Stage 5: Piacenza - Cremona, TTT 38 km

[bobke]

Who do they think they are kidding with that ****? Anyone who has ever ridden a bike in a paceline (Musette, paceline is a cycling term... I am not referring to riding a bike around Lance's fansite) knows that the line goes exactly as fast as the first rider in the line. Whether the people behind the first rider were in their aero bars or not has nothing to do with the pace of the group, only with how well they can handle their bikes when they are drafting (this is another cycling term, want to make sure the Lance fans that have never cycled can keep up). It is true that drafting in the aero bars is dangerous because you can't hit your brakes very quickly if anything happens. I have done a ton of paceline riding on my TT bike and it doesn't much make a difference in the drafting whether I am in my bars or not... perhaps a little. I suppose they could make the case that the guys in the back got less drafting benefit so they were more tired but that is the only possible effect on the speed of the line. That is a pathetic job of spin. They lost.

I've certainly never ridden a TTT, but...
But I recall Postal mostly all in the aero position when a certain C VandeVelde took himself and Heras down in the 2002 TdF.
He bought himself a one way ticket off the team that day.
So yes perhaps they recall that moment.

Anyway, sure if they want to be "safe" they are on the hoods or drop or whatever and not in aero position.
But it was not raining.
It was not technical course.
The most you could say was that Matt White and McCatrney were not drilled so they didnt take risks but...

but the idea that the team would give away precious seconds in the biggest bunch of baloney and **** I have ever read. I like a lot of features on paceline.com but at times Graham Watson ans the webguy need to seriously pull their noses out of LA's rear end and deal up the truth.

Pretty funny that a website called paceline would completely screw-up the read of a real paceline moment.

Only in the days of Lance when they freekin KNEW he was gonna win the GC was it credible that Postal would guage their efforts and hold back a little in a TTT so as to
1. not blow out their riders who would have to be on the front for two weeks and/or
2. take the jersey too early and have to defend it for three weeks.

 

[thebluetrain]

Who do they think they are kidding with that ****? Anyone who has ever ridden a bike in a paceline (Musette, paceline is a cycling term... I am not referring to riding a bike around Lance's fansite) knows that the line goes exactly as fast as the first rider in the line. Whether the people behind the first rider were in their aero bars or not has nothing to do with the pace of the group, only with how well they can handle their bikes when they are drafting (this is another cycling term, want to make sure the Lance fans that have never cycled can keep up). It is true that drafting in the aero bars is dangerous because you can't hit your brakes very quickly if anything happens. I have done a ton of paceline riding on my TT bike and it doesn't much make a difference in the drafting whether I am in my bars or not... perhaps a little. I suppose they could make the case that the guys in the back got less drafting benefit so they were more tired but that is the only possible effect on the speed of the line. That is a pathetic job of spin. They lost.

Barn, paceline and drafting are techniques that I learned while running cross country and track in highschool almost 20 years ago. They are not as uncommon as you think.