tcklyde said:
Alone? Why would Levi need Rasmussen when he was busy sucking wheel on all the mountains?
Uhm, there's this tactic called "pacing" used by teams with helpers strong enough to stay with their leaders in the event they get dropped and need a good, steady pull to get back on. If you're not an explosive "true climber", but a steady one like Leipheimer, there will come a point when the guys you're climbing with will attempt to drop you with radical tempo changes. That's what you need climbing lieutenants for.
As for Levi's strength and grit, he looks as strong this year as he did 2003 when he crashed out, so we'll see if having Totschnig around will really help, or if he really just isn't cut out mentally for a top-5 at a race as big as the tour.
As for MJtje's reference to Rabobank's official strategy, of course Boogerd won't be "leading" the team on GC -- the team had already given up on him as GC contender when they hired Leipheimer, and since then we've seen him focus on what he really does best: tough, hilly, one-day races like the Ardennes classics.
The problem for teams like Rabobank and Quickstep that are stacked with great one-day riders, is that they go to the tour and spend a lot of energy hedging their bets by hunting for stage wins. This is the Armstrong era -- if you want to win on GC, you need to focus 100% on your GC man and hope he wins the odd stage en-route to the podium, otherwise your guy will be lucky to top-10.
I'm not saying that I'd do it differently if I were directing these teams. Your odds of winning a stage with riders like Dekker and Boogerd or Boonen are going to be much better (better even than 21-1, I'd wager) than trying to win the tour with Menchov or Rogers.
It's just that teams like T-Mobile (and Phonak, as they demonstrated while they still had a clear leader in Hamilton) have woken up, smelled the coffee, and realize that if you really want to win the big prize, you can't be distracted by the little ones.
But to get firmly back on topic, I think the riders who are the darkest of the dark horses are the Mayo and Heras, who have shown *nothing* at all this season. If they can get through the first week all right, there will be a lot more true suspense watching them on the first couple of mountain stages than the guys like Rogers, Vino, Botero, and Leipheimer who have already demonstrated good form. Hopefully they'll have a little bit more to offer than last year!
