Goddamm, T-Mobile is stupid

Jan has been riding alone the whole tour. This is nothing new. T-mobile
could give a [censored] about Jan. He is quite a rider and it is too bad he
doesn't have a team like USPS. As we can see, it make a huge difference.

Curt

"K. Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In the last 2k, Kloden and Ullrich should have traded attacks. They
had 2 out of 4.

All they did by having Kloden pull was essentially work for LANCE.
Basso can't sprint and Ullrich had already done a lot of work off the
front in his break. LANCE hadn't seen the wind all day.

Dumb.

Agreed. Then again today wasn't the first time they rode as a less than
stellar team. On La Mongie, Ullrich gets dropped...and Kloden keeps going
on. Only 2 or 3 km later does he look around and notice Bratwurst Boy isn't
there any more. Then we have the nonsense today.

Like I said in a prevoius post, T-Mobile has the horses to make this a
little more interesting than it's been. I'd still like to see them go on
the warpath on stage 17: Have Guerini attack on the 3rd to last climb;
nobody will chase him. Then send Kloden up the road. They can hopefully
stay together over the 4th climb and force USPS to chase. I can't imagine
Basso is going to have Jens Voight to drive the chase this time so it wil
all be up to USPS. Make them USPS use their team up a little earlier than
they'd like to, and have Ullrich attack - all or nothing - at the bottom of
the final climb.

Ullrich looked much better today; even up the steepest slopes he had a much
quicker cadence going and it bodes well for him. He may have found his legs
in time to make the alps interesting.

The thing that strikes me is that Lance is riding an Indurain-esque race,
save for the two wins at mountain top sprints. He's not attacking anyone
IMO because he can't any more. His team rides everyone else off the wheels
and he can't drop Basso. Be interesting to see how Ullrich fares on
Thursday. I figure he loses 30 - 45 seconds tomorrow.

Jim Burlant

"K. Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In the last 2k, Kloden and Ullrich should have traded attacks. They
had 2 out of 4.

All they did by having Kloden pull was essentially work for LANCE.
Basso can't sprint and Ullrich had already done a lot of work off the
front in his break. LANCE hadn't seen the wind all day.

Dumb.

[quote="Jim Burlant"]Agreed. Then again today wasn't the first time they rode as a less than
stellar team. On La Mongie, Ullrich gets dropped...and Kloden keeps going
on. Only 2 or 3 km later does he look around and notice Bratwurst Boy isn't
there any more. Then we have the nonsense today.

Like I said in a prevoius post, T-Mobile has the horses to make this a
little more interesting than it's been. I'd still like to see them go on
the warpath on stage 17: Have Guerini attack on the 3rd to last climb;
nobody will chase him. Then send Kloden up the road. They can hopefully
stay together over the 4th climb and force USPS to chase. I can't imagine
Basso is going to have Jens Voight to drive the chase this time so it wil
all be up to USPS. Make them USPS use their team up a little earlier than
they'd like to, and have Ullrich attack - all or nothing - at the bottom of
the final climb.

Ullrich looked much better today; even up the steepest slopes he had a much
quicker cadence going and it bodes well for him. He may have found his legs
in time to make the alps interesting.

The thing that strikes me is that Lance is riding an Indurain-esque race,
save for the two wins at mountain top sprints. He's not attacking anyone
IMO because he can't any more. His team rides everyone else off the wheels
and he can't drop Basso. Be interesting to see how Ullrich fares on
Thursday. I figure he loses 30 - 45 seconds tomorrow.

Jim Burlant


You seem to think that Lance can't attack anymore. I would ask why he should attack. Armstrong will kill Basso in the final ITT and he already has a significant advantage. An attack would just be for show. Armstrong also needed space over everyone else and an attack would be less efficent. Armstrong also has very little reason to attack if he can win the final sprint. Most importantly give Basso some credit. Maybe Lance can't attack Basso because basso is the strongest climber that Lance has EVER faced. If basso hadn't been in the race then you probably would have see Armstrong riding solo.

On T-Mobile I think that the team has really given up on a victory. The two were trying to gain time on the rest of the race so that they pushed the pace, but I think that T-mobile is a little confused because no one wants to upset anyone else. I think that riders on the team are never even sure what their roles are.

"K. Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In the last 2k, Kloden and Ullrich should have traded attacks. They
had 2 out of 4.

All they did by having Kloden pull was essentially work for LANCE.
Basso can't sprint and Ullrich had already done a lot of work off the
front in his break. LANCE hadn't seen the wind all day.

Dumb.

The biggest Fred's are those that think they know what to do more than the
pros that are on the scene and have been winning races for years. Don't you
think so "Kurgan"? Of course, you have the palmares and the analytical
skills to teach all of those dumb Euro's a lesson or two, right?

Chris said:

Fred

Please help a newbie to this group. What is the significance of this
name in the context that you used it?

