Stage 4: Discovery continues TTT reign
New packaging -- same product, same result. Once again the Discovery team came through with the goods in winning the team time trial. It was a great stage as CSC and T-Mobile kept it close. Speaking of close -- what's with two seconds? Bets please on the winning margin of the final time trial. We could have done without the images of Dave Zabriskie crashing hard in the last two kilometers. I'm glad he didn't break anytyhing but it sure didn't look good. It was painful watching him slowly pedal in all torn up.
A note on the crash: Did you notice the policeman jumping as Dave slid under him along the barriers? Flashback to the spectacular crash of Abdoujaporov and Laurent Jalabert a few years back also in the Tour de France. Abdu clipped a policeman in the closing meters because he put his head down and was sprinting along the barriers not expecting someone to be standing in his line. If the team came around a corner and the guys went wide along the barriers, the first riders may have looked up surprised to see the policeman standing on the outside of the barriers. With the team in tow, and on the rivet, the smallest correction at that speed transfers down the line and a wheel can be crossed. Just my theory.
T-Mobile put in a very respectable ride for their leaders Vinokourov and Ullrich. Can we count Andreas Klöden along with them? Liberty Seguros is a definite honorable mention. Similar to how US Postal became the Discovery team, Liberty Seguros was once the Once team that won the team time trial in 2000.
Lance is back in yellow with teammate George Hincapie nipping his wheel. Okay, not quite nipping but within a minute. Bobby Julich sits in fourth and Zabriskie slid to ninth place. Floyd Landis and Levi Leipheimer have fallen a few places but are in similar striking distance having limited their losses in the team time trial.
That said, Floyd's not happy and I'm sure Phonak will be looking for guys that can time trial for future Tours. Word is some of the Phonak boys were having trouble staying on the train. A couple riders couldn't hold pace and one couldn't take a pull for 45 minutes -- not what you're looking for in a team time trial.
As the American public learns more about bicycle racing, and the Tour de France, it's interesting to see how important the selection of riders can be. You can have a lot of great climbers but how much will that hurt you in the TTT? Or you can load up with time trial studs and then suffer in the mountains. It's this balance of speed, power and climbing ability that makes Discovery such a complete Tour team. Bruyneel and Lance have done an outstanding job once again of putting the right chess pieces in place to give them the best shot at putting Lance on top of the podium for the seventh time.
Stage 5: It's back to the sprinters barring an escape that can edge its way to the line. McEwen is not happy with the judges relegating him for Stage 3's bump. Let's see if this anger can transfer to a few extra watts into the pedals.
I'm picking McEwen to finally edge Boonen.
Discovery will be more than happy to let the sprinters' teams do their thing and control the race. They will pitch in a few guys to keep everyone happy since they are in yellow. One thing is for sure, the guys will be feeling the effort of today's team time trial.
A note on the crash: Did you notice the policeman jumping as Dave slid under him along the barriers? Flashback to the spectacular crash of Abdoujaporov and Laurent Jalabert a few years back also in the Tour de France. Abdu clipped a policeman in the closing meters because he put his head down and was sprinting along the barriers not expecting someone to be standing in his line. If the team came around a corner and the guys went wide along the barriers, the first riders may have looked up surprised to see the policeman standing on the outside of the barriers. With the team in tow, and on the rivet, the smallest correction at that speed transfers down the line and a wheel can be crossed. Just my theory.
T-Mobile put in a very respectable ride for their leaders Vinokourov and Ullrich. Can we count Andreas Klöden along with them? Liberty Seguros is a definite honorable mention. Similar to how US Postal became the Discovery team, Liberty Seguros was once the Once team that won the team time trial in 2000.
Lance is back in yellow with teammate George Hincapie nipping his wheel. Okay, not quite nipping but within a minute. Bobby Julich sits in fourth and Zabriskie slid to ninth place. Floyd Landis and Levi Leipheimer have fallen a few places but are in similar striking distance having limited their losses in the team time trial.
That said, Floyd's not happy and I'm sure Phonak will be looking for guys that can time trial for future Tours. Word is some of the Phonak boys were having trouble staying on the train. A couple riders couldn't hold pace and one couldn't take a pull for 45 minutes -- not what you're looking for in a team time trial.
As the American public learns more about bicycle racing, and the Tour de France, it's interesting to see how important the selection of riders can be. You can have a lot of great climbers but how much will that hurt you in the TTT? Or you can load up with time trial studs and then suffer in the mountains. It's this balance of speed, power and climbing ability that makes Discovery such a complete Tour team. Bruyneel and Lance have done an outstanding job once again of putting the right chess pieces in place to give them the best shot at putting Lance on top of the podium for the seventh time.
Stage 5: It's back to the sprinters barring an escape that can edge its way to the line. McEwen is not happy with the judges relegating him for Stage 3's bump. Let's see if this anger can transfer to a few extra watts into the pedals.
I'm picking McEwen to finally edge Boonen.
Discovery will be more than happy to let the sprinters' teams do their thing and control the race. They will pitch in a few guys to keep everyone happy since they are in yellow. One thing is for sure, the guys will be feeling the effort of today's team time trial.
3 Comments:
Kevin,
Great to have a Tour veteran's insights! Just curious about TTTs -- how do the teams decide the order of riders in TTTs? Are the strong guys spread out, or do they bunch them together? Also, how does it work if someone wants to take some extra pulls -- is this typically ok, or do teams prefer to stick to a pre-determined order?
Did anyone notice Lance's bridge down the final stretch to pull the second half of the team back into line? If he hadn't done that, I doubt Discovery would have won the stage.
Ed,
When I was in US Postal Service the tactic was to put two strong time trial guys around Lance. For example George in front of him and Ekimov behind Lance in the line up. This way George was strong enough to get back on after his turn with Lance pulling through and Ekimov could endure the loss of draft of sitting second position. Lance might pull longer on occasions so Ekimov was even more exposed (Ekimov would also take longer pulls-now you know why they missed him). Note the order of these three with Lance drafting George a taller rider than him and Ekimov a bit smaller behind Lance. Any rider can pull a bit longer or even faster but careful not to disrupt the rhythm.
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