Bike racing isn't one versus one

[Raptor]

Jan hasn't shown that he can climb as fast as LANCE can, even in LANCE's "weakened" condition.
Others, however, have shown that they can climb well this year.

So Vinokourov and Mayo attack LANCE (in Mayo's case, he's going to go HARD if at all), LANCE follows
paced by Heras, Jan can't keep up. LANCE takes an additional minute-plus into the ITT, and comes out
of the race as this year's "Mellow Johnny."

I'm not race-savvy enough to imagine a solid scenario for Vino and Jan "working together" to attack
LANCE in the Pyrenees, as Vino has apparently suggested. If Jan can't keep up with all of them, the
result is that LANCE takes time.

Once the race hits more flat ground, the Posties are the class of the field, and LANCE will be
within 100 feet of #'s 2 and 3 at all times, unless there's a crash, and then he'll only be out of
touch for a few minutes at most.

I'm enjoying this Tour greatly, and getting nervous. I'd love to watch the mystical LANCE win his
fifth. A hard fight like we've seen is more interesting than a walkover. But I think the most likely
outcome of this weekend's racing is that LANCE looks more secure in his lead.

A fair question now is, will Ullrich manage to hang onto second place? Everyone else is going to be
charging at LANCE, and Jan can't keep up with them. His final ITT performance should gain him back a
few spots, so he may well end up second again.

TYLER FOR A PODIUM SPOT!

--
--
Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall "I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we
could to protect our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security." --Microsoft VP in
charge of Windows OS Development, Brian Valentine.

 

[J Jones]

"Raptor" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Jan hasn't shown that he can climb as fast as LANCE can, even in LANCE's "weakened" condition.
> Others, however, have shown that they can climb well this year.
>
> So Vinokourov and Mayo attack LANCE (in Mayo's case, he's going to go HARD if at all), LANCE
> follows paced by Heras, Jan can't keep up. LANCE takes an additional minute-plus into the ITT, and
> comes out of the race as this year's "Mellow Johnny."
>
> I'm not race-savvy enough to imagine a solid scenario for Vino and Jan "working together" to
> attack LANCE in the Pyrenees, as Vino has apparently suggested. If Jan can't keep up with all of
> them, the result is that LANCE takes time.
>
> Once the race hits more flat ground, the Posties are the class of the field, and LANCE will be
> within 100 feet of #'s 2 and 3 at all times, unless there's a crash, and then he'll only be out of
> touch for a few minutes at most.
>
> I'm enjoying this Tour greatly, and getting nervous. I'd love to watch the mystical LANCE win his
> fifth. A hard fight like we've seen is more interesting than a walkover. But I think the most
> likely outcome of this weekend's racing is that LANCE looks more secure in his lead.

That's what CC and Johan (and me) thinks, too...
http://www.lancearmstrong.com/lance/online2.nsf/htmltdf03/cc

While Lance is not 'dominating' as in years past, he's still in the drivers seat, and is not 'that'
far off from past performances. My take on today is that, while Lance lost time to Jan, he gained
time on everyone else, and gained 13 seconds in his overall lead. Jan road and incredible race, no
question. But, Lance truly is in the drivers seat with the mountains coming up. That doesn't mean
LA will have a cake-walk to Paris - it's going to be tough, for sure. But I'm confident he'll pull
it off. Jeff

>
> A fair question now is, will Ullrich manage to hang onto second place? Everyone else is going to
> be charging at LANCE, and Jan can't keep up with them. His final ITT performance should gain him
> back a few spots, so he may well end up second again.
>
> TYLER FOR A PODIUM SPOT!
>
> --
> --
> Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall "I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we
> could to protect our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security." --Microsoft VP
> in charge of Windows OS Development, Brian Valentine.

 

[Ryan Cousineau]

In article <[email protected]>, Raptor <[email protected]> wrote:

> A fair question now is, will Ullrich manage to hang onto second place? Everyone else is going to
> be charging at LANCE, and Jan can't keep up with them. His final ITT performance should gain him
> back a few spots, so he may well end up second again.

