A critical team time trail

Yes, I was. Sorry, I should have been more clear. It would have been truely nutty (in more than one regard) to go without one in a TT.

I must say that I am guilty of this, but only by accident (EDIT: No pun intended here... ) I've forgotten my helmet a few times when I've gone out to meet folks for a ride. I went in lieu of not going at all. I've stopped and bought a helmet going MTB riding as opposed to not having one at all.
L

 

Together with Dav Lotto (which didn't place very high in the TTT, obviously), DC was the only team that had all nine riders crossing the line as a unit. Hurray for Beltran and Noval!

 

Hehe lets be a little more critical........in the last km the organisation of DC was gone and Noval couldn't take pulls anymore at the front......Still good ride, but not everything is so good and nice and the best and whatever on DC.......!

 

I bet CSC would have done had not Zabriski gone down - finished with all 9 and taken the stage too

 

I think the same is true for Liquigas and Ag2r-P.

 

CSC must have had a particularly spectacular 1st 25k. If you recall, they had 15 seconds on Discovery after that portion of the stage, and Discovery kept whittling away at each successive time check. I realize that for strategy reasons, this can never happen, but I wish that Tour cycling coverage had a feature like American NASCAR racing, where they let you listen to some of the radio chatter between the drivers and their spotters/crews, etc. I can only imagine what was Riis was saying to his boys when they learned they were a scant but significant 2 seconds ahead of Discovery with 5K to go . . . . .

Give credit to Discovery for putting the pressure on CSC. Although the latter had the advantage of knowing Disco's splits, it's possible that knowledge also forced a relentless pace to CSC's final push that led to a mistake.

 

Really tough day for Zabriskie, if he hadn't crashed and the team had still lost by 2 seconds then he would still have been in yellow, by .1 of a second. Hope he isn't too badly injured and can make a comeback to win the ITT on the penultimate day.

Jan Ullrich now 1:36 down, Basso 1:26, Vino at 1:21. This could make it interesting. The pressure will be on these people to attack Armstrong to make up the time so we could see some hard core agressive riding in the mountains!!!

Popo will be in white tomorrow, leads the young rider classification by 57 seconds, won't last much longer, Karpets will get it back in the mountains.

 

Wouldn't the time bonus for wining the stage still have put Armstrong in yellow?

 

I don't think you get time bonuses on the time trial stages.

 

I agree, but not because I think Popo couldn't give him a run for his money; Popo will be exclusively working for Armstrong, while Karpets will likely have opportunities to go for himself.

 

Hope to see him starting stage 5. This is important for the moral of CSC and their ability to win DC

 

Just as a side note, Zabriskie and Basso are both 1'26" back. X-rays were negative, received stitches in his right wrist. For Dave it could have been much worse. I imagine we'll hear from him again in the ITT (if he's able to make it that far....)

And the other thing I'm wondering about (and I just thought of), there was much speculation that Lance let up just a bit in the prolog so he didn't have to defend the yellow jersey. With Zabriskie's crash, I'm wondering if they are second guessing that (if it happened). It's going to be interesting to see if Discovery choses to defend yellow over the next few days. If they do, I think Lance could have gone wire to wire (with the assumption that if they defend it, he also wins), but it's too late for that now. Johan hinted at letting another Discover rider have the Jersery, but I can't see where that's anymore adventageous than letting Lance have it...

L

 

He was able to get back on his bike and cross the line after he crashed.
Nonetheless it is good to hear that nothing was broken.

He's be very sore tonight and with those burns and cuts, sleep with difficult.
I have been very impressed with Zibriskie :

 

I haven't yet seen the footage of this stage, unfortunately, or studied the stage profile. But is there an argument that certain later portions of the stage were more slightly hilly and therefore DC would have done better anyhow, with its stronger overall team climbing abilities?

Cyclingnews: "The first 45 kilometres were flat and non-technical, but from Onzain to the finish in Blois (km 67.5), the roads were filled with twists and turns, and short sharp rises on narrow streets - combined with prevailing crosswinds, it was going to be a real test of team unity. Said Armstrong of the stage: "We knew there wouldn't be big time gaps today - you can't do 45 kilometres in one direction with a tailwind, with such a straight road, with perfect pavement and be 30, 40 seconds ahead of your chief rivals. We knew the race would come down to the last 20k, where you had some crosswinds and had some real hills, so we tried to focus on that and not lose too much time in the beginning."

Bruyneel didn't necessarily concede that Z's fall was the reason DC won: "His team's discipline and CSC's bad luck were the crucial factors in Discovery Channel's victory. "We were able to keep our team together, CSC weren't, they lost a guy, Zabriskie," Bruyneel told Belgium's TV1. "That's probably what made the difference; but ifs and whens don't buy anything." ... Speaking later from the team hotel, Bruyneel told TV1 "I don't know if Zabriskie would still be wearing yellow if he hadn't crashed. You can say he wouldn't have been in yellow in the first place if Lance hadn't pulled his foot in the first TT; so maybe it just evens out. A fact is a fact, our team won today and Lance is in yellow. It's a real pity for Zabriskie that he crashed."

And, this is interesting too. Bruyneel just used last year's sequence of DC riders, but did this:

"The order chosen by Bruyneel for the stage – Armstrong, Noval, Beltran, Azevedo, Popovych, Savoldelli, Rubiera, Padrnos and Hincapie. “It’s the same as last year and it worked well then so I didn’t want to change it,” he said. “I placed Popo in Ekimov’s spot and Paolo in Landis’ spot, as those riders are about the same size and of the same quality.”

This means that Bruyneel thinks Popo is a better TTTist than Paolo, because Eki was always considered stronger than Landis in TTT. He thinks that "quality"-wise, Popo is a better mimic for Eki. Note that Popo has also been leading LA, together with Hincapie, in some of the final portions of flat stages in some cases. That means that Bruyneel is still very happy with Popo (not that he is not also happy with Paolo).