You're right in that this year he doesn't need to attack. He would have had
to if Ullrich, Mayo, Hamilton, and Heras didn't choke to varying degrees in
th emountains. And given his inability to ride Basso off his wheel, I'm not
convinced he could have attacked well enough. He can't sustain his surges
the way he used to and the only reason he's in as commanding a lead as he is
is that everyone else choked, period.

He figures that he'll put at least 2 - probably 4 or 5 - minutes on Basso in
the final TT but he doesn't want to leave it to chance. But based on what
you're saying, you mean that he didn't need to blow people away from 1999 -
2002? Don't kid yourself. The first day in the mountains, vintage Lance
always laid down the law because nobody could hold his wheel, and you never
saw 5 guys finishing within a minute of him on a mountain stage when he
attacked. If he isn't doing it now it's because he can't do it and he's
riding defensively in order to save as much energy as he can. Believe me he
isn't comfortable having less than 90 seconds' lead on 2nd place this late
into the TdF. By this time in 1999 - 2002, he had at least 7 minutes.

I think the problems at T-mobile have a lot to do with the DS more than the
riders. Choosing Zabel (who hasn't won jack in ages) over Evans, who's
shown tremendous promise and proven himself to be in good form by winning
the Tour of Austria? I do think they're still trying to get Ullrich back on
the podium and if Thursday goes like it did today, it's an attainable goal.
If Ullrich can put another minute into Mancebo on Thursday I can't see
Mancebo holding onto 4th. Whether Kloden holds up or folds is another
story.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

You seem to think that Lance can't attack anymore. I would ask why he
should attack. Armstrong will kill Basso in the final ITT and he
already has a significant advantage. An attack would just be for show.
Armstrong also needed space over everyone else and an attack would be
less efficent. Armstrong also has very little reason to attack if he
can win the final sprint. Most importantly give Basso some credit.
Maybe Lance can't attack Basso because basso is the strongest climber
that Lance has EVER faced. If basso hadn't been in the race then you
probably would have see Armstrong riding solo.

On T-Mobile I think that the team has really given up on a victory.
The two were trying to gain time on the rest of the race so that they
pushed the pace, but I think that T-mobile is a little confused because
no one wants to upset anyone else. I think that riders on the team are
never even sure what their roles are.

--
lazysegall

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

Quoted message said:

Jan has been riding alone the whole tour. This is nothing new. T-mobile
could give a [censored] about Jan. He is quite a rider and it is too bad he
doesn't have a team like USPS. As we can see, it make a huge difference.

Curt

They really crapped out on him. And why didn't they send cadel evans, who I
am sure would have done a lot better than botero. The fact that vino isn't
there shouldn't have caused so many problems on a team loaded with big
names. But Salvoldelli is perpetually injured, Vino isn't there and they
really made some major booboos when they really couldn't afford to.

What's with the red font and eyeglasses?

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 02:22:59 GMT, "Jim Flom" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

What's with the red font and eyeglasses?

Thanks.

But red font?

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 18:31:47 -0700, Jim Burlant stepped out of the dark and clumsily uttered:

Quoted message said:

You're right in that this year he doesn't need to attack. He would have had
to if Ullrich, Mayo, Hamilton, and Heras didn't choke to varying degrees in
th emountains. And given his inability to ride Basso off his wheel, I'm not
convinced he could have attacked well enough. He can't sustain his surges
the way he used to and the only reason he's in as commanding a lead as he is
is that everyone else choked, period.

He figures that he'll put at least 2 - probably 4 or 5 - minutes on Basso in
the final TT but he doesn't want to leave it to chance. But based on what
you're saying, you mean that he didn't need to blow people away from 1999 -
2002? Don't kid yourself. The first day in the mountains, vintage Lance
always laid down the law because nobody could hold his wheel, and you never
saw 5 guys finishing within a minute of him on a mountain stage when he
attacked. If he isn't doing it now it's because he can't do it and he's
riding defensively in order to save as much energy as he can. Believe me he
isn't comfortable having less than 90 seconds' lead on 2nd place this late
into the TdF. By this time in 1999 - 2002, he had at least 7 minutes.

I think the problems at T-mobile have a lot to do with the DS more than the
riders. Choosing Zabel (who hasn't won jack in ages) over Evans, who's
shown tremendous promise and proven himself to be in good form by winning
the Tour of Austria?

Former Telekom rider Jens Heppner commented that the team owes him so much
(retaining the sponsor by winning stages and the green jersey when Jan had
a lot of bad press, ie. coming in second. He is after all still #2 in UCI
ranking, which must have something to do with him being a fairly
consistent rider throughout the year. Plus he is currently third with 13
points behind McEwen, not exactly bad.), that they couldn't possibly have
left him out of the tour. Having watched "Hoellentour" one can furthermore
assume that the team also wants to have him to keep spirits high (Mario
Kummer doesn't come across as the most cheerful person in the world.

What I really can't understand is, why they keep on choosing Botero, who
yesterday lost 23 minutes on Zabel (!), instead of Evans. The case of
T-Mobile is difficult, to say the least, because they almost always seem
to have really bad luck with injuries (Vinokurov, Kessler, Steinhauser,
Aldag and now Kloeden again, though at least still in the race) and Jan's
illness.

