q=kuurne

There's no story between Steegmans and Boonen (that I know of) other
than that they're old sporting rivals from since the junior
categories, and that they're both on bloody good form right now.
Steegmans used to win all the time when they were juniors, but it was
Boonen who rose to stardom later in his career. Perhaps now that
Steegmans is competative again, he feels the need to set things
straight...

jesset schreef:

On 2006-02-27 07:03:10 -0500, "Kenny" said:

Yeah but Stijn Devolder is riding like crap. He was a big
disapointment this weekend (besides Peter VP ofcourse).

OTOH Hoste seems to be back at his 2004 level.

Kenny

Somebody over on the other side want to fill us in about Gert Steegmans
(Davitamon), and what his history is with Boonen (alluded to he
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2006...06/?id=results ). Is he
playing the same role as Devolder did last year?

He plays the same role in the sense that he's one of the strongest and
dispite of what's been written in the (Belgian) newspapers he did much
more than only marking Boonen, he attacked unlike Devolder at the right
time on the right places. The advantage Steegmans has in comparison to
Devolder is his sprint. He's not Boonen-fast but in a select group he
doesn't even have to fear Bettini.

Kenny

On 2006-03-05 04:04:50 -0500, Ewoud Dronkert
said:

jesset wrote:
I missed the visuals on this since KBK seems to have never shown up on a.b.m.s

But it did! http://binsearch.info/?q=kuurne

There's no story between Steegmans and Boonen (that I know of) other
than that they're old sporting rivals from since the junior
categories, and that they're both on bloody good form right now.
Steegmans used to win all the time when they were juniors, but it was
Boonen who rose to stardom later in his career. Perhaps now that
Steegmans is competative again, he feels the need to set things
straight...

So now I have to figure out why it wasn't visible on my server, but the
NZB worked .

I should have known Mr. Raket wasn't teasing like I thought he was. He
has always come through so far. I'm just glad he's still out there
somewhere, feeding this side of the Atlantic with whatever he can.