ullrich

Maximillian Leon III said:

[censored]. The difference between Telecom and Discovery is that once a
Discovery rider is off the back, they go into "save it for another day"
mode. There are still 3 Telecom riders who thingk they are leaders and keep
fighter for GC time. 2 of them won't be worth [censored] tomorrow. Vino did good
to help blow things up, but his day was done and his manager should have
told him so.

Any one of Discovery, Telecom, CSC, Phonak could blow things up on the first
climb, I don't think it proved Telecom had any more or less strength today.
It was the start of a great strategy, but once Kloden and Vino where
dropped, they should have started to save things for tomorrow.

Tell me Telecom's top 5 are better than discovery's after tomorrow's stage.

2 cents

Get off the drugs. That's why I said- "Once it was over I imagine
Bruyneel told them all to relax and that they'd try it all again
tomorrow as TMO probably won't do that again. They're not smart
enough." in another thread.

And you can pretty much forget about Vino or Kloden just saving it.

There IS no team leader there and EVERYONE knows it.

And no, CSC and Phonak could not blow things up on the first climb and
lose all of DSC. They are not nearly as strong as deep into the team
as TMO. No way.

Ras might have tried it but TMO went much earlier than that.

D

trg said:

Acrtually, given the composition of the stage- an HC climb followed by a cat
1 mountain top finish without any transition between them, it was pretty
predictable (except maybe for Popovych). I thought it would be Rasmussen who

Hmmm. I was told I was on crack for calling it that way...

"Stewart Fleming" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message
de news: [email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

trg said:

Acrtually, given the composition of the stage- an HC climb followed by a
cat 1 mountain top finish without any transition between them, it was
pretty predictable (except maybe for Popovych). I thought it would be
Rasmussen who

Hmmm. I was told I was on crack for calling it that way...

In retrospect, your crack addiction had nothing to do with your saying that
Discovery wouldn't get off the launching pad.

trg said:

In retrospect, your crack addiction had nothing to do with your saying that
Discovery wouldn't get off the launching pad.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/rtf_front/index.html

"Stewart Fleming" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message
de news: [email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

trg said:

In retrospect, your crack addiction had nothing to do with your saying
that Discovery wouldn't get off the launching pad.

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/rtf_front/index.html

Nice one!

Bounty Bob said:

okay that time ullrich definitely stupidly helped armstrong
to get onto vino. Idiot.

Dumbass,

I've wondered if Vino has been given carte blanche by the team to do
whatever he wants. He's been permitted to play "wildcard." If he does
damage fine, if not, okay too. But part of that "deal" is the rest of
the team ignores him. This includes ignoring an attack of his and
apparently even neutralizing one. He's basically riding on his own; the
logic is probably that it imposes an unpredictability on the race in
that his efforts can perhaps be leveraged at some point.

It looks like bad form for the team, but it might not be as bad as it
looks. He isn't good enough compared to the best climbers and time
trialists. He would've gotten dropped no matter what. It was just a
question of when and where. It looked "bad," but it didn't really
matter.

David Ferguson said:

Quoted message said:

There IS no team leader there and EVERYONE knows it.

D.d.d.d.dumb.dumb.dumb.ass.ass.ass.ass,

The team, aside from Vino, is riding for Ullrich.

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

Quoted message said:

David Ferguson said:

There IS no team leader there and EVERYONE knows it.

D.d.d.d.dumb.dumb.dumb.ass.ass.ass.ass,

The team, aside from Vino, is riding for Ullrich.

Vino is riding for him as well.

gwhite said:

I've wondered if Vino has been given carte blanche by the team to do
whatever he wants. He's been permitted to play "wildcard." If he does
damage fine, if not, okay too. But part of that "deal" is the rest of
the team ignores him. This includes ignoring an attack of his and
apparently even neutralizing one. He's basically riding on his own; the
logic is probably that it imposes an unpredictability on the race in
that his efforts can perhaps be leveraged at some point.

It looks like bad form for the team, but it might not be as bad as it
looks. He isn't good enough compared to the best climbers and time
trialists. He would've gotten dropped no matter what. It was just a
question of when and where. It looked "bad," but it didn't really
matter.

Best explanation so far, IMHO, and it may indeed be TMO's "plan", but
it's hard to figure that a Chiapucci-like Vino helps TMO more than a
rider that strong helping Jan.

Maybe it would have helped if LA was responding to Vino's attacks.
IIRC, he did on stage 8, but on two stages since, he's refused to take
the bait.

Mark

Mark Janeba said:

gwhite said:

I've wondered if Vino has been given carte blanche by the team to do
whatever he wants. He's been permitted to play "wildcard." If he does
damage fine, if not, okay too. But part of that "deal" is the rest of
the team ignores him. This includes ignoring an attack of his and
apparently even neutralizing one. He's basically riding on his own; the
logic is probably that it imposes an unpredictability on the race in
that his efforts can perhaps be leveraged at some point.

It looks like bad form for the team, but it might not be as bad as it
looks. He isn't good enough compared to the best climbers and time
trialists. He would've gotten dropped no matter what. It was just a
question of when and where. It looked "bad," but it didn't really
matter.