An even fairer question is, will Lance win? Ullrich just served notice that there's a new game in TT
town, so Mr. Armstrong had best bring his A Game to the Pyrenees.

At the risk of making as bad an analysis of the situation as I usually do, here's a theory:

Daddy Yo-Yo (or more precisely, his DS and trainer) took one look at the parcours this year and
realized that no matter what happened, the Pyrenees were going to be the decisive section of the
race, a far harder bit of climbing than the Alps were, and potentially more decisive than even the
TTs. Therefore, it is in the Pyrenees that the move will be made.

That said, the move (or The Look, or The Bloody Well Get Up the Mountain 90 Seconds Before His
Nearest GC Rival) had better be made in the Pyrenees, because he hasn't got enough lead to make the
race comfortable.

I'm also not willing to write off Armstrong in the final TT, either. Today could have been a bad day
for Lance and a good day for Jan, and maybe the next one will be vice versa.

> TYLER FOR A PODIUM SPOT!

Would be beautiful, eh?

--
Ryan Cousineau, [email protected] http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club

 

[Jeff Jones]

"J Jones" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

>
> While Lance is not 'dominating' as in years past, he's still in the drivers seat, and is not
> 'that' far off from past performances. My take on today is that, while Lance lost time to Jan, he
> gained time on everyone else, and gained 13 seconds in his overall lead. Jan road and incredible
> race, no question. But, Lance truly is in the drivers seat with the mountains coming up. That
> doesn't mean LA will have a cake-walk to Paris - it's going to be tough, for sure. But I'm
> confident he'll pull it off. Jeff
>
I reckon Ullrich will do it

The other, rather more sunburned Jeff

 

[Stewart Fleming]

Raptor wrote:

> I'm not race-savvy enough to imagine a solid scenario for Vino and Jan "working together" to
> attack LANCE in the Pyrenees, as Vino has apparently suggested. If Jan can't keep up with all of
> them, the result is that LANCE takes time.

Here's one for you: Vino and Ullrich are former Telekom teammates. Vino is an attacking climber.
Euskatel in the Pyrenees are on home ground, so showing at the front of the bunch (not necessarily
the front of the race) is big big stuff for them.

Bianchi and Euskatel ride hard, isolate Armstrong. Then Vino attacks and Ullrich waits. Lance can
decide to close the gap; if he does Ullrich hangs on. Lance can't risk attacking and cracking so he
has to ride defensively in the mountains. This is why USPS put a climber up the road in the break,
to neautralize the effect of attacks from the main bunch. It worked reasonably well, only Vino still
made up time.

The Tourmalet and Luz-Ardiden are hard, HARD climbs. Team support is hard to come by and whoever can
still attack or force up the final ascent will deserve overall victory.

 

[Tritonrider]

>From: Stewart Fleming [email protected]

>Here's one for you: Vino and Ullrich are former Telekom teammates. Vino is an attacking climber.
>Euskatel in the Pyrenees are on home ground, so showing at the front of the bunch (not necessarily
>the front of the race) is big big stuff for them.
>
>Bianchi and Euskatel ride hard, isolate Armstrong. Then Vino attacks and Ullrich waits. Lance can
>decide to close the gap; if he does Ullrich hangs on. Lance can't risk attacking and cracking so he
>has to ride defensively in the mountains. This is why USPS put a climber up the road in the break,
>to neautralize the effect of attacks from the main bunch. It worked reasonably well, only Vino
>still made up time.
>
>The Tourmalet and Luz-Ardiden are hard, HARD climbs. Team support is hard to come by and whoever
>can still attack or force up the final ascent will deserve overall victory.
>

You and I are definitely thinking alike, and from the call of the last Kilometers on Eurosport
today, it sounded to me like that was exactly what was happening. Bill C