Vuelta Stage 6, ITT

"Tech439 {Chet}" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message news:
[email hidden]...

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Millar loses, current GC leader Isidro Nozal throws DOWN!

17:11 CEST Nozal is in the final throes of this time trial now, and he has really scored a big
blow. He will win the time trial and increases his lead on

GC,

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but there is still a lot of racing to come.

His finishing time is 53'34, 1'20 faster than Millar! He rode the final km in 1'05, sprinting out
of the last corner to the line. He has a 2 minute plus lead over Igor Gonzalez on GC.

So with Heras almost two minutes back of Beltran, how does Postal decide who to ride for and
protect? Is 2 minutes enough to make Beltran the guy, or do they play it day by day for now,
depending on who has the legs?

General classification after stage 6

1 Isidro Nozal (Spa) O.N.C.E.-Eroski 2 Igor Gonzalez De Galdeano (Spa) O.N.C.E.-Eroski 2.27 3 Manuel
Beltran (Spa) US Postal-Berry Floor 2.42 4 Klaus Möller (Den) Milaneza-MSS 4.16 5 Roberto Heras
(Spa) US Postal-Berry Floor 4.35

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

Quoted message said:

"Tech439 {Chet}" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message news:
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Millar loses, current GC leader Isidro Nozal throws DOWN!

17:11 CEST Nozal is in the final throes of this time trial now, and he has really scored a big
blow. He will win the time trial and increases his lead on

GC,

Quoted message said:

but there is still a lot of racing to come.

His finishing time is 53'34, 1'20 faster than Millar! He rode the final

km

Quoted message said:

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in 1'05, sprinting out of the last corner to the line. He has a 2 minute plus lead over Igor
Gonzalez on GC.

So with Heras almost two minutes back of Beltran, how does Postal decide

who

Quoted message said:

to ride for and protect? Is 2 minutes enough to make Beltran the guy, or do they play it day by
day for now, depending on who has the legs?

That's simple, protect both of them and let both of them ride for themselves.

Andy Coggan said:

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If the best coach in the world can be the best without understanding the science of exercise,
then I have to wonder about the value/correctness of the science. It's kind of like saying that
someone can be the best aeronautical engineer without understanding the science of mathematics
and physics.

It is the value that you should wonder about, not the correctness. As

Since the purpose of sport science is to understand in order to maximize athletic performance, I'd
wonder about both at the same time and for the same reasons.

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Kurgan pointed out, the skill set required to be a good coach (not trainer) is quite large, such
that you can be quite successful even if you are weak in one particular if you are excellent in
others. Thus, being

Agreed--but I would expect that a good coach would need to know some minimum of sports science or
his other good qualities wouldn't do much good.

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The relationship between exercise intensity and duration is continuously curvilinear, so
identifying any specific intensity as a "threshold" of one sort or another requires taking at
least a minor liberty. Nonetheless, you

It's a matter of definition, not liberty.

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can describe exercise performance quite well based on a quite simple model of some critical power
plus an anaerobic work capacity. Moreover, critical power determined on the basis of such
functional testing correlates quite highly with more invasive/"scientific" measurements of
threshold, e.g., based on blood lactate measurements. (This is why I've advocated

According to my definition of "threshold", there would be no direct way to measure it. It certainly
wouldn't be measured by some lab result (everyone can tolerate different levels).

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functional field testing over lab testing for individuals who own powermeters - see the chapter I
wrote for USAC.) So I would agree with everything you've written above, except for one very
important aspect: fatigue during exercise is multifactorial, i.e., cannot be blamed on lactate
accumulation alone (if at all).

I never said it wasn't multifactorial. On the contrary, I specifically implied that it was. The
point is that we can define terms that isolate single factors, ignoring others, even if those terms
are not found in "pure" form in the subject. LT is a perfectly reasonable term, properly defined.
And it's also not directly measurable.

Indeed, one of the major purposes of a science is to isolate factors for study. Do you think there's
any object in the universe that perfectly adheres to "F=ma"? No--but that doesn't make it "false".
It's a true description of an aspect of the object's behavior. That truth isn't undermined by the
fact that when applying the formula to a specific object, we must bear in mind that there are other
factors effecting it--after isolating all of the factors, we must re-integrate them for application
to a particular subject. The fact that any one of them alone isn't good enough to "perfectly"
predict behavior is irrelevant.

Shayne Wissler

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

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"trg" <[email hidden]> wrote

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So with Heras almost two minutes back of Beltran, how does Postal decide

who

Quoted message said:

to ride for and protect? Is 2 minutes enough to make Beltran the guy, or

do

Quoted message said:

they play it day by day for now, depending on who has the legs?

In 95 % of such cases The Mountains decide.

So if Postal is down to 3 in the lead group- Heras, Beltran and Rubiera, do all three take turns in
front, making both team "leaders" expend energy? When Chechu gets dropped, do you think Heras and
Beltran will decide between them who is stronger that day and the other will become the last
"booster stage"? Manolo Saiz was criticized by many for not deciding on Igor GdG or Beloki in the
2002 tour and planning his tactics accordingly. The sooner this decision is made, the better if will
be for the chance for a postie to take yellow.

