Can Contador win?

On Jul 24, 3:31 am, Ewoud Dronkert <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Michael Press said:

They were trying out Rasmussen today. Contador had
Rasmussen on a leash, and as they got to the top, there
was Hincapie. I think they were trying to get into
Rasmussen's head for Wednesday.

Quoted message said:

Somebody in the announcing team thought Contador should
have gone earlier, even the penultimate climb. I assume
the team knows what they are doing.

The obvious tactic was that Contador would take a small lead over
Rasmussen and isolate him, meet Hincapie at the top and work together
in the descent to widen the gap. It worked perfectly, really amazing
how Hincapie was *right* there, except for the gap.

The [censored] of the thing was "Contador went two more times and, on the
last of these, was unfortunate enough to be slowed by a gaggle of
press motors and the Mavic neutral support car." Contador rode into
the blockage right before he hooked up with Hincapie at the top. If
he'd had a clear road and connected with Hincapie with even a small
gap Munchkin would have never caught back on.

It looked like Mavic wasn't so neutral after all - that should teach
teams to choose Bontrager and Shimano over their stuff. 😉

R

steve said:

Contador was about 30 seconds faster than the Dane in the first TT, and he
certainly looked to put Rasmussen in some difficulty late in today's stage.
Phil has said repeatedly that "AC will not win this years TdF", but if he
takes some time on Rasmussen Wednesday he very well could give Disco the GC
win. MR's team has been tested and they seem up to the task, but Disco
could use a well placed Levi to put early pressure on Rabo and possibly
isolate MR by the final climb. And if Evans doesnt lose more time, we could
have three credible GC contenders going into the last TT. When was the last
time that happened?

This could be dramatic. It may surpass the Fignon/Lemond battle.

And just to make it more fun, Contador's not an american but he's on an
american team. How would the French feel about that if he wins?

The tour is so much more fun since Lance retired.

steve
--
"The accused will now make a bogus statement."
James Joyce

I think the TDF officials might like a Contador win. He's young
enough to be arguable clean, whereas Rasmussen is another brewing
scandal.

One would predict that a cleaner GC would be a younger GC.

Spain seems to be a huge cycling powerhouse. They had 5 riders in the
top 10 GC a few days ago (have not check recently).

Spain will get the 2006 yellow jersey once the Landis is dethroned.

RicodJour said:

The [censored] of the thing was "Contador went two more times and, on the
last of these, was unfortunate enough to be slowed by a gaggle of
press motors and the Mavic neutral support car." Contador rode into
the blockage right before he hooked up with Hincapie at the top.

That is all true and a great bloody shame on the Tour, but at that
moment when Contador ran into the motobikes, the gap was not as wide
as it had been (and even then, at it widest it was maybe 10 m; less
than needed).

--
E. Dronkert

On Jul 24, 1:40 pm, Ewoud Dronkert <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

RicodJour said:

The [censored] of the thing was "Contador went two more times and, on the
last of these, was unfortunate enough to be slowed by a gaggle of
press motors and the Mavic neutral support car." Contador rode into
the blockage right before he hooked up with Hincapie at the top.

That is all true and a great bloody shame on the Tour, but at that
moment when Contador ran into the motobikes, the gap was not as wide
as it had been (and even then, at it widest it was maybe 10 m; less
than needed).

That was annoying, but I noticed (as did Rasmussen) that Contador got
a bit of help from the motos in his first three attacks. They couldn't
match his acceleration either :-)

I'm a bit surprised Contador didn't start attacking near the bottom of
the climb, like Vino did.

Jeff

Jeff Jones said:

On Jul 24, 1:40 pm, Ewoud Dronkert <[email hidden]>

wrote: RicodJour said:

Quoted message said:

The [censored] of the thing was "Contador went two more times and, on the
last of these, was unfortunate enough to be slowed by a gaggle of
press motors and the Mavic neutral support car." Contador rode into
the blockage right before he hooked up with Hincapie at the top.

Quoted message said:

That is all true and a great bloody shame on the Tour, but at that
moment when Contador ran into the motobikes, the gap was not as wide
as it had been (and even then, at it widest it was maybe 10 m; less
than needed).

That was annoying, but I noticed (as did Rasmussen) that Contador got
a bit of help from the motos in his first three attacks. They couldn't
match his acceleration either :-)

I'm a bit surprised Contador didn't start attacking near the bottom of
the climb, like Vino did.

Me too, but hindsight and all that.. Considering how many attacks
Contador had in him, he obviously felt great.

