Pedal pedal baby...it's the Tour de France

Cafe Society
21

That was an awesome, powerful move yesterday.

I was kind of rooting for Mayo (I think he’s Basque?) but now he could be cooked.

So, today is a team trial and I heard that they “capped” the margin this year at 2:00, meaning no team could lose more than 2:00 to the winning team.

First of all, that almost seems like a shot at Postal. Is that something they’ve EVER done before?

Secondly, what’s to stop a team from totally dogging it if they realize they’re going to be a 1:50 or something? Just ease up and save their energy for another day.

Oh, one more basic question to anyone who might know. . .

Aren’t the teams different sizes? What if postal has 10 members, and T-Mobile only has 8 (based on withdrawals or whatever). Doesn’t that put Postal at a disadvantage.

22

Basically what you had yesterday was the “peloton” (the big group of riders all together). Mayo had fallen and was working his way back towards the peleton.

Well, about 3/4 of the way through the race, on some cobbles, several members of Postal went to the front of the peleton and started riding like the dickens. Well, about 20-30 riders went with them and they split the peleton. They had enough members in that lead group to garner the aero-benefits of a pack (if only a couple riders go ahead, they don’t have enough people breaking wind to sustain the lead typically), so they were able to distance themselves from the rest of the riders.

Unfortunately, Mayo was in that second pack, which ended up losing to the first pack by about 3 minutes.

23

what I kind of left out was the basic racing dynamic. on a “stage” race like yesterday, it’s most efficient for riders to travel in a group (peloton).

what you tend to get is a small group that will leave the peloton, but with only a few people breaking the wind, they tire and get “reeled” in by the peloton. Not always, but often. Sometimes they get “points” bonuses for being first to certain checkpoints along the route, so it can be beneficial to break. The points are some alternative scoring that I don’t really understand.

So, when postal moved yesterday, if it was just a few of them they might have been reeled in. But, they had enough people go with them (people who probably feared they wouldn’t be reeled in) to make their own mini-peloton. That mini-pel including Ullrich, Hamilton, and I think Heras. It DIDN’T included Mayo.

Actually, Mayo, maybe suspecting a break, fell when he was trying to get closer to the front (according to the announcers). He was a victim of walking the fine line between agression and patience.

So, you might ask, “how do you time the riders in the peloton at the end”. What they do, AFAI can tell is reward time bonuses to places 1-2-3 so that there’s always a mad sprint at the end. But, the rest of the peloton gets the same time. I think this system avoids having 100 riders try to fit across 10 feet of pavement.

That said, I think at some cut-off point in the peloton, they all get +5 seconds from there on back, and maybe a +10 from some other point on back. The point is, they reward a group of riders with the same basic time, except for the first three.

(this is all completely different on climbs where aero isn’t as important, individual time trials, and team time trials.)

24

[small nitpick]Not quite 100% correct.[/small nitpick]

What happened is that most of the favourites (Armstrong, Ullrich, Armstrong) were at the front of the peloton where they belong, since it is a much safer place to be, especially when coming to dangerous passages where crashes are likely. If you are at the front of the peloton the crash will inevitably be behind you. The peloton always picks up the pace before coming to a cobblestone section, because the first ten or so riders to get onto the cobblestones have a huge advantage. They can basically pick their own line through the cobblestones, and they don’t have to worry as much when someone “loses it” on the cobblestones, as they won’t be riding six abreast on an eight foot wide path. :eek: Now, just as the peloton was accelerating before getting to the first patch of cobblestones, there was a crash in the peloton, and Mayo was caught behind the crash. The same thing happens every year in the Paris-Roubaix race. the peloton will be riding in one big bunch up to the first cobblestone passage, and then all hell breaks loose.

Almost immediately all the “big guys” in the front of the peloton realized the chance they had, and they decided to use teamwork (the Postal, T-Mobile and Phonak teams decided to work together) to seperate from the rest of the peloton. Mayo’s team (Euskatel) tried to catch up almost all day, but there was nothing they could do against three teams who decided to work together.

25

Actually, nothing can stop a team from dogging it if they realize they are more than two minutes behind, with no chance of making the time up. And yes, the rule change is considered a dig at Postal and Lance by most people. I guess the organizers think it’s a way of making the whole Tour more competitive. :confused:

Also, the final time of the team time trial is ridden by the fifth rider from the team to cross the finish line. so basically, you could race the whole thing with five guys going all out, and the rest of the team walking their bikes to the finish. :smiley: Actually, it is a serious disadvantage if you have less riders to start with, and they drop out from the “train” early. The riders are constantly switching who is leading the “train” so that they can split the work of cutting through the wind. When you are riding behind someone doing all the work, you can save some precious energy, and the team as a whole will ride much faster than a team with less riders in the “train”.

26

Now that I think about it, they did focus on what you said. . .it was key to get into the top 10-15 BEFORE the cobbles because you wanted to be there ON the cobbles. They mentioned that a lot of crashes tend to happen before the cobbles because of that rush to the front, which is what happened yesterday.

