Discovery in disarray.... ?

limerickman said:

You musn't have seen a different RVV to me : Hoste was clearly the strong than Hincapie.
Following RVV - you have people carping about DC's tactics at RVV.
Hoste was correct to go at RVV - Hincapie wouldn't (or more likely, couldn't).

In yesterday's P-R : Hincapie by all accounts used a special bike in order for him to win.
And what happened - his bike disintegrated.
What team in it's right mind would test a protype given P-R's surface?
We can speculate that Hincapie might have done this or that if he had remained on his bike : the fact is that he didn't remain on his bike.
Bad luck ? Maybe.
Bad planning ? Certainly.

Hoste for me has been the best DC rider so far this season.

I agree Savoldelli won the Giro - despite the best efforts of DC not to support him.
I think it was Diablo Scott who pointed out here at the time that the DC website didn't even have the good manners to correctly spell Savoldelli's name properly.

Lets forget the nitpicking.

WHAT A RIDE BY GUSEV!!

I mean the guy crashes, not a bad on him just the typical in P-R. Cancelara alaos almost crashed with Boonen on him or was it Lars Micahelson.

ANyway, Gusev crashes gets tailed off , races back then attacks and makes the race winning move.
Did you see how he had to scramble to take Cancelara's wheel.
This is not a doping reference, but Cancelara looked like Museeuw... only faster actually.

hombredesubaru said:

Lets forget the nitpicking.

WHAT A RIDE BY GUSEV!!

I mean the guy crashes, not a bad on him just the typical in P-R. Cancelara alaos almost crashed with Boonen on him or was it Lars Micahelson.

ANyway, Gusev crashes gets tailed off , races back then attacks and makes the race winning move.
Did you see how he had to scramble to take Cancelara's wheel.
This is not a doping reference, but Cancelara looked like Museeuw... only faster actually.

Guseev did very well to recover - I agree.

If you watch the tape - after Hincapie's crash - the group took a sharp right turn, Cancellara's back wheel almost went from under him as he cornered.
He was lucky to remain upright - and to avoid injury.

P-R entails not only great cycling ability but also a large dollop of luck.

limerickman said:

Guseev did very well to recover - I agree.

P-R entails not only great cycling ability but also a large dollop of luck.

If you watch the tape Gueev did use the cars to pace himself back to the lead bunch..... fair game as there was no where for the cars to go but no entirely ethical...

limerickman said:

You musn't have seen a different RVV to me : Hoste was clearly the strong than Hincapie.

Following RVV - you have people carping about DC's tactics at RVV.
Hoste was correct to go at RVV - Hincapie wouldn't (or more likely, couldn't).[/QUOTE]
Many riders , journalists and DS all thought Discoverys tactics were wrong .Hoste stated that too.

limerickman said:

In yesterday's P-R : Hincapie by all accounts used a special bike in order for him to win.
And what happened - his bike disintegrated.
What team in it's right mind would test a protype given P-R's surface?

The part that broke was not part of the protype. It was basically the same bike except with more clearence for larger tires. The word at my local LBS is that the accident earlier in the race caused the problem..... I just think it was Roubaix taking the bike because it could....

Hoste for me has been the best DC rider so far this season.

limerickman said:

I agree Savoldelli won the Giro - despite the best efforts of DC not to support him.
I think it was Diablo Scott who pointed out here at the time that the DC website didn't even have the good manners to correctly spell Savoldelli's name properly.

With DC set up the past few years dedicated to the TDF only I don't think they had the people to support him..... Nor have they had the people to support george along the way either.... The way a team should support a rider if they want victory. DC was a one man act. Plus the giro is not that important to the Discovery Channel sponsor like the TDF is. The misspelling would have been the fault of the website designer.

wolfix said:

Boonen made the comment he felt Hincapie was the strongest one on the road yesterday besides the Swiss winner.
...

can you show us that quote 'cause here is the quote i read... where he said Cancellara and Flecha were the strongest on the road...

http://www.velonews.com/race/int/articles/9720.0.html
[font=Verdana][font=Verdana]"Boonen shrugged off the sense of isolation. "It didn't affect my racing at one bit," Boonen said. "Ten or 20km after the Arenberg, I could see that Flecha and Cancellara were strongest in the bunch.""[/font][/font]

hombredesubaru said:

He absolutelu would have stayed with Cancellara. Georgewould have been there to outsprint him.