Best explanation so far, IMHO, and it may indeed be TMO's "plan", but
it's hard to figure that a Chiapucci-like Vino helps TMO more than a
rider that strong helping Jan.

Jan isn't good enough to beat Lance outright. Or at least he hasn't
ever shown he is. TMO might as well gamble on some chaos. A wildcard
does that. Ironically not riding for the leader (Ullrich) has a chance
of helping the team.

Kloden seems to be climbing a bit better than Vino anyway. How many
super-domestiques do you need?

Quoted message said:

Maybe it would have helped if LA was responding to Vino's attacks.
IIRC, he did on stage 8, but on two stages since, he's refused to take
the bait.

If nothing else, they can get stage wins from Vino and a high GC from
Ullrich. Not bad. Not bad at all.

gwhite said:

David Ferguson said:

Quoted message said:

There IS no team leader there and EVERYONE knows it.

D.d.d.d.dumb.dumb.dumb.ass.ass.ass.ass,

The team, aside from Vino, is riding for Ullrich.

Really, because I've watched a hell of a lot of races. And I've
watched every OLN televised part of this one. I see teams riding for a
team leader. Even teams that can't really do much to help their team
leader.

NONE of them do what T-Mobile does. EVER.

So I guess I should amend my statement..

There IS no team leader there and EVERYONE except for a few dumbasses
knows it.

Kloden is pretending to ride for Jan but really riding for Kloden.
Vino isn't even pretending and just riding for Vino. Jan is riding so
much for himself that he attacks his own team. Guerini is riding for
all 3 of them because they suck his wheel until he's out of gas so
they can go do their own thing. Nardello is just trying to get
something going as a team and hoping for the best.

D

gwhite said:

Mark Janeba wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Best explanation so far, IMHO, and it may indeed be TMO's "plan", but
it's hard to figure that a Chiapucci-like Vino helps TMO more than a
rider that strong helping Jan.

Jan isn't good enough to beat Lance outright. Or at least he hasn't
ever shown he is. TMO might as well gamble on some chaos. A wildcard
does that. Ironically not riding for the leader (Ullrich) has a chance
of helping the team.

Kloden seems to be climbing a bit better than Vino anyway. How many
super-domestiques do you need?

Yeah. I don't really understand what all the quarterbacks
who are saying "T-Mobile isn't riding as a team" want them
to do. It's not clear to me, for example, that if Vino
stayed with Jan instead of attacking, that either (a) Vino
could follow LANCE and Jan up the final hill or (b) if he
could, Vino could help Jan stay with LANCE until the end
(when Jan loses contact in the last couple of km, he's
pretty much emptied the tank).

I think it's clear that LANCE can no longer put in the
devastating bottom-of-the-climb attack he used to, or at
least, he can't get rid of everyone that way. But he's
still close to the best climber. It might be possible to
wear him down with repeated attacks on a hill. But his
closest GC rivals, Basso and Ullrich, are steady climbers.
A climber like Pantani or a good-form Simoni, who could
repeatedly kick and force Armstrong to chase, might put
him in difficulty. But there aren't many of those guys
at the head of the race. Vino is one, but he seems cooked.
Rasmussen hasn't shown he can attack Armstrong. Valverde
is out.

Quoted message said:

Maybe it would have helped if LA was responding to Vino's attacks.

Quoted message said:

IIRC, he did on stage 8, but on two stages since, he's refused to take
the bait.

Unlucky for T-Mobile that Vino had his really bad day right
away. That took him away as a GC threat, so attacks from
him can wear down Discovery, but LANCE doesn't have to
chase each one personally.

Are you kidding me. Even Lady Hatt could figure that one out. At that point
Vino was toast and only attacked as a last chance bluff or to draw one of the
others out.

Bounty Bob said:

Keith said:

Quoted message said:

Bounty Bob wrote:

> okay that time ullrich definitely stupidly helped armstrong
>to get onto vino. Idiot.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

That's the start of the mountain. T-Mobile is interested to stay
togather in this phase. You see that Ullrich also tries to lower the
speed when Vino is hanging back.

Quoted message said:

In spite of all his failings, Ullrich is still the best t-mobile guy
on the road, so...

Dear god ... last climb now vino breaks again and this
time kloden and ullrich chase him down. Shoot T-Mobile management.

Bounty Bob said:

Quoted message said:

Dear god ... last climb now vino breaks again and this time
kloden and ullrich chase him down. Shoot T-Mobile management.

Sir Topham Hatt said:

Are you kidding me. Even Lady Hatt could figure that one out.
At that point Vino was toast and only attacked as a last chance
bluff or to draw one of the others out.

So why didn't they allow more than 10-15 seconds to see if one of
the others could have been drawn out?

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <[email hidden]> Bloomington, IN, USA

Theodore Heise said:

Bounty Bob said:

Quoted message said:

Dear god ... last climb now vino breaks again and this time
kloden and ullrich chase him down. Shoot T-Mobile management.

Sir Topham Hatt said:

Are you kidding me. Even Lady Hatt could figure that one out.
At that point Vino was toast and only attacked as a last chance
bluff or to draw one of the others out.

So why didn't they allow more than 10-15 seconds to see if one of
the others could have been drawn out?

Because Ullrich is a pig of a rider who hates to get out of his saddle?