Actually, as long as I’ve been following cycling Silence hasn’t been the strongest team in the world. On another board I go to (cycling related), every year someone starts a thread wondering if this is the year Cadel leaves Silence. He never does. Personally, I think he’d be perfect for Garmin.
Ok, I’m not much of a rider myself, but I find it difficult to believe that in a group of 4 CSC and evans there would be no advantage for the group. Is this as important as on the flat, no; but still having to react to attacking riders all the time must use up more energy then just following. But hey what do i know.
If it doesn’t matter why do all these strong teams take so many good climbers with them? Especially the US postal teams cared about nothing but the yellow jersey and were mostly made up of people that could climb.
4 v1 makes a big difference on a climb like L’Alpe, obviously. It’s kind of a moot point, because Sastre was the strong man on the day, and Evans didn’t and doesn’t have the style where he hangs his balls out and wrecks the field on the big climbs. So as soon as Cadel elected not to attack it was over for him.
Hypothetically speaking, if he had chased down Sastre everyone else would have sat on his shoulder, doing no work at the front. As soon as he caught Sastre then one of the Schlecks would have attacked - rinse and repeat - Evans would need to outlast the full efforts of 4 other men, plus anyone else who fancied a shot at the stage win.
Conversely, he could have taken the bull by the horns and attacked himself. This would have given him at least a chance - he would have had the Schlecks, Sastre and others chain ganging it up the climb after him. It’s certainly been done before, and it’s the sort of move that makes champions.
They were (pre-Cadel) a sprinter’s team built around Robbie McEwen, and he of course won stages regularly. When it became clear that in Cadel they had a GC contender they had to rebuild the team. It hasn’t gone well.
As far as changing teams is concerned, bear in mind that the big teams are built around stars from Europe where cycling is very, very popular, and the US where it isn’t but it’s a big market nonetheless. People tend to support stars from their own country, right? (I’m lookin’ at you, Princhester).
Australia is a small country that doesn’t follow cycling much.
So if you were a sponsor of a big name team, who would you pay big money for? An Aussie star or an Italian, Spanish or US star?
This is very true and Silnce have tried. For this years tour they attracted two very strong helpers for the mountains and the TTT in Bernard Kohl (third in th GC last year and polka dot jersey winner) and Thomas Dekker. Sadly for them it turned out Kohl was doped up and now actually is turning out to have been one of the dealers in the peleton; and a couple of days before the tour a retest of a urine sample of a couple of years ago seems to show that Thomas Dekker was using the epo as well. Bad luck really (for Cadel).
This is just wrong on every level. I’m not going to type it all out again, go look at:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=474320&page=2 and read my comments and those of BBF.
But in short, (a) drafting is not an issue at 20km/hr, which is all they do up the Alpe, so “doing no work” means little or nothing (b) he did not need to meet the attack of every CSC rider. He just needed to limit his time loss. Losing no time to Frank or Andy Schleck was an irrelevancy: they were always going to and did lose massive time to Cadel on the upcoming TT and Sastre and Andy were one and four minutes back respectively anyway. All he had to do if they took turns attacking was let the attacker go, then go up the hill as fast as he could at his own rhythm. Which is basically what he did, but he couldn’t go fast enough.
Princhester, in the link you posted I see myself pathetically declaring that
so what I think must not count for much, but I really don’t see how you can possibly argue there’s no group advantage in the mountains - I think this would be quite the news flash for everyone involved in the Tour the France actually. Also, I don’t see where you or Boo Boo Foo offer conclusive evidence that there’s no such advantage. Maybe I’m just too dense, but when BBF writes that
, that (to me) really looks like ‘group advantage’.
So, instead of hiding between a poster who’s not around and a thread in which no arguments are offered, how’s about you actually argue your case?
I suppose you could say CSC got a team advantage psychologically. But that is more a fault with him, since as BBF makes very clear (including by way of examples of other riders in past tours) you do not have to be headfucked by such tactics if you ride your own race.
Don’t get me wrong, there are instances where a lack of teammates can stuff you up in mountain stages, particularly where there are multiple climbs with flat stretches in between.
What I have said though is that in last year’s tour Evans didn’t have that sort of a problem. He didn’t get caught out in that way.
