Oh - and now it begins

[thebluetrain]

This is the first Tour I've watched, and it's been absolutely brilliant. Is it always this good, or has this been above average.

Its only going to get better this week. Dont miss it.

 

[peterlip]

What a winning margin. 0.0002 of a second.
Check it out at: http://www.letour.fr/2005/TDF/LIVE/us/800/index.html

 

[JDM]

I know that there is little comparison between the two, but Paolo Savoldelli was on his own for much of the Giro. On the final mountain stage to Sestriere, the team finished 17 out of 22 teams - not good. And I believe that after Savoldelli, the next Discovery rider in the final GC was Padrnos in 60th. The team clearly has more stars, but overall appears to be the weakest of all the tour winning teams. I have a bad feeling that Armstrong will fade next week a la Indurain in 96. I hope not, but we'll see what happens...

 

[MJtje]

Damn, what a great stage. Like WBT said a couple of things to worry about for Disco..............where the #^%$%&^%* were the disco's on that last climb. LA said it was a bad day for the team............I hope for him that it's there last. Because what makes LA so strong is his team.............IF his team can't ride tempo and ride everyone off his wheel he could lose the tour........

Hard words will be said tonight on the disco table...........

And let's give Weening some credit........what a ride by him in his 1st TDF!

And T-mobile had a hard time in the beginning of the stage......but in the end Vino was flying...........And did you see Ullrich taking LA back to Vino! That was a stupid mistake from Ulle........he should have waited and eventually LA had to follow Vino.................tactics still not good from Ulle!

 

[thebluetrain]

I know that there is little comparison between the two, but Paolo Savoldelli was on his own for much of the Giro. On the final mountain stage to Sestriere, the team finished 17 out of 22 teams - not good. And I believe that after Savoldelli, the next Discovery rider in the final GC was Padrnos in 60th. The team clearly has more stars, but overall appears to be the weakest of all the tour winning teams. I have a bad feeling that Armstrong will fade next week a la Indurain in 96. I hope not, but we'll see what happens...

He will fade if he has no support from his team. There is no way he can win if the T-mobile menage a troi keeps this up.

 

[whiteboytrash]

Did I not mention on this forum about the training of T-Mobile..... they have trained for repeated attacks.... hmmmmmm............. chasing 4 strong attacks in 3 minutes hurts way more than riding hard for 7km on your own.......

Better send Crow and the kiddies back home as they are going to see some suffering......

Damn, what a great stage. Like WBT said a couple of things to worry about for Disco..............where the #^%$%&^%* were the disco's on that last climb. LA said it was a bad day for the team............I hope for him that it's there last. Because what makes LA so strong is his team.............IF his team can't ride tempo and ride everyone off his wheel he could lose the tour........

Hard words will be said tonight on the disco table...........

And let's give Weening some credit........what a ride by him in his 1st TDF!

And T-mobile had a hard time in the beginning of the stage......but in the end Vino was flying...........And did you see Ullrich taking LA back to Vino! That was a stupid mistake from Ulle........he should have waited and eventually LA had to follow Vino.................tactics still not good from Ulle!

 

[Ullefan]

Damn, what a great stage. Like WBT said a couple of things to worry about for Disco..............where the #^%$%&^%* were the disco's on that last climb. LA said it was a bad day for the team............I hope for him that it's there last. Because what makes LA so strong is his team.............IF his team can't ride tempo and ride everyone off his wheel he could lose the tour........

Hard words will be said tonight on the disco table...........

And let's give Weening some credit........what a ride by him in his 1st TDF!

And T-mobile had a hard time in the beginning of the stage......but in the end Vino was flying...........And did you see Ullrich taking LA back to Vino! That was a stupid mistake from Ulle........he should have waited and eventually LA had to follow Vino.................tactics still not good from Ulle!

It was in T-mobile's tactics to send kloden up the road, not vino....i'm sure that was the case, so in that case, ullrich would have been expected to close the gap to Vino, if Lance stayed on his wheel though. It was Lance's decision to stay on Ullrich's wheel, not the other way around. Give Ullrich a break he know's what he's doing.

 

[MJtje]

Lol, all the commentators agreed............THAT was a tactical mistake of Ulle.....never mind! Don't let youre love for Ulle get in the way of thinking clearly............

It was in T-mobile's tactics to send kloden up the road, not vino....i'm sure that was the case, so in that case, ullrich would have been expected to close the gap to Vino, if Lance stayed on his wheel though. It was Lance's decision to stay on Ullrich's wheel, not the other way around. Give Ullrich a break he know's what he's doing.

 

[whiteboytrash]

Agreed ! Ullrich wasn't chasing Vino he was bringing himself up to Basso et al......

Biggest story of the day is that how Discovery lost all of there riders on a 2nd category climb... ! What will happen on cat 1's and HC ?

It was in T-mobile's tactics to send kloden up the road, not vino....i'm sure that was the case, so in that case, ullrich would have been expected to close the gap to Vino, if Lance stayed on his wheel though. It was Lance's decision to stay on Ullrich's wheel, not the other way around. Give Ullrich a break he know's what he's doing.

 

[Ullefan]

Lol, all the commentators agreed............THAT was a tactical mistake of Ulle.....never mind! Don't let youre love for Ulle get in the way of thinking clearly............

Whatever...he's not riding for Vino, he's the team captain, he's riding to win the tour.