I think tomorrow's stage will be epic. Contador's got the mental
advantage and Munchkin has the yellow jersey.

R

steve said:

Contador was about 30 seconds faster than the Dane in the first TT, and he
certainly looked to put Rasmussen in some difficulty late in today's stage.
Phil has said repeatedly that "AC will not win this years TdF", but if he
takes some time on Rasmussen Wednesday he very well could give Disco the GC
win. MR's team has been tested and they seem up to the task, but Disco
could use a well placed Levi to put early pressure on Rabo and possibly
isolate MR by the final climb. And if Evans doesnt lose more time, we could
have three credible GC contenders going into the last TT. When was the last
time that happened?

In part, it depends on MR's strategy on defending both the Yellow and
KoM jersey. AC may not be his only worry because Hernandez is only a
few points behind MR for KoM. I doubt Astana has given up on Kloden,
and they have been pretty agressive at times.

Defending against AC and Disco and Kloden and Astana and Evans
virtually everyday could be stretching yourself too thin.

Bike-Mike said:

In part, it depends on MR's strategy on defending both the Yellow and
KoM jersey. AC may not be his only worry because Hernandez is only a
few points behind MR for KoM. I doubt Astana has given up on Kloden,
and they have been pretty agressive at times.

Nobody wearing yellow is going to care about the KOM jersey. The
main attraction of the KOM jersey is it is apparently the only
jersey that you can win while on drugs and still keep.

Bob Schwartz

Bike-Mike none@ said:

steve said:

Contador was about 30 seconds faster than the Dane in the first TT, and he
certainly looked to put Rasmussen in some difficulty late in today's stage.
Phil has said repeatedly that "AC will not win this years TdF", but if he
takes some time on Rasmussen Wednesday he very well could give Disco the GC
win. MR's team has been tested and they seem up to the task, but Disco
could use a well placed Levi to put early pressure on Rabo and possibly
isolate MR by the final climb. And if Evans doesnt lose more time, we could
have three credible GC contenders going into the last TT. When was the last
time that happened?

In part, it depends on MR's strategy on defending both the Yellow and
KoM jersey. AC may not be his only worry because Hernandez is only a
few points behind MR for KoM. I doubt Astana has given up on
Kloden,

Then why was Vino not pulling him yesterday? I think they have given
up on the GC or don't have disipline.

Quoted message said:

and they have been pretty agressive at times.

Defending against AC and Disco and Kloden and Astana and Evans
virtually everyday could be stretching yourself too thin.

RicodJour said:

Quoted message said:

I'm a bit surprised Contador didn't start attacking near the bottom of
the climb, like Vino did.

Me too, but hindsight and all that.. Considering how many attacks
Contador had in him, he obviously felt great.

I think tomorrow's stage will be epic. Contador's got the mental
advantage and Munchkin has the yellow jersey.

R

The plan was to wait until the steep portion of the climb, to reduce the advantage of drafting.

If you have a higher anaerobic work capacity, but no advantage in aerobic power, there is a limit to how much ground you can gain in an attack -- you establish a gap, then it stabilizes. Do it was more important to Contador to establish the gap in the most effective portion of the climb.

Actually, if you have a greater anaerobic capacity, and LOWER aerobic power, you actually want to put off the attack, as if you go too early, a greater fraction of the workload is aerobic, increasing the advantage of the more aerobic rider.

Dan

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:01:45 -0700, Kurgan Gringioni <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Carl Sundquist said:

P.S. I'm amused by your recent tendency to preface/qualify your posts with
"I speculate..."

Dumbass -

Considering the large percentage of the time that I am wrong, it is a
good fallback if some jackass wants to gloat over my wrongness.

Candyass -

Ron

Dumbass said:

I think the TDF officials might like a Contador win. He's young
enough to be arguable clean, whereas Rasmussen is another brewing
scandal.

Contador deeply involved in operation Puerto. Apperantly he has made a
deal with the spanish authorities which is why he doesn't apper in
the files made public. However serveral of the released documents
referes document 31, the Alberto Contador file.

--
Morten Reippuert Knudsen :-) <http://blog.reippuert.dk>

Merlin Works CR-3/2.5 & Campagnolo Chorus 2007.

RicodJour said:

On Jul 24, 3:31 am, Ewoud Dronkert <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Michael Press said:

They were trying out Rasmussen today. Contador had
Rasmussen on a leash, and as they got to the top, there
was Hincapie. I think they were trying to get into
Rasmussen's head for Wednesday.

