Welcome to the Tour de Lance page.
Um, Jason and I have an unhealthy obsession with the world's greatest endurance race. I'm willing to bet this is is the most comprehensive Tour de France preieve on the net. Seriously.
We've been debating the Tour over email for about a week. i've edited that conversation and so I present to you the BartCopSports Tour de France preview.
US POSTAL SERVICE (Armstrong)
STEPHEN: OK, Lance is nearly unbeatable. Ullrich has already said he has no chance and teams are basing their entire strategy based on stopping Lance. Good luck.
JASON: Lance is the stud of studs at the Tour. Everyone else is either fighting for second or hoping to be an opportunist should some calamity
occur. Really, a bad crash or an illness present a greater threat to Lance than any opponent.
STEPHEN: We’ve been on this bandwagon for a while, but the Posties just do not get enough credit for being as awesome as they are. Jesus, they’ve got Heras, Pena, and Rubiera. Those are some serious
climbers, and if this team was built around Heras, he’d have a good shot at winning the whole thing. At times, he’s looked like the only guy capable of hanging with Lance on the biggest climbs. I’d have to put Lance’s odds of repeating at about 1 to 1.
JASON: The team is rock solid. Heras and Rubiera have shown how good they are in carrying Lance into the mountains. The team added Manuel Beltran, who’s also a great climber. This is a wealth of climbers–USPS can afford to rest Heras on the early climbs, allowing him to pace Lance when he attacks on the stage-ending climbs. Oh, and they’ve got George Hincapie and Viatcheslav Ekimov on the squad too–they’ve paced the yellow jersey to victory a few times.
STEPHEN: It's really amazing how long guys like Hincapie and Ekimov have been willing to stick around. Being a Postie has got to suck sometimes. No matter what you do, you're just there to support Lance. It's no longer a team, it's just the Lance Armstrong Riders. They are the Pips to his Gladys Knight or the News to his Huey Lewis.
JASON: The team exists to have Lance win the Tour. They throw a bone to the others--they ride the Vuelta for Heras and they ride Paris-Roubaix for Hincapie. But we know what the bottom line is. Is there discontent? The only discontent is when a rider like Floyd Landis or Christain Vandevelde gets left off the team--they're fighting for the chance to be Lance's domestique.
STEPHEN: And any time there is discontent, they go become a stud in their own right.
JASON: Hamilton & Leipheimer left for other teams, but it's understandable--they have careers of their own and are good enough to be team leaders. But USPS has no morale problem--winning helps. Heck, Ekimov came out of retirement a year ago to ride for Lance! When Beltran joined the team he said it was a breath of fresh air to know the team had a clear leader and a clear mission. No fighting, just do it.
Um, Jason and I have an unhealthy obsession with the world's greatest endurance race. I'm willing to bet this is is the most comprehensive Tour de France preieve on the net. Seriously.
We've been debating the Tour over email for about a week. i've edited that conversation and so I present to you the BartCopSports Tour de France preview.
US POSTAL SERVICE (Armstrong)
STEPHEN: OK, Lance is nearly unbeatable. Ullrich has already said he has no chance and teams are basing their entire strategy based on stopping Lance. Good luck.
JASON: Lance is the stud of studs at the Tour. Everyone else is either fighting for second or hoping to be an opportunist should some calamity
occur. Really, a bad crash or an illness present a greater threat to Lance than any opponent.
STEPHEN: We’ve been on this bandwagon for a while, but the Posties just do not get enough credit for being as awesome as they are. Jesus, they’ve got Heras, Pena, and Rubiera. Those are some serious
climbers, and if this team was built around Heras, he’d have a good shot at winning the whole thing. At times, he’s looked like the only guy capable of hanging with Lance on the biggest climbs. I’d have to put Lance’s odds of repeating at about 1 to 1.
JASON: The team is rock solid. Heras and Rubiera have shown how good they are in carrying Lance into the mountains. The team added Manuel Beltran, who’s also a great climber. This is a wealth of climbers–USPS can afford to rest Heras on the early climbs, allowing him to pace Lance when he attacks on the stage-ending climbs. Oh, and they’ve got George Hincapie and Viatcheslav Ekimov on the squad too–they’ve paced the yellow jersey to victory a few times.
STEPHEN: It's really amazing how long guys like Hincapie and Ekimov have been willing to stick around. Being a Postie has got to suck sometimes. No matter what you do, you're just there to support Lance. It's no longer a team, it's just the Lance Armstrong Riders. They are the Pips to his Gladys Knight or the News to his Huey Lewis.
JASON: The team exists to have Lance win the Tour. They throw a bone to the others--they ride the Vuelta for Heras and they ride Paris-Roubaix for Hincapie. But we know what the bottom line is. Is there discontent? The only discontent is when a rider like Floyd Landis or Christain Vandevelde gets left off the team--they're fighting for the chance to be Lance's domestique.
STEPHEN: And any time there is discontent, they go become a stud in their own right.
JASON: Hamilton & Leipheimer left for other teams, but it's understandable--they have careers of their own and are good enough to be team leaders. But USPS has no morale problem--winning helps. Heck, Ekimov came out of retirement a year ago to ride for Lance! When Beltran joined the team he said it was a breath of fresh air to know the team had a clear leader and a clear mission. No fighting, just do it.
posted by Poseur at 2:15 PM
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