 

[Michaelz]

...whats the point of keeping teammates in reserve with 10km to go ? He needed his team and they weren’t there....

But there weren't 10km to go... there were over 2000km to go. Having said that, I was also surprised to see Lance by himself. For this particular climb the rest of the team wasn't really needed, but they will be in the future.

A few possible explanations went through my head:

-Lance is getting old and tired. Near the end of the climb he was at about 10th position or so -- not where he normally wants to be.
-give the rest of the team a rest because they really weren't needed. With a long downhill after the climb even if one of the primary challengers had gotten a gap on Lance he'd have a chance to close it. Remember that the disco boys have done a lot of work on the flat stages keeping Lance near the front and out of trouble. In some places they've done as much work as the two main sprint teams together, as disco has made their own lead to the side to stay out of trouble. That's hard work.
-maybe there's a small bug going through the team and everyone is a bit wiped tired. That would be bad news indeed.
-there's a big difference between the strength shown by disco today vs. during TTT, but maybe it's a feint. Wouldn't be the first time. If Disco looked too strong today that would encourage other teams to unite to beat him. Weakness today keeps the other teams fighting amongst themselves.

I'm surprised Disco didn't control that climb more, but from when I first saw the route I felt that the deciding days will be next Saturday and Sunday with stages 14 and 15. Five cat 1's and a pair of HCs over 425km. The following Tuesday has an HC as well, but it's after a rest day and 60km after the HC to close a gap. So... it looked bad today, but the real test isn't for a week.

Michael

 

[guncha]

But anyway, in three words we could descibe today's stage as follows:
Discovery discovered a disaster.

 

[whiteboytrash]

If you saw the interview with Lance after the race he was speechless... he couldn't explain what happened to the team... he did say the climb was deceptive but he was not happy... there was no strategy in what happened to Discovery...... agreed Lance was not aggressive as he normally was..... in the chasing group he was well back......

But there weren't 10km to go... there were over 2000km to go. Having said that, I was also surprised to see Lance by himself. For this particular climb the rest of the team wasn't really needed, but they will be in the future.

A few possible explanations went through my head:

-Lance is getting old and tired. Near the end of the climb he was at about 10th position or so -- not where he normally wants to be.
-give the rest of the team a rest because they really weren't needed. With a long downhill after the climb even if one of the primary challengers had gotten a gap on Lance he'd have a chance to close it. Remember that the disco boys have done a lot of work on the flat stages keeping Lance near the front and out of trouble. In some places they've done as much work as the two main sprint teams together, as disco has made their own lead to the side to stay out of trouble. That's hard work.
-maybe there's a small bug going through the team and everyone is a bit wiped tired. That would be bad news indeed.
-there's a big difference between the strength shown by disco today vs. during TTT, but maybe it's a feint. Wouldn't be the first time. If Disco looked too strong today that would encourage other teams to unite to beat him. Weakness today keeps the other teams fighting amongst themselves.

I'm surprised Disco didn't control that climb more, but from when I first saw the route I felt that the deciding days will be next Saturday and Sunday with stages 14 and 15. Five cat 1's and a pair of HCs over 425km. The following Tuesday has an HC as well, but it's after a rest day and 60km after the HC to close a gap. So... it looked bad today, but the real test isn't for a week.

Michael

 

[whiteboytrash]

That’s four ?

But anyway, in three words we could descibe today's stage as follows:
Discovery discovered a disaster.

 

[sopas]

This is the first Tour I've watched, and it's been absolutely brilliant. Is it always this good, or has this been above average.

What you saw today was nothing compared with the big stages.

 

[sopas]

And T-mobile had a hard time in the beginning of the stage......but in the end Vino was flying...........And did you see Ullrich taking LA back to Vino! That was a stupid mistake from Ulle........he should have waited and eventually LA had to follow Vino.................tactics still not good from Ulle!

Yes I noticed that too. Ullrich should have reamained behind Armstrong and let the American do the job of chasing Vino.

 

[Ruff_Ryder]

looks like Lance might struggle in the real mountains this year.... lets hope!

 

[wilmar13]

What a winning margin. 0.0002 of a second.
Check it out at: http://www.letour.fr/2005/TDF/LIVE/us/800/index.html

I would love to see an MSA of the timing equipment... that is so close I would be very surprised if the equipment is capable of repeating with any kind of accuracy...

 

[wilmar13]

It was in T-mobile's tactics to send kloden up the road, not vino....i'm sure that was the case, so in that case, ullrich would have been expected to close the gap to Vino, if Lance stayed on his wheel though. It was Lance's decision to stay on Ullrich's wheel, not the other way around. Give Ullrich a break he know's what he's doing.

Umm yeah, pass me the bong dude.

That was a tactical mistake of Ullrichs no question about it, so what if there was a plan, racing is a dynamically changing event and he didn't make a good decision there, no big deal probably, but it was a bad decision.

 

[sopas]

To all,

I think that if Lance is as strong as in previous years he will win anyway even without the support of his DC team. The team is important but in the end what matters is how strong you really are. Remember Indurain's last years 93-95? Benesto team really sucked then, but still a strong Indurain managed to ride in front and win the race at the end.

Nevertheless, I think this TdF could be a very exciting one, similar to the 2003 edition. I hope I am right, becasue last year was too boring!!!!