Anyway – does anyone know what the deal is about riding team trials with teams of different sizes? Most of the teams seem to have 9 members, but some have 8. Do you only have to race 8?

27

preview :smack:

thanks. I didn’t realize that about it being the 5th man, so I get how less riders would be a disadvantage. I was thinking it was the 9th man or something.

28

The teams that are racing less people have already had people drop out or disqualified. I think someone was disqualified in the 1st stage because he finished more than half an hour after the field, after crashing.

In the mountain stages there is actually a little bus called the “sweeper” that rides well behind the field, and picks up any stragglers who are so far behind that they have no chance of making the finish in time. Some very big names in cycling have had to ride in the “sweeper”.

29

Phew! What a TTT today! Rain, wind, it was brutal!

And Postal wins it and Lance dons the yellow! I really thought Phonak was going to grab the time trial today, but the blue train blew them away. Sheryl Crow, interviewed right after the finish, was right: they looked like a bobsled. Awesome team coordination, USPS. Terrific speed and recovery in the face of adversity, Phonak.

30

A question on the crash yesterday:

In previous races, it seems when there was a crash the other teams would stop/slow down to let the downed rider back into the race. Is that not always the case, or am I missing something? I thought it was a sportsmanship thing.

31

Congratulations US Postal! As I suspected, Lance was basically screwed over by the new rules. Instead of gaining over a minute on Tyler Hamilton he gains twenty seconds. Instead of gaining over a minute on Jan Ullrich he gains fourty seconds. Oh well, it should keep things more interesting. I’m already excited about the mountain stages. Things should get really exciting then.

32

I guess the point of the time-loss limit is to prevent damage to GC contenders who are on teams that aren’t as rich as, say, Postal—which is kind of like giving baseball teams extra at-bats against the Yankees. If they want to limit damages, they should just shorten the course, not change the rules.

Nice work by Phonak and Tyler Hamilton today, but Postal was awesome. I want an animated GIF of the Blue Train…

33

Mycroft – I’m missing something.

I thought they put a “cap” on it like if you beat me by 4:00, they would change it to 2:00. But why would a “gaining a minute” be changed to “gaining 40 seconds”.

Can you explain?

34

I guess it’s not the case when you can eliminate two or three strong candidates for the yellow jersey. Basically Mayo was punished for not being near the front of the peloton like all the other favourites. Someone who has ridden Paris-Roubaix or one of the other spring races knows that the kilometers before reaching a stretch of cobblestones can be very chaotic and dangerous. Lance and most of his US Postal teammates have ridden a spring classic before, so they knew they had to be at the front of the peloton.

I guess Mayo can count this as a learning experience. He is still young, and he won’t make the same mistake again. It’s amazing how many people don’t realize how the Tour can be a very tactical, strategic battle. It’s not only the best cyclist who wins, it’s usually the smartest too.

35

In some previous years, the TDF didn’t have a team time trial. So if they really wanted to take a swipe at Lance, they could have eliminated it alltogether. I think that limiting the loss was very fair today, especially since the weather was bad for the teams starting early. Postal took advantage of having to spend the least time in the rain.

In any case, I think that this year’s winner will be determined in the unprecedented L’Alpe d’Huez time trial.

36

Well, US Postal finished 01’07" ahead of Phonak and 01’19" ahead of T-mobile. According to the old rules, Lance 's lead over Tyler Hamilton would have grown from 16 seconds to 1’23", but now it’s only 36 seconds. So, that’s a whopping 47 seconds that Lance had “stolen” from him. Jan Ullrich would have been 01’34" behind Lance, instead of the 55 seconds he is behind him now. That’s 39 seconds that Lance had “sotlen” again. Sometimes (but rarely) the final margin can be just seconds. Witness Greg LeMond beating Laurent Fignon by mere seconds in 1989.

37

Trunk, the time loss caps were incremental. The difference between USPS and Phonak was over a minute, but the rule says that second place can lose no more than 20 seconds. For each place, the maximum time loss goes up: third place, 30 seconds; fourth place, 40 seconds; etc, up to last place, 4 minutes.

38

ah – that’s what I was missing. tough to find that kind of stuff.

Thanks to all.

Looks like tomorrow we get a bit hilly.

So, in others opinion, does Lance hold onto the jersey for the rest of the tour?

39

I don’t know how the hell you race on cobblestones. I once rode on some cobblestoned streets in Savannah, GA, and I was sweating tire damage because the stones were not small, they were quite large, and each one made a distinct “bump” as it hit my tires. Racing over something like that boggles the mind. Then againk I guess it boggles the riders, too.

40

Unlikely, still too many flat stages between now and the mountains. However, unless there is a successful escape tomorrow, I doubt that Lance will lose it immediately. He’s put quite a gap not only on his main Tour victory rivals but also the sprinter types who have been battling for the yellow up until today. It’ll probably take a few days worth of sprint bonuses to work that time back.