Should Jan retire?

tinks said:

Why should he retire?

Agreed.

tinks said:

Lance Armstrong is not the be all and end all of the sport.

Certain posters here think that LA is the be all and end all of the sport :

Sorry, I better re-write that : certain posters think that his career from
1999-now is.

limerickman said:

Agreed.

Certain posters here think that LA is the be all and end all of the sport :

Sorry, I better re-write that : certain posters think that his career from
1999-now is.

Didn't Jan say that winning a tour de France with out LA wouldn't be winning at all?

The guy is a great rider and I don't think he should retire. In a way I think Lance messed him up mentally by stating each year that Jan is his greatest competition. That has to wear on you especially when everyone else starts to repeat it and believe it even though you really haven't shown it in the past couple of years. 03 LA was out of form and still won. Last year he completely dominated (Ullrich came in out of shape) this year., despite the Team being a little so so, LA has dominated JA again. Unfortunately for him I don't see him beating Basso at this point, but who knows. Out of curiosity, how was JA competition in 93 besides MI.

azdroptop said:

Didn't Jan say that winning a tour de France with out LA wouldn't be winning at all?

The guy is a great rider and I don't think he should retire. In a way I think Lance messed him up mentally by stating each year that Jan is his greatest competition. That has to wear on you especially when everyone else starts to repeat it and believe it even though you really haven't shown it in the past couple of years. 03 LA was out of form and still won. Last year he completely dominated (Ullrich came in out of shape) this year., despite the Team being a little so so, LA has dominated JA again. Unfortunately for him I don't see him beating Basso at this point, but who knows. Out of curiosity, how was JA competition in 93 besides MI.

1993 : LA quit the TDF after stage 9 :
LA also quit the TDF in 1994.
LA managed to complete the 1995 TDF in 36th place : finishing 1hr 30mins behind Miguel Indurain.
LA quit the 1996 TDF too.

limerickman said:

1993 : LA quit the TDF after stage 9 :
LA also quit the TDF in 1994.
LA managed to complete the 1995 TDF in 36th place : finishing 1hr 30mins behind Miguel Indurain.
LA quit the 1996 TDF too.

For LA the word is "quit". For any other rider it would be "abandon". Right Lim?😉

thebluetrain said:

For LA the word is "quit". For any other rider it would be "abandon". Right Lim?😉

Sorry, I typed "quit" because its easier (and faster) to type than the word abandon.

limerickman said:

Sorry, I typed "quit" because its easier (and faster) to type than the word abandon.

Just messing with you. 😉

An atlethe usually retires when:

- He´s "old" for the sport he practices
- He suffers a major injury that costs his career
- He´s involved in a big scandal (not just doping)
- Other reasons

I don´t think Ullrich should retire because he´s not old and badly injuried, and is not in trouble anymore.

Ullefan said:

Jan just isn't the same as he used to be. Last year has proven to be no fluke. Jan, do yourself a favour and retire now...

Why? He is still one of the best. He's going to come in at number 3 or 4 in this tour - that means there is 185 riders behind him.

Would love to see Jan try a couple of other races besides TdS, Murica, TdF.

How come Ullrich never gets out of the saddle? I know he his big and powerful but man I would think he would want to get out of the saddle a few times during a climb.

I wouldn't imagine getting out of the saddle would help his "low cadence, high gear", chug-along climbing style. He doesn't get out of the saddle because he never has, and you know Herr Ullrich doesn't change his ways.

Next year, he will have the same problems in the mountains, even without LA, matching the climbers with a fast-accelerating, more explosive capability, like Basso. The key difference between LA's more flexible climbing style was evident in recent stage, when LA could quickly get up to Basso and JU had to chug along and couldn't jump across. The problem with JU's style, and this, by the way, contributes to his being left alone alot on climbs more than LA, is that he can't jump across gaps on mountains on the next group of riders as readily as LA and Basso can. 😄 Next year, Valverde and Basso's climbing styles will still present problems for JU. 😉 Maybe JU can overcome that with his stronger ITT, but maybe no.

How come Ullrich never gets out of the saddle

with that high gear style man it's really hard to just saddle up and accelerate...
with jan its more of a pace setting style

In short, NO, he shouldn't retire. What where you thinking Ullefan???

His peddling cadence is a pain, he would have been able to stay with IB and LA if he had a lower gear I think. Everytime I see him get dropped I yell at the TV to drop a gear or two, but he never seems too!! I think Phill or Paul said that he tried to change his cadence but it didn't work. Better for Jan to be comfortable than uncomfortable.