If you can’t understand the argument set out in the other thread and this one about what happened on the Alpe last year, sorry I can’t help. Although maybe if you can say exactly how a teammate could have helped Evans or how CSC helped each other in a way that Evans couldn’t have overcome, without generalisations or vague references to alleged psychology, I’ll see what I can do.
Yeah, I suppose you’re right. How about a team like Sky though? They seem committed to putting together a solid team and although Sky is British, don’t they have a pretty big footprint in Australia? I have no idea what their wish list is.
Having someone established might help them get an early admittance to the Tour instead of having to wait, and you also have an outside shot of seeing one of your riders in yellow which is also good for your time.
It will be interesting to see how Sky develops, their mission is to produce a British winner of the Tour in 5 years. They’re put together by Dave Brailsford, who runs the dominant UK track team.
A British GC winner would really be amazing - it’s always been seen as a tall order to develop a GC rider here. We have no real mountains,* and our race scene is nowhere near as competitive as Europe - it’s hard just to get roads closed to put on a race in the first place. So you can get the odd guy come through, but it’s once in a generation. As successful as the track team is, and they crushed all and sundry in Beijing, the Tour has to be viewed on a different level.
Brave effort from Millar today, uphill finish was tough on him. He said that once he saw the width of the boulevards through Barcelona he knew it was over. Too much space for the peleton to get organised. He actually finished a minute back on the field, went backwards in the final Km.
- There’s a mountain pass in Scotland called the Bealach na Ba which is a pilgrimage site for UK cyclists. It’s about the only climb in the UK that has sustained alpine-like hairpins, and is seriously steep in places. It peaks at an un-Alpine 626m.
Trust you kids are up and/or stayed awake. Just hope today’s much-hyped stage lives up to its billing and we don’t get to watch an Astana train up the Arcalis – in order to break them up the other big guns, Sastre, Andy Schleck, Evans, Kreuziger, Azterloza and Menchov (hope the blood got there in time!) need to charge. In turn that should leave AC free to do what he does best…fly uphill.
Or better yet, the Spaniards attack en masse in order to free their buddy, “El Pistolero”…
Stage 7 – When Alberto Contador attacked, what did Armstrong do? If he were a rival, he would have chased. Instead, he marked all of the counterattacks (from Evans, etc.) Armstrong played teammate, not leader.
Contador is the team leader.
Fabulous ride by Feillu!
Nocentini in yellow, nice for him.
Contador’s acceleration was astounding, by the way. The peloton simply had no answer at all, especially with Armstrong covering all attacks (what a lieutenant!) No question that he made a strong statement today.
Exactly. For all the semi/whining I’ve read in the after-stage interviews with some Astana riders – LA front and center of course – here we have Bruynell on record, saying that “there was no plan” in terms of an intrasquad attack (obviously in reference to his two studs), but rather that he expected them to speak to each other and sort it out. Of course, in stage three all was copacetic when LA asked his teammates to pull when Conti got caught in the break.
Can’t have it both ways, Lance…as much as you’ve been used to.
Point being this Tour is developing in such a way that it almost seems clear that Astana is strong enough to pull either rider to victory – if they all finally agreed who was the team leader. Call me a CTer if you’d like, but I get the vibes that it is in the interest of many for Lance to get his Hollywood ending yet again – this one, of course, the most dramatic of all. Well, if that’s the case, let the soap continue because I am pretty sure that the youngest winner in history of all 3 GPs is looking out for his own glory. As well he should.
I do give kudos to Lance for performing well in his first climb since the Giro, but as Knorf said I think it irrelevant what Lance said the day prior about not giving chase. I simply don’t think that ATM there’s anyone in the peloton that can chase Alberto when he rockets away like that. Certainly not The Diesels (Cadel, Sastre, Leipheimer, Kloden). If anyone has a chance is Andy S…or the Armstrong of old. The former couldn’t do it 2day and I’d love to see latter try to go balls out against him in one of the other two uphill finishes left. That should tell us who the strongest rider is and not all this mental chess-fucking.
Lastly, screw Bruynell and all his PC crap. I think it is an open secret that the real Tour – at least so far – is being waged in Astana’s motor-home.
Guess we’ll have to wait for the Alps for an answer – the remaining two mountain stages in the Pyrennes are followed by long descents and flats. I hate that. :mad:
I’m still wondering if some significant component of all this team leader drama isn’t basically misdirection. We’re seen Bruyneel take advantage of peloton uncertainty before …
Not impressed with Efimkin’s sportsmanship today … but I’m glad Sanchez won. Nice little kick at the end!
