Mayo out?

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by gntlmn
That's what I'm looking forward to.😄

I think that's exaclty what Lance wants. He can ride Mayo, Basso and Herras's wheels in the Pyrenees and put serious time into Ullrich, Hamiltion and Levi. He can now afford to let Mayo go and win a stage or even 2 in the Basque country. This couldn't have worked more perfectly to Lance's advantage.

However - if Mayo attacks and Lance cracks it will be a different story.

Similar thing happened to Indurain.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by temp3st
However - if Mayo attacks and Lance cracks it will be a different story.

Similar thing happened to Indurain.

True, but Lance looks a liitle more fit that Big Mig did when he was going for six and the team is smokin`.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by davidbod
I think that's exaclty what Lance wants. He can ride Mayo, Basso and Herras's wheels in the Pyrenees and put serious time into Ullrich, Hamiltion and Levi. He can now afford to let Mayo go and win a stage or even 2 in the Basque country. This couldn't have worked more perfectly to Lance's advantage.

I won't completely dimiss Mayo's chances for a podium finish. He is currently down less than 5 and a half minutes from LA, difficult, but not impossible to overcome - but what seems to be a more likely scenario is that Mayo's mountain abilities will be used by LA, JU and TH, against each other. So, I think Mayo will still figure prominently in the mountains, but maybe not in the way he would have preferred.

No matter what, it is guaranteed to be fascinating!

How quickly we forget! who can tell me how much Mayo blasted into LA in the ITT up the Alp this year? LA will not let Mayo get 1 meter infront of him (by choice)! Mayo is by far the best climber in the pack! worth 10 minutes? (allowing for TT loss) mabey, mabey not. I think he will eat 2 - 3 minutes of that on the Alp.

He'd still be down by 2-3 minutes.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Fixey
How quickly we forget! who can tell me how much Mayo blasted into LA in the ITT up the Alp this year? LA will not let Mayo get 1 meter infront of him (by choice)! Mayo is by far the best climber in the pack! worth 10 minutes? (allowing for TT loss) mabey, mabey not. I think he will eat 2 - 3 minutes of that on the Alp.

I still think he can't win. He could get up there but it is going to take a hell of a lot of work.

Mayo would be down by more than 2-3 minutes, because he can't do as well in the ITT (non-mountain) as JU and LA. So Mayo cannot possibly make first or second. Third, is even very unlikely, and would require a major TH or JU collapse.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by kalen
8 Euskaltel-Euskadi 2.35

It seems quite a good performance for a "not-a-real" team like Euskaltel. Well see if you think the same when the climbs start...

I must be honest, Euskaltel did much better than I had expected, and I must retract the 'not a real team' statement I made previously. However, I still believe that Mayo is out of this Tour. He is 5'30" behind Lance and 4'30" behind Jan. I do not see him taking that kind of time out of either of them. However, I have made one retraction, and if Mayo pulls off that feat, I will be forced to make another one. I cannot wait until Friday to see how everybody looks in the mountains.

I don't believe that Mayo is totally out of it yet. Big gaps can be made up in the high mountains.

Remember 1989 when Pedro Delgado showed up late for his prologue start time and was penalized nearly three minutes on the first day of the tour? He started next day dead last in the GC. By the end of the tour he made it onto the podium for 3rd overall.

Pantani performed similar exploits in 1998...working his way up from the very bottom of the GC as the race hit the mountains.

Yes Mayo is at a disadvantage....but he could get at least 2 minutes back on the Ventoux TT...and then a couple more minutes on some of the other mountain stages. Not likely....but not altogether impossible. His big handicap going forward is the long 60km TT near the end of the tour. This will be Ullrich and Tyler's day of glory. Can't wait to see is Bobby Julich is a contender or a pretender. We'll find out on friday I guess.

I don't believe that all hope is gone for Mayo.
Obviously he would like to be closer to overall GC at this stage.
However, we can take it as read that he will attack in the Pyrennees this week.
I think that it is imperative that those who are goig for GC try to stay with Mayo when he goes - because go he will.

