Dauphine Libere, stage 1 summary

Bob Martin said:

Changes in stage 1 compared to stage 0

Biggest gainers by position :
+40 Ruben Lobato
+40 Jon Bru
+37 Yaroslav Popovych
+37 Peter Wrolich
+37 Matthew Lloyd
+37 Matej Mugerli
+37 Jose Angel Gomez Marchante
+37 Jelle Vanendert
+37 David Lopez Garcia
+36 Valerio Agnoli

Biggest losers by position :
-113 Adam Hansen
-112 Bert Grabsch
-98 Stef Clement
-92 Andre Greipel
-92 Tomas Vaitkus
-83 Kevin Van Impe
-79 Manuel Quinziato
-79 William Bonnet
-78 Jose Vicente Garcia
-76 Arnaud Labbe
-73 Sebastian Lang

Biggest gainers by time :
+0:05 Alejandro Valverde
+0:01 Thor Hushovd

Biggest losers by time :
-6:22 Christian Kux
-6:07 Alberto Fernandez De La Puebla
-5:03 Sebastien Joly
-3:13 Arnaud Labbe
-3:11 Aurelien Passeron
-2:27 Benjamin Noval
-2:27 Juan Jose Cobo
-2:27 Stef Clement
-2:25 Carlo Westphal
-2:14 Joan Horrach
-2:14 Jose Vicente Garcia

Favourites by position :
+34 Jose Luis Rubiera
+33 Manuel Beltran
+11 Oscar Pereiro
+9 Michael Rogers
+8 George Hincapie
+4 Samuel Sanchez
+4 Carlos Sastre
+3 Mikel Astarloza
+3 Janez Brajkovic
+1 Thor Hushovd
+1 Haimar Zubeldia
+1 Alejandro Valverde
-2 Levi Leipheimer

Favourites by time :
+0:05 Alejandro Valverde
+0:01 Thor Hushovd
-0:05 Vladimir Efimkin
-0:05 Samuel Sanchez
-0:05 Oscar Pereiro
-0:05 Mikel Astarloza
-0:05 Michael Rogers
-0:05 Manuel Beltran
-0:05 Levi Leipheimer
-0:05 Jose Luis Rubiera
-0:05 Janez Brajkovic
-0:05 Haimar Zubeldia
-0:05 George Hincapie
-0:05 Carlos Sastre
-0:05 Cadel Evans

Top 3 and favourites standings :
1 Thor Hushovd 4.52.41
2 Alejandro Valverde 0.01
3 Levi Leipheimer 0.05
.....
5 Vladimir Efimkin 0.17
6 Cadel Evans 0.18
.....
9 Haimar Zubeldia 0.19
.....
12 Mikel Astarloza 0.21
13 Janez Brajkovic 0.21
14 Samuel Sanchez 0.21
.....
16 Carlos Sastre 0.22
.....
19 George Hincapie 0.23
.....
22 Michael Rogers 0.24
.....
32 Oscar Pereiro 0.26
.....
81 Manuel Beltran 0.41
.....
84 Jose Luis Rubiera 0.42

Retirements to date : Stage
Total retirements : 0

I'd like to know more about the prologue. In particular, why did Thor
Hushovd have an empty water bottle cage on his super aero TT bike?

-ilan

Quoted message said:

I'd like to know more about the prologue. In particular, why did Thor
Hushovd have an empty water bottle cage on his super aero TT bike?

Removing the bottle cuts down on drag.

R

ilan said:

Quoted message said:

I'd like to know more about the prologue. In particular, why did Thor
Hushovd have an empty water bottle cage on his super aero TT bike?

RicodJour said:

Removing the bottle cuts down on drag.

In which case removing the cage would cut down even more. And
using a camelback under your jersey might even improve your
aerodynamics another 0.01%.

Donald Munro said:

ilan said:

Quoted message said:

I'd like to know more about the prologue. In particular, why did Thor
Hushovd have an empty water bottle cage on his super aero TT bike?

RicodJour said:

Removing the bottle cuts down on drag.