Paying George this moral victory has as much relevence as saying that Jan would have won more Tours if he'd trained harder/Lance hadn't been there/Lance hadn't doped/Jan hadn't crashed etc etc.
It means nothing. Cancellara won. Hincapie DNF. Get over it.

patch70 said:

Paying George this moral victory has as much relevence as saying that Jan would have won more Tours if he'd trained harder/Lance hadn't been there/Lance hadn't doped/Jan hadn't crashed etc etc.
It means nothing. Cancellara won. Hincapie DNF. Get over it.

If Gusev and Hoste could get away from Flecha and Boonen then George would have,
but you are raising different points.

Stage races and on day races are completely different.
As Bruyneel said today, in stage races the strongest guy always wins. Because a mishap or crash or a spot of bad luck or being isolated comes out in the end...not so in a one day race.
In one day races, so much can happen that the strongest guy doenst necessarily win.

patch70 said:

Paying George this moral victory has as much relevence as saying that Jan would have won more Tours if he'd trained harder/Lance hadn't been there/Lance hadn't doped/Jan hadn't crashed etc etc.
It means nothing. Cancellara won. Hincapie DNF. Get over it.

AMEN!!

May as well ask why so many Germans support T-Mobile - they get pretty obsessive about it, too. As I understand it, Basque cycling fans rival British football fans for obsessive behavior. Didn't they slaughter a cow one year and dump the blood on the road because Euskaltel wasn't doing that well?

In any international sport, most people tend to cheer for the teams from their country. Unless your country doesn't have a ProTour team...

Eldrack said:

This thread is getting pretty silly now.... Its less of a real discussion about Discovery having problems and more of a nitpicking of small issues just to get at the American members of this board who can't see past their countries only ProTour team and into the wealth of other great riders out there. Perhaps we should start a new thread: whats the point in being completely obsessive about on single team to the exclusion of all others just because it is from your country? That would sum up more what people are getting at here.

[font=Verdana][font=Verdana]I watched the entire race again last night and in my objective opinion and read as you will.... Hincapie spent a lot of time on the back of the lead group... more than any other rider... whether this was because he was struggling or because it was a tactic I don't know but he certainly wasn't as frisky as Fletcha Ballen or the two FDJ riders..... Boonen who supposedly wasn't traveling that well always lead through all the cobbled sections and at one point opened up a gap of 7 seconds with Ballen and Cancellera..... Hoste, Fletcha and Guusev had to bridge this gap.....[/font]

[/font]

bobke said:

If Gusev and Hoste could get away from Flecha and Boonen then George would have,
but you are raising different points.

Stage races and on day races are completely different.
As Bruyneel said today, in stage races the strongest guy always wins. Because a mishap or crash or a spot of bad luck or being isolated comes out in the end...not so in a one day race.
In one day races, so much can happen that the strongest guy doenst necessarily win.

In the history of P-R, there are probably hundreds of riders who could have, would have, might have won had it not been for that fall, that flat, that mechanical etc.
A recent example is Museeuw in his last P-R.
Does anyone now talk about him being a Virtual Winner like you are about Hincapie? Of course not, the record book shows that he finished 4th (IIRC) and nothing more... time to move on hombre.

bobke said:

If Gusev and Hoste could get away from Flecha and Boonen then George would have,
but you are raising different points.

Stage races and on day races are completely different.
As Bruyneel said today, in stage races the strongest guy always wins. Because a mishap or crash or a spot of bad luck or being isolated comes out in the end...not so in a one day race.
In one day races, so much can happen that the strongest guy doenst necessarily win.

............and if your aunt had balls she'd be your uncle.