But hey, theres still the ITT to go! Man I hope he has a big day there.

thebluetrain said:

How come Ullrich never gets out of the saddle? I know he his big and powerful but man I would think he would want to get out of the saddle a few times during a climb.

In that respect he is very much like Indurain : Indurain rarely got out of the saddle, even when climbing.
In fact if you see footage of Indurain and Ullrich, they both used to grip the dropbars on the climbs, which was another feature I could never understand (much less try - have you ever tried to climb while on the drops, it's torture).

You don't need to get out of the saddle to climb - Indurain proved that.

My understanding is that on bigger riders it takes 15-30% more energy riding out of the saddle, george was seldom out of the saddle in todays climb either.

I have never understood why Jan hasn't tried to utilize a heigher cadence style. Lance had to learn his heigher cadence earlier in his career and subsequently his recovery time improved.

I dont often appreciate some peoples willingness to bash LA and attempts to minimize his standing as an HC tour de france rider, i will concede that he had a less then stellar success rate prior to cancer. I have followed his career since 93 and always said that he didn't have it together enough mentally to achieve his physical capabilities.

strummer_fan said:

I think one of Ullrich's problems is that because of having to face LA in the TDF, he has for several years, tried to concentrate on the tour. Few early season races, few late season races, just a focus on the tour.

Jan is in great shape right now. He should ride the Vuelta this year, and next year do some classics, as well as the Giro and the TDF.

He is a strong rider, who still has amazing power. He should expand his racing programme beyond July and bring home some wins for T-Mobile.

I think this is a very good point. Ullrich last won a grand tour in 1999, the Vuelta, and since then he hasn't won any of the top prizes. This is a real shame for a rider of his talent. When you think that he has focussed purely on the Tour for that last 6 years and each time has been beaten, that's got to be really hard to take. I think if he went into the Giro or the Vuelta as well, he could have won a few more grand tours, given that he's a superior rider to most of the winners of both over the last few years. This could have worked wonders for his confidence and possibly his physical condition. We know it takes him a while to get going in the Tour each year, but if he'd been competitive in the Giro six weeks before, then maybe he'd have been able to hit the ground running on the first weekend in July. Basso showed this year that competing in the Giro doesn't mean you can't be on top form in the Tour.

limerickman said:

In that respect he is very much like Indurain : Indurain rarely got out of the saddle, even when climbing.
In fact if you see footage of Indurain and Ullrich, they both used to grip the dropbars on the climbs, which was another feature I could never understand (much less try - have you ever tried to climb while on the drops, it's torture).

You don't need to get out of the saddle to climb - Indurain proved that.

Yes Indurain almost always climbed sit down and rarely standed up on the pedals. A few years ago I tried to copy this style on my bike. The first days were real torture like limerickman said. My lower back suffered a lot climbing this way. However, a couple of weeks later I began to get familiar riding that way and I got stronger overall. Now, except for sprints, I very much ride like that all the time even when climbing. I also got much better ridding on the flats and ITT. I got much more power.

I don't know if this has to do with the size of the rider but it works for me. I am 1,85 cm high and weight 73 kg when in good shape. However I am not a pure rider, I practice Triathlon. I think my swimming help me adopt this posture on the bike by strenghtening the muscles of my back.

Has Jan ever won TDF mountaintop finish?

guncha said:

Has Jan ever won TDF mountaintop finish?

Yes, in 1997 on his way to Andorra-Arcalis. Memorable stage. He dropped everybody (Virenque, Riis, Pantani, Olano, etc) and arrived alone on the top. Unfortunately, Jan has never achived that formidable shape again.

Indurain had somewhat higher cadence than JU does.
Even Pavenage publicly asked why JU was riding such a high gear in the Stage 1 ITT.
JU has to improve his climbing acceleration, even if that is antithetical to his current climbing style. With Valverde, Basso, etc. JU's current climbing style is not going to be too capable of responding to their sudden accelerations. And while Valverde and Basso (and most cyclists, obviously excluding LA) are weaker ITTists than JU, Basso is improving.

The reason JU can't ever defeat LA boils down to three things: (1) when LA is at his best, he's a better ITTist than JU, (2) when LA is at his best, he is a a much better climber, and a more explosive climber, than JU, and (3) LA works a lot harder than JU and is more strategic in recruiting and training his domestiques.