In which case removing the cage would cut down even more. And
using a camelback under your jersey might even improve your
aerodynamics another 0.01%.

Personally, I would imagine that a cage + bottle is more aero than
cage alone, but not cage no bottle is better. Bottle or Camelbak, I'm
not sure on bike hydration is necessary for a 4k time trial.

-ilan

ilanpsi said:

Personally, I would imagine that a cage + bottle is more aero than cage
alone, but not cage no bottle is better. Bottle or Camelbak, I'm not sure
on bike hydration is necessary for a 4k time trial.

I think the theory behind the camelback is that it smoothes the
airflow over helmet and back. And if you put ice in it it keeps
your core temp. down.

Quoted message said:

Personally, I would imagine that a cage + bottle is more aero than
cage alone, but not cage no bottle is better. Bottle or Camelbak, I'm
not sure on bike hydration is necessary for a 4k time trial.

Depends on the frame, the cage, and the bottle. In some cases an aero
bottle can be better than no cage and no bottle.

Robert Chung said:

Quoted message said:

Personally, I would imagine that a cage + bottle is more aero than
cage alone, but not cage no bottle is better. Bottle or Camelbak, I'm
not sure on bike hydration is necessary for a 4k time trial.

Depends on the frame, the cage, and the bottle. In some cases an aero
bottle can be better than no cage and no bottle.

Just to clarify: in some cases an aero bottle can be better than no
cage and no bottle. In other cases, no cage and no bottle can be
better than an aero bottle.

Some aero bottles aren't very aero and the way it matches the frame
can be important. In order to know for sure you actually need to
measure the drag.

Donald Munro said:

ilan said:

Quoted message said:

I'd like to know more about the prologue. In particular, why did Thor
Hushovd have an empty water bottle cage on his super aero TT bike?

RicodJour said:

Removing the bottle cuts down on drag.

In which case removing the cage would cut down even more. And
using a camelback under your jersey might even improve your
aerodynamics another 0.01%.

Man, I'm running into a lot of overly literal people. You don't need
a water bottle for a 6.5 minute ride, so you don't need the cage. The
mechanic should have taken off the cage. Everyone knew Thor was going
to do extremely well, so saving thirty seconds of a mechanic's time
means nothing.

R

RicodJour said:

Man, I'm running into a lot of overly literal people. You don't need a
water bottle for a 6.5 minute ride, so you don't need the cage. The
mechanic should have taken off the cage. Everyone knew Thor was going to
do extremely well, so saving thirty seconds of a mechanic's time means
nothing.

These short prologues are sometimes won by .something of a second
so maybe it might have been worth the 30 seconds of the mechanics
time.

Donald Munro said:

RicodJour said:

Man, I'm running into a lot of overly literal people. You don't need a
water bottle for a 6.5 minute ride, so you don't need the cage. The
mechanic should have taken off the cage. Everyone knew Thor was going to
do extremely well, so saving thirty seconds of a mechanic's time means
nothing.

These short prologues are sometimes won by .something of a second
so maybe it might have been worth the 30 seconds of the mechanics
time.

I think we're saying the same thing => bottle cage + short prologue =
dumb. Right?

Kind of pisses me off that ilan picked up on it - I like to think I'm
observant, but I was more concerned with that speed bump 50 meters
from the finish line and seeing which rider could hang his tongue out
further.

I think they should put speed bumps on every time trial course, mainly
in corners, and some of them should be trompe l'oiel so the riders
couldn't tell if it was a real bump or not. That should teach the
damn dopers to go too fast! Let's see some of those [censored] bunny hop
over this:
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/dungeon.html

R

RicodJour said:

I think they should put speed bumps on every time trial course, mainly in
corners, and some of them should be trompe l'oiel so the riders couldn't
tell if it was a real bump or not. That should teach the damn dopers to
go too fast! Let's see some of those [censored] bunny hop over this:
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/dungeon.html

Perhaps they could employ Pound to throw bricks at anyone he thinks
is a doper. Or better yet, use him as a speed bump.