Discovery using b team riders for classics...??

I have been noticing that Discovery has fielding it's B team riders
for the classics. Their Tour of Romandy team features no significant
riders.

On May 1, 7:57 pm, " wrote:
I have been noticing that Discovery has fielding it's B team riders
for the classics. Their Tour of Romandy team features no significant
riders.

Is Brajkovic insignificant?

I am just surprised to see riders like Antonio Cruz riding. But I am
more concerned about Discovery's tour riders.

On May 1, 5:55 pm, Dwayne wrote:
On May 1, 7:57 pm, " wrote:

I have been noticing that Discovery has fielding it's B team riders
for the classics. Their Tour of Romandy team features no significant
riders.

Is Brajkovic insignificant?

wrote:
I have been noticing that Discovery has fielding it's B team riders
for the classics. Their Tour of Romandy team features no significant
riders.

They're still reading positive.....

On 1 May 2007 20:44:40 -0700, "
wrote:

I am just surprised to see riders like Antonio Cruz riding.
Cruz was on the USPS classics team in the past -- he rode the Tour of
Flanders and Paris to Roubaix and perhaps others.

--
JT
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On May 2, 3:05 am, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
On 1 May 2007 20:44:40 -0700, "

wrote:
I am just surprised to see riders like Antonio Cruz riding.

Cruz was on the USPS classics team in the past -- he rode the Tour of
Flanders and Paris to Roubaix and perhaps others.

And he looked pretty good doing it too. They didn't rehire Tony
because he was a poor water carrier.

On May 1, 4:57 pm, " wrote:
I have been noticing that Discovery has fielding it's B team riders
for the classics. Their Tour of Romandy team features no significant
riders.

There might be a backstory here. Discovery could be playing to a
potential new sponsor (since this is Discovery's last year) and
deploying A-riders accordingly (saving them for the Tour or keeping
them in North America). They''re also being realistic. Some Protour
teams are not targeting the major tours and stack their deck for the
spring classics.

My favorite theory: Bruyneel has been playing to the Tour for so long
he can't manage the tactics required during a 1-day effort. In a
major tour you've got a lot to play with and 3 weeks to work it, but
the classics require some rapid fire thinking on your feet (or
pedals). Who do you put in the break, how do you respond to 5 attacks
from a tier 2 team, how do you slowdown the peloton without letting
armchair sprinters take the win, etc. Also, Bruyneel is not the kind
of DS to let his riders call the shots from the peloton (not since
Lance retired).

Discovery also has a poor contingency on the sprint side. Outside of
O'Grady in the P-R for CSC, most of the spring classics were contested
in a sprint, although with a limited break group coming to the line.

Schumacher is good classic rider (very much like Hincapie). He can
handle enough rollers and still launch an attack with 10km to go. And
he can hang with the strongest riders on an uphill finish, although
its hard to beat Valverde and Bettini in such a situation.

Without Hincapie (strongest rider in the long classics) they may have
just decided to focus on hte Tours. The "in-between" tours are
training rides (Romandie, Dauphine and Tour of Switzerland) for THE
tour or the Giro, in my opinion. I'd like to see Levi or Danielson in
Dauphine and the Vuelta this year. Both could win.

On May 1, 11:44 pm, " wrote:
I am just surprised to see riders like Antonio Cruz riding. But I am
more concerned about Discovery's tour riders.

Doesn't look like Cruz is riding. Velonews mentioned that he has some
injuries from the Classics. But yeah, the Disco team isn't that
impressive.

On May 3, 2:04 pm, paolo wrote:

My favorite theory: Bruyneel has been playing to the Tour for so long
he can't manage the tactics required during a 1-day effort. In a
major tour you've got a lot to play with and 3 weeks to work it, but
the classics require some rapid fire thinking on your feet (or
pedals). Who do you put in the break, how do you respond to 5 attacks
from a tier 2 team, how do you slowdown the peloton without letting
armchair sprinters take the win, etc. Also, Bruyneel is not the kind
of DS to let his riders call the shots from the peloton (not since
Lance retired).

Is Bruyneel the Discovery DS for the classics? I thought that was Dirk
Demol's responsibility...

paolo wrote:
I'd like to see Levi or Danielson in
Dauphine and the Vuelta this year. Both could win.

Levi has never even won a stage in a Grand Tour. Neither
of these guys has even finished in a podium position in
a Grand Tour.

Both of these guys, and Levi especially, are getting
kind of old to show things that they have never shown
before. Levi is 33. At 33 the trend line is down, not
up.

I've gotta think someone has to find a lot of blood in
the fridge before the field is thinned out enough for
either of these guys to have a shot at a Grand Tour.

The Dauphine's a possibility though. That's a training
race and Levi's won it before. If I had Copperopolis
in my palmares I'd take a crack at the Dauphine.

Bob Schwartz