I agree with the many posters that Jan should have switched to CSC instead
of T-Mobile. I saw an interview with Jens Voight, who btw. is performing
incredibly, that the team met early this year (I think February) to do
some adventurous team building stuff (climbing, abseiling etc.), which
seems to pay off now. Too bad that Joerg Jaksche couldn't make this tour.

Quoted message said:

I do think they're still trying to get Ullrich back on
the podium and if Thursday goes like it did today, it's an attainable goal.
If Ullrich can put another minute into Mancebo on Thursday I can't see
Mancebo holding onto 4th. Whether Kloden holds up or folds is another
story.

Agreed.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

You seem to think that Lance can't attack anymore. I would ask why he
should attack. Armstrong will kill Basso in the final ITT and he
already has a significant advantage. An attack would just be for show.
Armstrong also needed space over everyone else and an attack would be
less efficent. Armstrong also has very little reason to attack if he
can win the final sprint. Most importantly give Basso some credit.
Maybe Lance can't attack Basso because basso is the strongest climber
that Lance has EVER faced. If basso hadn't been in the race then you
probably would have see Armstrong riding solo.

On T-Mobile I think that the team has really given up on a victory.
The two were trying to gain time on the rest of the race so that they
pushed the pace, but I think that T-mobile is a little confused because
no one wants to upset anyone else. I think that riders on the team are
never even sure what their roles are.

--
lazysegall

"Jim Burlant" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<aFkLc.1952$BX.1881@lakeread08>...

Quoted message said:

You're right in that this year he doesn't need to attack. He would have had
to if Ullrich, Mayo, Hamilton, and Heras didn't choke to varying degrees in
th emountains. And given his inability to ride Basso off his wheel, I'm not
convinced he could have attacked well enough. He can't sustain his surges
the way he used to and the only reason he's in as commanding a lead as he is
is that everyone else choked, period.

Err, have you noticed anyone else winning three stages so far? Oh,
wait, that's right, Bettini was choking. Petacchi was choking. Ooooo,
ooo, and Robbie McEwen was choking.....

The point being that Lance's surges were so powerful that everyone
else didn't CHOKE, they couldn't keep up. And you're about to see why
Basso hasn't beaten Lance. If today isn't object lesson enough then
stay tuned for the Bessason TT on Saturday.

Quoted message said:

He figures that he'll put at least 2 - probably 4 or 5 - minutes on Basso in
the final TT but he doesn't want to leave it to chance. But based on what
you're saying, you mean that he didn't need to blow people away from 1999 -
2002?

No, he did need to do so to fix it in the competition's minds that he
was the boss. Don't kid yourself that at that level morale isn't a
large part of the difference between the top 5 racers. Lance often
wins not because he's faster but because he doesn't give up when
other's do. Just that little bit of cracking where it passes through a
riders mind that the other guy MAY be a little faster is all it takes
to keep him from trying just that little bit harder or holding his
speed just that little longer.

Quoted message said:

The first day in the mountains, vintage Lance
always laid down the law because nobody could hold his wheel, and you never
saw 5 guys finishing within a minute of him on a mountain stage when he
attacked. If he isn't doing it now it's because he can't do it and he's
riding defensively in order to save as much energy as he can.

In my opinion what you're seeing is a lot of other guys really
focusing on the Tour and using Lance's own strategies of specifically
training on the course itself. Check out the times - Lance hasn't
gotten any slower at all, everyone else is beginning to learn his
methods.

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

Quoted message said:

"K. Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In the last 2k, Kloden and Ullrich should have traded attacks. They
had 2 out of 4.

All they did by having Kloden pull was essentially work for LANCE.
Basso can't sprint and Ullrich had already done a lot of work off the
front in his break. LANCE hadn't seen the wind all day.

Dumb.

The biggest Fred's are those that think they know what to do more than the
pros that are on the scene and have been winning races for years. Don't you
think so "Kurgan"? Of course, you have the palmares and the analytical
skills to teach all of those dumb Euro's a lesson or two, right?

Dumbass -

In the heat of the competition mistakes are routinely made. That
includes the professional level. They're human beings, just like the
rest of us.

T-Mobile basically worked for LANCE in those last 3 km. He didn't have
to do a damn thing, just sit 4th wheel until 200m to go. It was the
first time he hit the wind the entire stage. How could he lose? Kloden
just did all the work for 2k, Ullrich isn't fresh due to his breakaway
and LANCE is a better sprinter than Basso.

With 500m to go, I turned to my friend and said, "LANCE will win for
sure". It was not a bold prognostication, barring a crash, at that
point there was no other possible outcome.

T-Mobile blew it.

As for professionals - ya, professionals never make mistakes. George
W. Bush, professional politican, never made a mistake. Neither did
Bill Clinton, also a professional.

You? You are a moron.

Take care and have a nice day,

K. Gringioni