This "virtual" racing is a waste of time.

"The cobbles do not discriminate," said Julien De Vriese, the team's head mechanic.

wolfix said:

"The cobbles do not discriminate," said Julien De Vriese, the team's head mechanic.

He also said that Hincapie knew he had a problem before the "snap"..... if like CSC, DC had extra bikes out on the road he could of swapped but not to be...... Hincapie in the ditch and CSC on the podium.

They shouldn't of had to figure it out (see below)... there should of been a bike there to swap right away.

cyclingnews.comnews.phpOpen ↗

Shortly before the second crash, Hincapie told team directors that he felt looseness in his steering and thought his headset may have come loose as a result of the earlier crash. The team was figuring out when and how to swap to his spare bike when Hincapie entered another cobbled section and crashed.

"I believe that the first crash set the stage for the big crash", said Bruyneel. "Section after section the vibrations just kept coming until the damaged steerer gave loose."

whiteboytrash said:

If you watch the tape Gueev did use the cars to pace himself back to the lead bunch..... fair game as there was no where for the cars to go but no entirely ethical...

As far as I could see, Gusev made 2 efforts to get back to the leaders after the crash. On his first effort he made it to within about 15 metres. It was also clear that he got a draft from race cars. But all we saw on TV was about 2 seconds worth of drafting...maybe he was doing it the whole way but it wasnt shown

Then he leaders quickened again and he was well dropped again.

I think the TV pictures sort of ignored him for 5 minutes. Next thing you know he has rejoined them. But I dont think there were any pictures showing him drafting when he finally made it back. You can infer he was paced by the cars, but there wasnt any footage.

In fact I was surprised to see him rejoin at all, because he had basically been ignored by the cameras. Even the co-commenting team on Eurosport, Duffield and co, didn't realise for a good while. They referred to him as Hoste for a while afterwards.

Were you watching different pictures to me?

Agreed. I was watching EuroSport... I wasn't having a go at him because there was nowhere else for him to go ! But he did appear back in the bunch "all of a sudden"

I should add that the commentary on EuroSport was diabolical.... at some point during the race I turned it down and watched in silence. I couldn't cope with David Duffield continually asking Graham Jones "Why are QuickStep chasing Bonnen...", "Why is Flecha attacking, shouldn’t he just wait".... then he would go off and talk about some old rider for about 5 minutes completely ignoring what was unfolding on the screen... when Cancellara attacked they weren't even talking about it they were talking about something else ! Farking dreadful. It took them about 2 minutes to acknowledge that he had ridden away from the lead group.

Where you watching the English coverage ?

wicklow200 said:

As far as I could see, Gusev made 2 efforts to get back to the leaders after the crash. On his first effort he made it to within about 15 metres. It was also clear that he got a draft from race cars. But all we saw on TV was about 2 seconds worth of drafting...maybe he was doing it the whole way but it wasnt shown

Then he leaders quickened again and he was well dropped again.

I think the TV pictures sort of ignored him for 5 minutes. Next thing you know he has rejoined them. But I dont think there were any pictures showing him drafting when he finally made it back. You can infer he was paced by the cars, but there wasnt any footage.

In fact I was surprised to see him rejoin at all, because he had basically been ignored by the cameras. Even the co-commenting team on Eurosport, Duffield and co, didn't realise for a good while. They referred to him as Hoste for a while afterwards.

Were you watching different pictures to me?

whiteboytrash said:

Agreed. I was watching EuroSport... I wasn't having a go at him because there was nowhere else for him to go ! But he did appear back in the bunch "all of a sudden"

I should add that the commentary on EuroSport was diabolical.... at some point during the race I turned it down and watched in silence. I couldn't cope with David Duffield continually asking Graham Jones "Why are QuickStep chasing Bonnen...", "Why is Flecha attacking, shouldn’t he just wait".... then he would go off and talk about some old rider for about 5 minutes completely ignoring what was unfolding on the screen... when Cancellara attacked they weren't even talking about it they were talking about something else ! Farking dreadful. It took them about 2 minutes to acknowledge that he had ridden away from the lead group.