Knorf, I retract my prior comments about Bruyneel and the whole Astana soap. Not because I think they aren’t valid but because for all the hype about Lance’s return and The Tour itself, I don’t remember watching a softer (read: snoozefest) course design in at least the past 20-25 years if not longer – maybe back to 79’ or 80’ (not sure which off the cuff) when the whole thing was rigged around Hinault’s TTT and ITs. Yes I’m ranting – stage’s not over yet but what a joke, likely a mass finish and a sprint for the win. Which makes it different from a flat stage, how? :rolleyes:
Seriously nothing as tedious as watching a mountain stage almost knowing that no one of import is going to attack. What for anyway? Get spent on the climb only to get caught in the bland 40km (yesterday) 70km(today) aftermath. Hell’s bells, even Cadel admitted that his efforts yesterday were stupid and counterproductive.
Suggestion: Get rid of the Pyrenees altogether if this is how the are going to use them. Make it a two week race. Include 1 TTT 2 ITTs 2 mountaintop finishes, and let the sprinters have the rest. That way we’ll know what days are worth waking/staying up for and what days we can just read the headlines after the fact.
But nooo! This is after all, Le Tour! And that alone sells itself.
Oh well, at least this morning I had the option of switching over to Nürburgring where there were some attempts at real racing of the four wheel kind.
Pardon me while I…
:::yaawn:::
Someone wake me up next week if something happens…
I won’t dispute that there really should have been one more mountain finish in the Pyrenees. There are only 2 more in the entire race, and only one of the two is really difficult! Pretty weak beer. This is not going to be an epic Tour, by any means.
This next week should bring a couple successful breakaways interspersed among the bunch sprints, but not much in the way of excitement for the GC. It’ll be a week of (possibly intermittently exciting) one-day races. That’s it. Nothing will change for the GC until (maybe) Stage 15 on July 19.
We can watch Hushovd and Cavendish battle it out for the green jersey, I suppose.
Yeah today’s course wasn’t great for the fans, 70 odd km after the Tourmalet meant no one would make a move. I really enjoyed seeing it, though, as it was the first stage I’ve watched live this year, so it was great to see un-interrupted coverage of racing against such an awesome backdrop.
Great to see Brad Wiggins hanging in there on there on the climbs - he’s looking in great form but the Alps will be an unknown quantity for him - I don’t think he’s ever made it deep into the Tour.
Lance is looking smooth. My heart wants to get on the Lance fairytale bandwagon but the head says he can’t do it. I just don’t think he’ll be able to hang if Albert, A Schleck or whoever makes a serious move in the Alps. Really hope I’m wrong because it will make for an epic race. The ITV commentary we get in the UK has the American ex racer Bob Roll as a pundit, who is a bit of a Lance cheerleader and reckons Astana will unite behind the Legend once he says the word. Steamrolling victory then ensues 
We shall see.
This team radio brouhaha is interesting. The team directors are campaigning against the plan to have two days of the tour without team radios. The tour organisers are saying they want to introduce the idea to cause things to be mixed up a bit. Their hope is it will lead to breakaways that are not chased down with robotic “just in time” precision, and that riders will be forced to make tactical decisions on the fly instead of being directed by svengalis sitting calmly in air conditioned vehicles. Sounds good to me.
Johan Bruyneel seems to be a major opponent of the suggestion. I can’t help but feel a lack of sympathy for his outrage at not being able to play generalissimo: he has the strongest team of legs, but he’s not satisfied unless he gets to control them like puppets on a string.
The team managers and some riders are saying it’s a safety issue: without team radio they can’t necessarily report a stray car or a rider down. I am a bit sceptical. The tour organisers have confirmed that the safety radio channel would remain open at all times, and as we know the peleton and breakaways are surrounded by a veritable swarm of motorbikes and cars carrying officials.
RE: radios. I agree and I don’t.
Meaning that it’s an obvious gimmick to introduce some excitement in the middle of the race for all of two days. I think they’ve realized they f-up the course design – don’t know about Down Under but most of the cycling journos in Europe have criticized how the race has developed so far and many of them place a lot of the blame (admittedly, not all, riders and DSs are also to blame for the lack of competitiveness) on the circuit. Thus them being reactive.
Bottom line though, I hope it works and we see something other than computerized riding for the next two days.