Today's stage (massive spoilers)

So, can anyone here remember a year in which there were such big gaps
at the head of the field after only three days racing?

Today may, in three weeks time, turn out to have been decisive for the
whole tour. Armstrong's strategy from here on in is obvious; it's to
sit like a basilisk on Contador's shoulder on every climb, not letting
the youngster get a bike-length ahead. Contador can no longer win the
Tour de France. And if Contador can't, who else can? Sastre is the
best climber present. But like the Schleck brothers, he's a minute and
three quarters down - and that's a lot of ground to make up on someone
who need only defend (OK, so only a minute down on Armstrong). If
Sastre can break the elastic on the climbs, then he can pull out that
minute and more - but he has to attack. Armstrong doesn't.

Will Contador stand for it? Will team Astana explode, with their four
leaders all riding against one another, with Vino grinning manically
and poking a sharp stick in from the sidelines? (Come to think of it,
riding against his own team leader is an old Vino trick).

Meantime, Saxo Bank are in chaos. Cancellara can climb well for a big
man - we saw that in last year's Queen Stage, and in this year's Tour
of Switzerland. And he has lost weight. But can Saxo defend him in
yellow for the whole tour? I may have my history wrong but as far as I
know that's only been done once. Do Saxo deploy their whole team to
help pull Cancellara up every hill, or do they gamble on Andy being
able to go out with Sastre to pull that minute and a quarter (and
more, to give them a buffer for the ITT on stage 18) back?

And Columbia HTC? They came to the tour to win green, but surely they
must be wondering if they have strength to get yellow. Hincapie is a
useful climber, and a good time trialler. Who else have they got?

What ever else, this tour is not going to be dull!

On 06/07/2009 22:48, Simon Brooke wrote:
Contador can no longer win the Tour de France.

I wouldn't completely rule out Contador yet (though I wouldn't say he
was my favourite to win).

Anyway, after the last couple of days I'm currently *much* more
interested in the green jersey competition. Today's stage was certainly
a lot more exciting than I expected.

--
Danny Colyer http://www.redpedals.co.uk
Reply address is valid, but that on my website is checked more often
“If two men on a job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they
disagree all the time, then both are useless.” - Darryl F. Zanuck

Tomorrow should be interesting. If Armstrong can ride into a bit more form
then it should be very interesting, he didn't look great on Stage 1, I
thought he was stomping on the peddles a bit more than he used to. He also
looked pretty ****e in the post race interview.

One things for sure, Garmin have blown Wiggins chance of yellow tomorrow.

Cheers,

--
bob [at] bobarnott [dot] com http://www.bobarnott.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that,
with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month."
-- Wernher von Braun

Danny Colyer writes:

On 06/07/2009 22:48, Simon Brooke wrote:
Contador can no longer win the Tour de France.

I wouldn't completely rule out Contador yet (though I wouldn't say he
was my favourite to win).

Quite - it's really hard to tell anything until we've had a couple of
days in the real hills. I know the gaps were unusual for a flat stage
yesterday, but we often see much bigger gaps on mountain stages.

Today's team time trial will be interesting now that they've got rid of
the maximum time loss thing. I suspect poor old Cadel might lose a
couple of minutes on the rest of the contenders.

On 2009-07-06, Simon Brooke wrote:
So, can anyone here remember a year in which there were such big gaps
at the head of the field after only three days racing?

Today may, in three weeks time, turn out to have been decisive for the
whole tour. Armstrong's strategy from here on in is obvious; it's to
sit like a basilisk on Contador's shoulder on every climb, not letting
the youngster get a bike-length ahead.

Not letting Contador get a bike-length ahead may be easier said than
done.

But the interview with Armstrong after that stage was interesting.
"41 seconds is 41 seconds... don't want to get involved in polemics...
I've won 7 tours I think that deserves some respect... two leaders".

I had him down as, realistically, a super-domestique along for the ride,
but I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

The problem for Lance is recovery. They've packed a lot of big mountains
and time-trials and things all together in the last week or so, which
works against the guy who's getting on a bit.

Remember last year's final time trial: Sastre rode a particularly good
one for him, Evans a slightly disappointing one for him. But I reckon
that's because Evans was completely knackered after keeping up with
everyone in the mountains.

Contador can no longer win the Tour de France.

My money's still on him. But anything can happen-- accidents, bad day in
the mountains, doping scandals, Lance turning out to still be Superman
after all.

And if Contador can't, who else can? Sastre is the best climber
present. But like the Schleck brothers, he's a minute and three
quarters down - and that's a lot of ground to make up on someone who
need only defend (OK, so only a minute down on Armstrong).

Also his new team can't be as good as his team was last year.

If Sastre can break the elastic on the climbs, then he can pull out
that minute and more - but he has to attack. Armstrong doesn't.

