The point I was trying to make was that LA was only concerned about
making large time gains (usually on the last climb) until his overall
lead got to a certain point.
I can't answer to Pantani at Courchevel in 2000, not having watched the
video (sacrilege!
). You may very well be right that LA couldn't
hang with him when he attacked; just the same, he may have also decided
that, since Pantani was still several minutes down, it was okay to
allow him to get 1 or 2 minutes. I don't know so I have to plead
ignorance here.
Alpe d'Huez 2003, Armstrong was definitely not at his best. That was
the first summit finish of that TdF, and for Vino and Mayo to gain the
time they did, it was very clearly a matter where Armstrong just didn't
have the form to put the smack down on the first mountain stage the way
he had in '99 through '02, and the rest of that TdF bore that out.
Even his win at Luz Ardiden could be attributed to an adrenaline surge
induced by his crash, and even Michele Ferrari said so.
Agreed about the argument of our perceptions of Basso's capabilities.
Jim Burlant