A cleaner race?

dougzz

Feel free to rip this to shreds. I'm relatively new to seriously watching cycling as opposed to just catching a couple of TDF stages as en 'event'

A while back I asked why serious GC people didn't attack on the flat, and the basic answer was impossible to build a worthwhile gap. I think it was a couple of years ago around the time Vino put Astana on the front in a headwind to try and make up the time he'd lost crashing prior to being kicked out anyway. If I remember right the only cyclist of note they actually dropped was Christophe Moreau.

Anyway, I wondered what the view was generally of yesterday's THR driven break, essentially putting 40+ seconds into Evans, Dirtie Bertie, Sastre, Schleck and most of the serious GC contenders. Is that evidence that in general the peloton couldn't follow because Saxo, Astana and Silence-Lotto didn't have the manpower to get them back, is it a sign that domestiques don't have they 'energy' they once did. Or is it just a screw up by 'The Heads of State' (God bless Phil and Paul) of the TDF.

Lastly why in general are THR and Garmin regarded as being above doping? Hincapie and Vandevede where both US Postal guys, Cav keeps winning in a way that makes the others look beyond useless, and based on yesterday THR must have had their collective weetabix.

Pokerface

dougzz wrote:

Lastly why in general are THR and Garmin regarded as being above doping? Hincapie and Vandevede where both US Postal guys, Cav keeps winning in a way that makes the others look beyond useless, and based on yesterday THR must have had their collective weetabix.

High ROad and Garmin both run a pretty serious internal anti-doping program. I believe it's considered in the business to be above-board and run with integrity.

Kléber

I think the other teams didn't chase as they didn't want to commit too much energy on the eve of the team time trial, they were expecting others to help but it didn't happen. For example Saxo did a bit but probably expected Garmin to pull it back for Farrar, Liquigas and Silence-Lotto did a bit too.

In the end there were no real GC contenders up the road, unless you think Kirchen and Armstrong count, so a 30 second advantage was acceptable, especially as each chasing team could lose 30 seconds today if their legs were tired. Like I say, each team was probably hoping another would do the work so they'd get a free ride.

As for being clean, I suppose it's because Columbia and Garmin are outspoken and openly anti-doping. The same goes for the French teams. Try asking a rider or staff about doping and they will usually be willing to discuss it. Raise the same subject with another team and they usually clam up, for example when recently asked about his links to Fuentes, Contador simply said "siguiente pregunta". Refusal to talk does not imply guilt but those who are willing to be open demonstrate, to me, more credbility.

Bronzie

The likes of Garmin and Highroad also post their power data files on-line. Now if your tinfoil hat was really firmly lodged on you could say they could be doctored before being made available for public inspection, but the likelihood is that a team would not share that sort of info unless they were pretty damn sure there were no unpleasant surprises in there.

Cumulonimbus

Losing time to the Columbia GC riders may not matter too much. They arent the big favourites and the Columbia effort yesterday will presumably mean that the Columbia performance will be less good today.

Bronzie

dougzz wrote:

Anyway, I wondered what the view was generally of yesterday's THR driven break, essentially putting 40+ seconds into Evans, Dirtie Bertie, Sastre, Schleck and most of the serious GC contenders. Is that evidence that in general the peloton couldn't follow because Saxo, Astana and Silence-Lotto didn't have the manpower to get them back, is it a sign that domestiques don't have they 'energy' they once did. Or is it just a screw up by 'The Heads of State' (God bless Phil and Paul) of the TDF.

Quite a good summary of the tactics on Pez:
http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fulls ... est%20News

Colombia were getting hacked off that none of the others sprinters teams would help close down the break so decided on a bit of payback. Probably less about gaining time on the overall as it was about making sure Cav only had one real rival in the sprint.

Couple that with a disorganised chase behind and the result was an unexpected bonus for the likes of Armstrong who were savvy enough to be in the right place at the right time.

dougzz

Nice view, thanks for the link.

Do you think it's a factor that the other sprinters teams won't work because if all is equal Cav will win, so there's a much smaller chance of the work paying off with a sprinter stage win? Almost like Cav's too successful and has put an additional load on THR because of it. I think it's great, I'm not knocking him just wondering if his dominance is becoming a drawback in terms of sharing the load.

Another question we've been debating here is why don't other teams try to do more to disrupt the THR train, get men in it, get someone on the front and vary the pace to generally mix things up. Since they don't seem capable of beating him in a straight sprint they need to try a different approach. Is it simply too dangerous at the speeds of the last 3 or 4K to do that?

Cumulonimbus

I think that the other sprinters' teams will put in more of an effort today. They know that Cav will be the favourite for the stage win but it still offers them an opportunity for a win too or at least a good placing. Boonen should be over his earlier illness and the team manager will be looking for a good showing after stages 2 and 3 where he wasnt even in the finishing sprint, especially with all the fuss caused getting him in the team in the first place. Columbia may be a touch tired after their all-in effort on stage 3 and then the TTT yesterday. There is only today and tomorrow before the mountains start so i think the sprinters' teams will give it quite a bit knowing that they wont be required on the front in the mountains.

Bronzie

dougzz wrote:

Another question we've been debating here is why don't other teams try to do more to disrupt the THR train, get men in it, get someone on the front and vary the pace to generally mix things up. Since they don't seem capable of beating him in a straight sprint they need to try a different approach. Is it simply too dangerous at the speeds of the last 3 or 4K to do that?

Columbia have got pretty good with their leadout train. I seem to remember their early efforts (2007 Tour?) were a bit chaotic - it takes a lot of spatial awareness and organisation to form a train at the end of a long stage at 50kph.

Occassionally, you do see others trying to get in their wheels, and a bit of shoving and pushing going on to maintain position. It's no place for the faint-hearted that's for sure. There was report on CN about one of the Skil riders coming to blows with Cav on stage 2.

You also sometimes get 2 teams trying to out-drag each other in the finishing kms - Cervelo tried it the other day - but Columbia have the edge at the minute I think.

There was a quote from Cipollini in last month's Procycling saying that Cav wouldn't have had it so easy against him in his hayday with his Saeco train at full steam (but then he'd have to say that wouldn't he ).