Dauphine thread

musette

Am I the only person who doesn't quite understand why Gerolsteiner didn't try to control the breakaways? I haven't seen the footage on this stage.

MJtje

Not the team for it.........and not their goal........

musette

I agree re: team and goal. But they should have tried a bit harder than they appear to have.

Eldrack

Me thinks that they can. There are 3 cat 1 climbs and a beyond cat climb tomorrow. They shouldn't really have let Landaluze get away though, he was 8th up Ventuox loosing only 1:31 to the leaders so ain't that bad a climber. Axel Merckx was at 5:41 so he isn't a problem for anyone wanting to win, I doubt he can make any breakaways tomorrow with those climbs. The GC favorites are going to have to work very hard tommorow to get the time back on Landaluze, he could even win the whole thing if he climbs well tomorrow. Also, the last stage is ripe for breakaways so the teams of the GC contenders are going to have to keep up a very high pace to stop breakaways so that could be interesting too.

musette

I agree; Landaluze should not have been allowed to ride off like that.

MJtje

Jep landaluze was not smart. As for axel merx good friend of armstrong. Maybe that had something to do with it. Or just the peloton 'relaxing' after two hard days and tomorrow again a very hard day!

hombredesubaru

I missed the coverage.
Landaluze is a brilliant climber. Why is he not that smart?

Of course he has like, what, only three teammates left in the race to help defend the jersey.
I dont understand why Gerolsteiner let the jersey go.
I mean, yes, freekin EVERYONE now says the Dauphine is a warm up, a tune up blah blah blah for the Tour (not just Lance) but winning the Dauphine is huge.
Given Gerolsteiner and Discovery clearly were working together yesterday there must be a plan or maybe Disco said we aint working today and Gerolsteiner couldnt summon the strength.
Landaluze looks like he can handel himself but???

musette

Since Leipheimer was in yellow, it was incumbent upon Gerolsteiner to do the work.

""Phonak was helping, but (the break) was still taking time out on us. We just lost control of the race," admitted Leipheimer, who eventually crossed the line with the leading favorites at 9:36 back. "I'm surprised that T-Mobile didn't help. They were just counting that Landaluze will crack tomorrow, but he finished with us yesterday (on Ventoux)."

"No one wanted to help us work today except Phonak."
(Gee, Levi, could that have been because you were in the maillot jaune? :cool

DC and TM are trying to get Gerolsteiner and Phonak to do the chasing. Gerolsteiner really should have done a better job at controlling the race.

MJtje

Read the posts before I was referring to Gerolsteiner/disco or anyone from the peloton not chasing landaluze. Because he is good! Tomorrow will lay down the overall.....

musette

Graham Watson's observations on LA website re: today's dynamics:

"What part Lance and his team played in today’s racing is hard to say, but he seemed to enjoy the discomfort experienced by Levi Leipheimer, Alexandre Vinokourov and Floyd Landis as they watched Inigo Landaluze race away into the yellow jersey and threaten their teams’ overall plans to win this race. The fact is, neither Gerolsteiner, Phonak or T-Mobile had the organisation to chase down Landaluze and his fellow escapers, and they probably have become complacent assuming Discovery Channel would chase the break down for them. But Lance wasn’t playing that game today, and his rivals were left looking rather stupid in Grenoble, for Landaluze is now quite a threat overall, and may take some shifting as he can climb as good as almost anybody in this race when he has to."

"It is fun and slightly mischievous to consider that in the big escape of the day, at least half of them are known to be chummy with Lance. Juan Antonio Flecha and Axel Merckx are two of his closest buddies, and add the fact that his own teamate Benjamin Noval was in the break as well, you can then hypothesize that Lance and his team had quite a hand in letting that escape get away – and then sat back and watched the others struggle to comprehend what was going on.... But all in all, it was a strange day’s racing, at the end of which I knew less about bike-racing than when the day started."

Bjørn P.Dal

All hail DC and LA!!


Wow, the other teams must have been all lost, I mean, riders attacking from the peleton?? has this happend before?

Eldrack

Landaluze is a threat, if he can hang on until the last climb until tomorrow then limit the damage done there then he is home and dry.

I reckon that tomorrow the teams of T-Mobile, Gerolsteiner and Phonak are going to be pushing hard at the beginning of the race over those nice big cat 1 climbs to try and make Landaluze get dropped, afterall he does only have a couple of team mate left to help him. Discovery could be up their too, they have a lot of good climbers around to put the pace up very high if they want too.

whiteboytrash

Watson always pumps Lance's tyres..... good reason why the Disco boys did not chase was because they were farked...... Rubi fell on Ventoux and can hardly ride, Lance was suffering like a heroin addict looking for a fix (see the look in his eyes), Poppy got something wrong with his gut, Hincape can hardly climb so spent the day with a goofy look on his face and Novel was doing what exactly ? so they have have sat back waiting for the water and phone boys to do something but maybe and just maybe they did'nt have it today ? Since the TDF being the main objective they just decided to rest like everyone else..... Saturday will tell the story.... we will see, we will see..... Sunday's ITT in Swizterland will tell another story...... things are shaping up for a very good Tour me thinks.

limerickman

Yeah, imagine guys being allowed to break away and stay away : hey that sounds like racing !

(some of the waffle spoken about here, is priceless : last week they were taking bets about how much LA would win by on Ventoux, now when he isn't performing, he's letting his close buddies win ! Do Vino and LA send each other X-Mas cards too ?)