I always see on Sportcenter that Lance Armstrong is constantly being protected by his teammates. They seem to provide a buffer from Lance and other riders. My question is, if these guys are with Lance all the time, why in the world is he so far ahead of them? Also, what in the heck are they protecting Lance from? Is some other rider going to come up and punch Lance in the face? What’s the deal?
Armstrong is ahead because in two of the mountain stages, he went out on his own and took huge leads. The guy in front before the Tour went into the mountains knew he would get waxed in the mountains and said he would lose his lead.
His teammates now are able to work together to keep up with any challenger to Armstrong’s lead. They will make sure Armstrong stays close enough to the leader of any particular stage so that he won’t lose.
I don’t mean to sound stupid but i don’t understand how they can do anything to help or protect him, they can’t physically block the other riders can they?
Teamwork in Tour cycling is very important. Subordinate team members are required to do anything that advances the team leaders chances to win. If there is a breakaway from the peleton by a challenger the team will chase as a group, giving the most rest to the leader by allowing him to draft behind the others as they take the lead, cutting the wind. The subordinates would obviously be required to drop back and assist if the leader falls back due to mechanical problems. They may even have to give up their bikes to the leader if necessary. They maneuver to get supplies and do the reconnaisance necessary to keep tabs on all challengers.
In the old days before high tech gels, the subs had to break in the leather saddles for the primo rider.
research comes from addictive reading of bicycling mags dating back to the days of Eddy Merkyx and Ray “Poo Poo” Poulidor
IIRC
That team concept came in handy one year for Greg Lemond. He was leading the tour by a few minutes going into the final two or three stages when he had a flat tire and some sort of chain problem. It took about three minutes to fix and his entire team stopped and waited with him (one of the guys was way ahead for some reason and was told to stop and wait too). The rest of the peleton didn’t stop, of course, and Lemonds team had to really kick it to get him back into the race. Impressive.
I don’t know what the unwritten etiquette is in that situation - tour leader down due to mechanical failure: do rivals attack or stay with the peleton?
As it happens yesterday about 20 cyclists crashed after one of the peloton riders made a bad move. Think of it as a case of a line of dominoes winding down a small country lane, one goes and then twenty. Anyhow Armstrong and the Postal boys are in the front of the peloton where he is protected from an over-exerted cyclist making a bad move in front of him. Kebbyrd (welcome to the SDMB) pretty much covers it.
No. It’s considered bad form to attack when a leader or challenger suffers a minor crash or mechanical failure. A great example of this was when Ullrich failed to negotiate a downhill curve on Saturday. Lance and two members of his team waited (coasted along) for Ullrich to catch up.
It was also during this stage that an excellent example of a teammate giving himself up for the star. Roberto Heras was 40 seconds behind Lance and Ullrich, he caught up and then pulled (took the point) for about 10Km up the second to the last tough climb. When Ullrich attacked, Heras was dropped, but Lance was quite fresh and absolutely smoked Ullrich.
Last year Armstrong held the yellow jersey for almost the entire month and yet didn’t win a stage until the last week when the result was basically already set in stone. This is
because the Tour is all about accumulated time and has only minor bonuses for finishing 1st in any one particular stage. In one mountain stage in particular, Lance and one other racer, Marco Pantani, had a big lead at the summit when Lance eased up at the end and apparently let Marco win the stage. It was heralded by the announcers as a wonderful display of sportsmanship, since Marco wasn’t a threat to Lance’s lead, but Marco wasn’t too pleased that Lance gifted him the stage, he wanted to win it outright.
I think Lance got kind of stung by criticism that he only won that single stage last year and thus really made an effort to win the mountain stages this year…though the fact that he went 35 minutes down to the leader before the race hit the Alps surely played a role as well.
Here is how it works.
The time for each rider is added up at the end of each stage, the total sum used used to place the rider in the field.
Usually each team will have a rider with a realistic chance of coming in with the lowest total time, but not always, and since the attrition rate is high due to health and physical injury problems some teams have a second rider (or super domestique) who can step in if required.
The domestique is the team used for a rider whose only task is to assist the main team riders in any way they can, from fetching water, clothing and food, to dropping back and taking messages to the team manager in the following cars, chasing down threatening breaks, reserving a place at the front for the team sprint specialist and leading him out at the best possible time.
Breakaways happen whenever the opportunity arises to make big gains, like when a team leader maybe punctures or crashes or just appears slightly vulnerable. This is when other teams will attack, or if a team leader feels strong he may direct his team to attack the bunch.
Drafting can save up to 30% of the effort for following riders so the team leader will keep right out of the way behind a couple of others in his squad who will rip themselves to bits to keep him in contention.