Do I think he will get to the podium ?
It's possible.
I think JU and TH and IM and anyone with pretensions of overall
GC need to attack LA and USPS like their lives depended on it.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by oneradtec
I don't believe that Mayo is totally out of it yet. Big gaps can be made up in the high mountains.

Remember 1989 when Pedro Delgado showed up late for his prologue start time and was penalized nearly three minutes on the first day of the tour? He started next day dead last in the GC. By the end of the tour he made it onto the podium for 3rd overall.

Pantani performed similar exploits in 1998...working his way up from the very bottom of the GC as the race hit the mountains.

Yes Mayo is at a disadvantage....but he could get at least 2 minutes back on the Ventoux TT...and then a couple more minutes on some of the other mountain stages. Not likely....but not altogether impossible. His big handicap going forward is the long 60km TT near the end of the tour. This will be Ullrich and Tyler's day of glory. Can't wait to see is Bobby Julich is a contender or a pretender. We'll find out on friday I guess.

http://www.bicycling.com/tourdefrance/daily/stages/info/0,3486,-251,00.html

Take a look at the profile for Wednesday's stage, which turns out to also be the longest stage of the Tour. I don't know if we will have a shakeout that day, but it doesn't look all that flat either, does it?

I guess you might say I'm looking forward so much to the Pyrenees that I don't want to miss anything that might give me a few clues ahead of time as to how it's going to turn out. Don't forget to tune in on Wednesday.🙂

I seriously doubt that Mayo can be a real threat to the GC. True he did have an extremely successful mtn TT in the Dauphine Libere, but he may have peaked to early. Mayo will probably get a stage win, but I bet LA is real close on his wheel. If LA is as strong as he seems, no one will beat him. Only time will tell.

gntlmn said:

http://www.bicycling.com/tourdefrance/daily/stages/info/0,3486,-251,00.html

Take a look at the profile for Wednesday's stage, which turns out to also be the longest stage of the Tour. I don't know if we will have a shakeout that day, but it doesn't look all that flat either, does it?

It certainly isn't flat - nine climbs three 4 cats, 4 three cats, one 2nd cat and
one first cat.
Puy Mary has a 17% gradient on it (climbed it on Sunday as part of the Etape).
Tomorrow is a serious day.

Mayo's probably going to try for stage wins at La Mongie and the Alpe d'Huez ITT. Recently, cyclingnews reported: "Iban Mayo (Euskaltel-Euskadi) is hoping to give the Basque fans something to cheer about on Friday in the 12th stage that finishes in La Mongie. Mayo, who lost around five and a half minutes to his GC rivals in stages 3 and 4 said, 'If I could choose, I would choose to win at La Mongie. For me, for the team and for the thousands of Basque fans that accompany us so closely and who are right now preparing themselves for another invasion, it would be incredible. But it will be tough, because many people want to win this stage.'"

Mayo has a chance at La Mongie, but I think LA or Heras will win it. If Heras, LA won't lose more than 15 seconds.

musette said:

Mayo's probably going to try for stage wins at La Mongie and the Alpe d'Huez ITT. Recently, cyclingnews reported: "Iban Mayo (Euskaltel-Euskadi) is hoping to give the Basque fans something to cheer about on Friday in the 12th stage that finishes in La Mongie. Mayo, who lost around five and a half minutes to his GC rivals in stages 3 and 4 said, 'If I could choose, I would choose to win at La Mongie. For me, for the team and for the thousands of Basque fans that accompany us so closely and who are right now preparing themselves for another invasion, it would be incredible. But it will be tough, because many people want to win this stage.'"

Mayo has a chance at La Mongie, but I think LA or Heras will win it. If Heras, LA won't lose more than 15 seconds.

Did you see the state of Mayo today ?
He was in serious trouble going up the Puy Mary.

Yeah, but he still managed to get 11th. Still, I think he's lost too much time to be a big threat to the other GC contenders.

At other points, he did have two mechanical problems and he to be paced back to the peloton by his teammates. That must not have helped Mayo to settle into the stage dynamics.

We had 7.5 hours live coverage of the entire stage here in Europe and Mayo
looked pretty tired to me.
Botero looked tired too.

Lisbon said:

SO should Mayo try and help someone to beat Lance?

he should help heras beat lance in the mountains!!! 🙂