Will Contador stand for it? Will team Astana explode, with their four
leaders all riding against one another, with Vino grinning manically
and poking a sharp stick in from the sidelines? (Come to think of it,
riding against his own team leader is an old Vino trick).

Maybe Lance and George Hincapie will unofficially team up again
That's sort of what happened yesterday.

Meantime, Saxo Bank are in chaos. Cancellara can climb well for a big
man - we saw that in last year's Queen Stage, and in this year's Tour
of Switzerland. And he has lost weight. But can Saxo defend him in
yellow for the whole tour? I may have my history wrong but as far as I
know that's only been done once. Do Saxo deploy their whole team to
help pull Cancellara up every hill, or do they gamble on Andy being
able to go out with Sastre to pull that minute and a quarter (and
more, to give them a buffer for the ITT on stage 18) back?

And Columbia HTC? They came to the tour to win green, but surely they
must be wondering if they have strength to get yellow. Hincapie is a
useful climber, and a good time trialler. Who else have they got?

Michael Rogers. He nearly got yellow two or three years ago but fell off
when his tyre came off down a hill.

On 7 July, 06:59, Paul Rudin wrote:
Danny Colyer writes:
On 06/07/2009 22:48, Simon Brooke wrote:
Contador can no longer win the Tour de France.

I wouldn't completely rule out Contador yet (though I wouldn't say he
was my favourite to win).

Quite - it's really hard to tell anything until we've had a couple of
days in the real hills. I know the gaps were unusual for a flat stage
yesterday, but we often see much bigger gaps on mountain stages.

My feeling is that Armstrong will do his absolute damnedest to stop
Contador getting away from him, and will also take (at least) half of
Contador's domestiques away from him. It's as if Astana had split from
being one very strong team into two relatively weak teams, who are
fighting against one another. This is a team game. Can five men from
Astana beat four men from Astana? Possibly. Can five men from Astana
beat nine men from Columbia or Saxo Bank? No.

Today's team time trial will be interesting now that they've got rid of
the maximum time loss thing. I suspect poor old Cadel might lose a
couple of minutes on the rest of the contenders.

Yes. It will be particularly interesting to look at team cohesion. I
expect at least Columbia and Saxo to do well; whether Astana also do
well (which they obviously have the skills to do) will be interesting.

Simon Brooke wrote:
So, can anyone here remember a year in which there were such big gaps
at the head of the field after only three days racing?



Lance A seemed to explain it.
He knew there was a break likely to come,it's that sort of stage.
He made sure he was with the leading group when it went round big
corners and the wind direction changed.
Once the lead group was away it was the indecision of the rest that
caused the gap to increase.
There didn't seemto be a single team that were perpared to do the donkey
work of draging the peloton back to the leaders.

He may be an old bugger but Lance still knows how cycle races work.


--

Come to Dave & Boris - your cycle security experts.

In ,
Keitht KeithT tweaked the Babbage-Engine to tell us:

Lance A seemed to explain it.
He knew there was a break likely to come,it's that sort of stage.
He made sure he was with the leading group when it went round big
corners and the wind direction changed.

Lance's comments afterwards seemed to translate to to "Contador was asleep
and if The Mgt[1] think I'm going to wait for him, they are this: wrong"

1 - and let's not forget that the Directeur Sportif of Astana has already
guided Mr L Armstrong to seven wins...

--
Dave Larrington
http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk
Is this your sanderling?

In message
Simon Brooke wrote:

On 7 July, 06:59, Paul Rudin wrote:
Danny Colyer writes:
On 06/07/2009 22:48, Simon Brooke wrote:
Contador can no longer win the Tour de France.

I wouldn't completely rule out Contador yet (though I wouldn't say
he was my favourite to win).

Quite - it's really hard to tell anything until we've had a couple
of days in the real hills. I know the gaps were unusual for a flat
stage yesterday, but we often see much bigger gaps on mountain
stages.

My feeling is that Armstrong will do his absolute damnedest to stop
Contador getting away from him, and will also take (at least) half of
Contador's domestiques away from him. It's as if Astana had split from
being one very strong team into two relatively weak teams, who are
fighting against one another. This is a team game. Can five men from
Astana beat four men from Astana? Possibly. Can five men from Astana
beat nine men from Columbia or Saxo Bank? No.

Cavendish and his team were magnificant, it was a great move, clearly
they had planned for such a move, but when the opportunity came it was
well executed. Armstrong proved that he is still tactically aware and
played a very astute game. I suspect that Astana as a team may leave the
decision as to who to fully support until we've had a few mountain
stages.


Today's team time trial will be interesting now that they've got rid
of the maximum time loss thing. I suspect poor old Cadel might lose
a couple of minutes on the rest of the contenders.

Yes. It will be particularly interesting to look at team cohesion. I
expect at least Columbia and Saxo to do well; whether Astana also do
well (which they obviously have the skills to do) will be interesting.

Yes Astana have everything to lose.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
" || _`\,_ |__\ \ | caving, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"