The team leader will usually then take over at a critcal stage, perhaps taking another in support with him and try to make as much time over his rivals as possible.
Those other teammates have expended themselves and will trail in some time after the leader.
No rider is able to push hard every single day so after a big effort a rider will rest on the following day, coming in well after his team leader.These riders take turns at resting in this way but the team leader does not, so you can see how team leaders end up with better(lower) total times for the race.
Usually all the riders that arrive in the main group will be given the same finishing time but those ahead and behind will get their respective times.
There are rules about this all riders must finish the days stage within a certain percentage of the stage winners time but sometimes the winner gets so far ahead that many are then disqualified on this rule, this year one break of a few riders got so far ahead and the main field was lethargic in chasing them that all but ten or so riders should have been eliminated from the race, so in true Gallic pragmatic fashion and for the sake of the race this rule was …er… overruled.
If one team has made a big effort one day and is tired then another will have kept themselves back to counter-attack the following day, there is a huge amount of bluff and double bluff.
Beyond my half-mile commute, I’m not a biker, so could someone please explain a bit of the terminology here? What is meant by one team “attacking” another? I’ve got this mental image here of guys on bikes swinging swords.
I think it has something to do with the fact that the leaders like to lag behind and draft off of others for a while, then will pull out and go for it on their own. I think this is basically what is meant by an attack.
Actually, “attacking” in a bicycle race simply means to accelerate to separate oneself from the rest of the racers. You are hoping to leave your opponents behind, basically, through timing, skill, strength, whatever…
Usually, they just use their aero bars 
“Attacking” usually means that you put forth an extreme effort, increase your speed, and try like hell to catch up. Often, two or more teams will attack together; the more drafters you have, the higher your pack’s velocity, since riders spend less time at the front, where the most energy is expended. But of course it gets much more complicated than that.
I also heard on some documentary show that even the domestiques get paid on the order of $50,000 a year. Of course, even getting that high up means keeping tremendously fit and having not a little talent.
Oh, and the figure I heard for the energy that drafting saves you is about 10%, but even that amount can make several minutes’ difference over the course of a typical race; every fraction of a km/h counts massively at this level of competition. You will also notice that the support vehicles are very careful not to be directly in front of the cyclists; drafting from a car or motorcycle would give you a horribly unfair advantage. (Cycling speed record, flat surface, no draft: 75-ish mph. With draft: 150-ish mph.)
If you have just one rider drafting another then 10%is a realistic saving but if you are in the middle of a bunch of, say, 30 or more riders you can save a great deal more.
Even a total goofball rider like me could hear the difference between being alone and riding the wheel of another guy. The wind was cut that much.
Hey, what was this thing I read about Armstrong winning a “time trial” on the most recent stage? Is this one of the minor bonuses referred to? What is that all about?
A time trial is a race where there is no drafting allowed. The start is staggered with one rider going every couple minutes. If someone overtakes another rider, it’s illegal to draft him. Note that Armstrong wore an extremely streamlined helmet on the time trial.
There’s usually two time trials in the Tour. Armstrong won both of them this year. The first was unusual in that it was in a mountainous section. They are usually on flat or rolling hills courses.
Time trial, the French call it the race of truth, since there is no room for bluff or tactics, it’s a case of put up or shut up.
You cannot hide any weaknesses and all the team leaders have to put out their best possible rides.
It is a race over a set distance, on your own, against the clock.
Armstrong’s victory in the time trial on Friday (or Thursday, I forget) was amazing! I mean, this is the guy who wins the tour de France because he is an amazing climber - not because he is a time trial specialist. I live in Paris and watched it on TV - the French announcers were astounded. They couldn’t believe it at all - so when you read in the U.S. papers how amazing it was, that is only a watered down version. Anyway, the French announcers were so proud of a French guy that was in first place for a while (remember it is a staggered start) that they were having a hard time controlling their disbelief over Armstrong - who beat the French guy by over a minute (over about an hour of racing).
Greg Lemond did something similar when he won one year - the last segment of the race was a time trial ending in Paris and he made up 52 seconds to take first place over Laurent Fignon a French rider. It ended on the Champs-Elysees: Fignon was the last rider (since the leader goes last) and as he was racing down the Champs, the loudspeakers were blaring: he’s ahead by 10 seconds, 9 seconds, 8 seconds - and he was still so far from the finish line - he ended up losing to Lemond by 7 seconds and all of France collapsed in disgust. Except for us Americans on the Champs, that was a lot of fun!
Thanks for the time trial explanation, guys. Makes sense to me. Yeah, pretty much everything about Armstrong’s performance is just unheard of.