STAGE FOUR
OK, the new rules suck. The limit on the amount a team can lose on a time trial cost Armstrong about forty seconds to Hamilton, Ullrich, and Mancebo (who is 1:01 out, not 30 seconds). Still, the psychological blow is pretty important. There just wasn't anybody even competitive with the Posties. It's doubtful this Tour will come down to 40 seconds, so riding hard to drop the hammer like this is pretty important.
I liked the Phonak strategy. It's not a particularly deep team, so instead of letting the slower riders bog them down, they dropped them like a bad habit. They needed five riders to cross, and sure enough, exactly five crossed together. It was a strategy which hid the team's weakness of an extremely thin lineup.
Some of the dark horses are holding strong. Leipheimer's 1:08 out due to Rabobank's 6th place finish. The Dutch team had a miserable Tour last year, but they seem to have bounced back and will be a threat for both the team title and maybe, just maybe, to get their guy on the podium.
Mancebo, Jason already talked about. Banesto isn't riding like a B-team.
And has anyone else noticed how well Team CSC is riding right now? Even a crash today didn't cost them that much time. They simply regrouped and got their big gun, Basso, back in the group. He's 1:17 out, and Sastre is only 2:02 down. They have two other riders in the top 20, including the former Next Big Thing, Bobby Julich. They should have lost 1:46 to Lance, but the change in rules kept their loss down to 50 seconds. They have three guys who are legit podium threats right now.
Of course, we haven't hit the mountains yet. So all of this is sort of academic, but it this is where riders position themselves for the big climbs. We don't really have climbs until stage 9 or 10. So Armstrong will probably lose the yellow sometime by the weekend, only to regain it by the following weekend.
OK, the new rules suck. The limit on the amount a team can lose on a time trial cost Armstrong about forty seconds to Hamilton, Ullrich, and Mancebo (who is 1:01 out, not 30 seconds). Still, the psychological blow is pretty important. There just wasn't anybody even competitive with the Posties. It's doubtful this Tour will come down to 40 seconds, so riding hard to drop the hammer like this is pretty important.
I liked the Phonak strategy. It's not a particularly deep team, so instead of letting the slower riders bog them down, they dropped them like a bad habit. They needed five riders to cross, and sure enough, exactly five crossed together. It was a strategy which hid the team's weakness of an extremely thin lineup.
Some of the dark horses are holding strong. Leipheimer's 1:08 out due to Rabobank's 6th place finish. The Dutch team had a miserable Tour last year, but they seem to have bounced back and will be a threat for both the team title and maybe, just maybe, to get their guy on the podium.
Mancebo, Jason already talked about. Banesto isn't riding like a B-team.
And has anyone else noticed how well Team CSC is riding right now? Even a crash today didn't cost them that much time. They simply regrouped and got their big gun, Basso, back in the group. He's 1:17 out, and Sastre is only 2:02 down. They have two other riders in the top 20, including the former Next Big Thing, Bobby Julich. They should have lost 1:46 to Lance, but the change in rules kept their loss down to 50 seconds. They have three guys who are legit podium threats right now.
Of course, we haven't hit the mountains yet. So all of this is sort of academic, but it this is where riders position themselves for the big climbs. We don't really have climbs until stage 9 or 10. So Armstrong will probably lose the yellow sometime by the weekend, only to regain it by the following weekend.
posted by Poseur at 8:13 PM
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