Quoted message said:

Somebody in the announcing team thought Contador should
have gone earlier, even the penultimate climb. I assume
the team knows what they are doing.

The obvious tactic was that Contador would take a small lead over
Rasmussen and isolate him, meet Hincapie at the top and work together
in the descent to widen the gap. It worked perfectly, really amazing
how Hincapie was *right* there, except for the gap.

Quoted message said:

The [censored] of the thing was "Contador went two more times and, on the
last of these, was unfortunate enough to be slowed by a gaggle of
press motors and the Mavic neutral support car."

Contador did gain a huge advantage from the slipstream of the
Motorbikes every time he attacked.

--
Morten Reippuert Knudsen :-) <http://blog.reippuert.dk>

Merlin Works CR-3/2.5 & Campagnolo Chorus 2007.

Jeff Jones said:

On Jul 24, 1:40 pm, Ewoud Dronkert <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

RicodJour said:

The [censored] of the thing was "Contador went two more times and, on the
last of these, was unfortunate enough to be slowed by a gaggle of
press motors and the Mavic neutral support car." Contador rode into
the blockage right before he hooked up with Hincapie at the top.

That is all true and a great bloody shame on the Tour, but at that
moment when Contador ran into the motobikes, the gap was not as wide
as it had been (and even then, at it widest it was maybe 10 m; less
than needed).

That was annoying, but I noticed (as did Rasmussen) that Contador got
a bit of help from the motos in his first three attacks. They couldn't
match his acceleration either :-)

Quoted message said:

I'm a bit surprised Contador didn't start attacking near the bottom of
the climb, like Vino did.

Contador doesn't have the ability to sustain a high pace on his own
over a longer distance. An attack like that would have been suicide
since MR could have used Boogerd and Menchov as moterpacers for a him
witch would have toasted the rest of the Discovery team. MR has
durring the last 4 years proven that he can maintain a highspeed
uphill on his own over long climbs. Contador's best chance is to
attack with 3 km to go.

--
Morten Reippuert Knudsen :-) <http://blog.reippuert.dk>

Merlin Works CR-3/2.5 & Campagnolo Chorus 2007.

êtes vous le cousin des moreau?

Sandy said:

Oh, the podium girls slept in, also. Bummer.

Sorry, we had a random check scheduled today.

Astana is out!

"Doug Taylor" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:41:44 GMT, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo. com>

Quoted message said:

Levi is a GC plodder - he can ride fast but he can't match the
accelerations
of a true climber. While he has a definite advantage in a long hard stage
with a lot of fast flats between hard climbs, he isn't the sort of guy who
can make a fast final climb with the real climbers.

This also describes Kloden and Evans.

Evans, Kloden, Leipheimer and Contador can all out TT Skeletor. It's
simply a matter of can they stay close enough Wednesday to make it up
on a flat 55k TT Saturday?

Contador has the best shot time-wise to take yellow in Paris with
Skeletor on the second step.

Evans, Kloden and Levi are all shooting for third unless something
dramatic happens Wednesday.

Astana and Vino will support Kloden and who knows what those crazy
mofos can do to bust things up? Can they - and Disco - isolate
Skeletor and get sufficient time back for Klodi, Contador, and Levi?
Can Evans and his one mountain support, Horner, stay with them?

If they don't, then Skeletor will have enough to keep yellow all the
way to Paris by around 2 minutes.

email hidden said:

Discovery or
Astana have the manpower to do this.

Astana has withdrawn from the race after Vino tested positive for
blood doping.

Donald Munro said:

Sandy said:

Oh, the podium girls slept in, also. Bummer.

Sorry, we had a random check scheduled today.

That's when "working hard" really pays off.

For this random test, do you need to [censored] your head sideways or upside
down to see a gaussian distribution? Do nice breasts do have a bell
shape?

Yes, Contador can win, but he doesn't need all the goofy tactics you
dumbasses talk about. He just needs to risk it all.

Jack Hollis said:

Astana has withdrawn from the race after Vino tested positive for
blood doping.

No [censored] ? Damn, on rbr we're always the last to hear about doping scandals.

On Jul 24, 9:31 am, Ewoud Dronkert <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

really amazing
how Hincapie was *right* there

Obviously, it was the dope that allowed them to do that.

More seriously, people act as if doping removes all tactics and
strategy, and turns the competition into a farce. There's so much
interesting stuff going on in racing no matter how much doping there
is.