Where you watching the English coverage ?

Yes his reappearance was very surprising. But then I got to thinking maybe he was strong, because he took a few minutes breather and then launched the attack that brought Canc out.

I was going to mention the commentary - you got there before me. In terms of the basics - who's attacking, leading, dropped - it was awful.

I heard the English Eurosport commentary (who was the co-commentator?). I just couldnt believe what I was hearing at one point - when Gusev rejoined the lead group they referred to him as Hoste a couple of times, even though it was clear for at least a couple of minutes that it was Gusev taking a breather at the back after all his efforts. And I think the co-commentator even confirmed to Duffield that it was Hoste. 10 seconds later they had to go correct themselves. I couldnt believe that 2 of them were able to miss it.

Do you remember when the first chasing group got stuck at the railway barrier? Here's one of the most memorable dramatic/surprising moments maybe in the history of the race. And yet, there was a full 5 seconds before Duffield reacted. I had thought he was in a state of shock...but no he was spouting on about something irrelevant.

What about the captions at one stage! They listed Hincapie as a 2 time winner of P-R!

I like Duffied and hope he is back on commenting duties for the TdF and Giro. He is great at adding colour and has an enless source of personal anecdotes about riders. But he was so sloppy on Sunday.

I couldn't cope with the riders being referred to "The rider from Lampre" or the "rider from CSC"...... Graham Jones was co-commentating as Sean Kelly had the flu... I think Duffield is generally better when Sean is with him to keep him in line or if Dave Harmond (who was doing Tour of Basque Country) is commentating and having David Duffield in the studio..... yes remember the rail-crossing moment.. they failed to acknowledge it and also treated it as an everyday occurrence in bike racing... it was significant !

Graham Jones is the organiser of the Tour of Britain and former rider for the SKILL team about 15 years ago... he rode PR 6 times but from Sunday's commentary you wouldn't know it.

wicklow200 said:

Yes his reappearance was very surprising. But then I got to thinking maybe he was strong, because he took a few minutes breather and then launched the attack that brought Canc out.

I was going to mention the commentary - you got there before me. In terms of the basics - who's attacking, leading, dropped - it was awful.

I heard the English commentary (who was the co-commentator?). I just couldnt believe what I was hearing at one point - when Gusev rejoined the lead group they referred to him as Hoste a couple of times, even though it was clear for at least a couple of minutes that it was Gusev taking a breather at the back after all his efforts. And I think the co-commentator even confirmed to Duffield that it was Hoste. 10 seconds later they had to go correct themselves. I couldnt believe that 2 of them were able to miss it.

Do you remember when the first chasing group got stuck at the railway barrier? Here's one of the most memorable dramatic/surprising moments maybe in the history of the race. And yet, there was a full 5 seconds before Duffield reacted. I had thought he was in a state of shock...but no he was spouting on about something irrelevant.

What about the captions at one stage! They listed Hincapie as a 2 time winner of P-R!

I like Duffied and hope he is back on commenting duties for the TdF and Giro. He is great at adding colour and has an enless source of personal anecdotes about riders. But he was so sloppy on Sunday.

whiteboytrash said:

I couldn't cope with the riders being referred to "The rider from Lampre" or the "rider from CSC"...... Graham Jones was co-commentating as Sean Kelly had the flu... I think Duffield is generally better when Sean is with him to keep him in line or if Dave Harmond (who was doing Tour of Basque Country) is commentating and having David Duffield in the studio..... yes remember the rail-crossing moment.. they failed to acknowledge it and also treated it as an everyday occurrence in bike racing... it was significant !

Graham Jones is the organiser of the Tour of Britain and former rider for the SKILL team about 15 years ago... he rode PR 6 times but from Sunday's commentary you wouldn't know it.

I thought Jones did ok as regards commentary.

limerickman said:

I thought Jones did ok as regards commentary.

Agreed he was ok but I think DD was dragging him down....