Of course ONCE is in the same position. And Saiz is not as good a tactician as Bruneel.

I don't believe that Postal had a designated leader at the start of the race. Comments made by the
domestiques pre-race talked about supporting Heras, Beltran, Rubiera and Landis, but at what point
does Bruneel make the decision to put his eggs in one basket?

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

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"trg" <[email hidden]> wrote Manolo Saiz was criticized by many for not deciding on
Igor GdG or

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Beloki in the 2002 tour and planning his tactics accordingly. The

sooner

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this decision is made, the better if will be for the chance for a postie

to

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take yellow.

Why decide before they have seen a mountain?

Agreed, we have to at least see who has their mountain legs on. But as a matter of strategy, what if
they are about equal in the next stage? And the stage after that?

Winning a 3 week tour is all about saving energy. If you tire out two riders trying to see which
one might be slightly stronger, rather than conserving one as much as possible, that could be a
fatal mistake.

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trg said:

Agreed, we have to at least see who has their mountain legs on. But as a matter of strategy, what
if they are about equal in the next stage? And the stage after that?

Quoted message said:

Winning a 3 week tour is all about saving energy. If you tire out two riders trying to see which
one might be slightly stronger, rather than conserving one as much as possible, that could be a
fatal mistake.

If they are equal in the mountains then the decision is easy. Beltran leads. He's ahead on time and
a much better time trialist.

Last year Postal delivered Heras to the final TT with a lead of over a minute. He coughed up 3:22 at
the end. He needs to be a lot better than Beltran in the mountains. If they're even then then
decision is easy.

Bob Schwartz [email hidden]

Don't you understand that they just nailed ONCE with their own strategy?

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

Quoted message said:

"Tech439 {Chet}" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message

news:

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[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Millar loses, current GC leader Isidro Nozal throws DOWN!

17:11 CEST Nozal is in the final throes of this time trial now, and he has

really

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

scored a big blow. He will win the time trial and increases his

lead on

Quoted message said:

GC,

Quoted message said:

but there is still a lot of racing to come.

His finishing time is 53'34, 1'20 faster than Millar! He rode the

final km

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

in 1'05, sprinting out of the last corner to the line. He has a 2

minute

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

plus lead over Igor Gonzalez on GC.

So with Heras almost two minutes back of Beltran, how does Postal

decide who

Quoted message said:

to ride for and protect? Is 2 minutes enough to make Beltran the

guy, or do

Quoted message said:

they play it day by day for now, depending on who has the legs?

General classification after stage 6

1 Isidro Nozal (Spa) O.N.C.E.-Eroski 2 Igor Gonzalez De Galdeano (Spa) O.N.C.E.-Eroski 2.27 3
Manuel Beltran (Spa) US Postal-Berry Floor 2.42 4 Klaus Möller (Den) Milaneza-MSS 4.16 5 Roberto
Heras (Spa) US Postal-Berry Floor 4.35

Listening to the remarks from the team you wouldn't know who is the team leader. They always talk
about supporting Heras and Beltran, and sometimes Rubiera and Landis. But when the team for the
Vuelta was announced, there wasn't a question.

This is a quote from Bruyneel-

"The team will be led by Roberto, who deserves to be the leader of our team at the Vuelta," said
Johan Bruyneel, the team's director sportif. "I think our team is probably the strongest we have
ever sent to the Vuelta in our history. Roberto is fully recovered from the Tour de France and said
he is ready to go for it."

"Bruyneel added the team will have great support for Heras in the mountain stages in Rubiera, Landis
and Beltran along with added strength on the flats with the addition of Hincapie to ride alongside
White, Van Heeswijk, Barry and Joachim. "

This could be a tactic of Bruyneel. Play it close to the chest. Maybe Heras is the guy (when he's on
form he's the best pure climber on the team, if not the world), but they want to make ONCE cover
both of them. That would be classic Bruyneel.

Anyway, we should see soon.

"Bob Schwartz" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message news:
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

trg said:

Agreed, we have to at least see who has their mountain legs on. But as a matter of strategy,
what if they are about equal in the next stage? And

the

Quoted message said:

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stage after that?

Quoted message said:

Winning a 3 week tour is all about saving energy. If you tire out two

riders

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

trying to see which one might be slightly stronger, rather than

conserving

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

one as much as possible, that could be a fatal mistake.

If they are equal in the mountains then the decision is easy. Beltran leads. He's ahead on time
and a much better time trialist.

Last year Postal delivered Heras to the final TT with a lead of over a minute. He coughed up 3:22
at the end. He needs to be a lot better than Beltran in the mountains. If they're even then then
decision is easy.

Bob Schwartz [email hidden]

"trg" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

This could be a tactic of Bruyneel. Play it close to the chest. Maybe

Heras

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is the guy (when he's on form he's the best pure climber on the team, if

not

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the world), but they want to make ONCE cover both of them. That would be classic Bruyneel.

How is this "classic Bruyneel"?

It certainly is not.

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

Quoted message said:

Last year Postal delivered Heras to the final TT with a lead of over a minute. He coughed up 3:22
at the end. He needs to be a lot better than Beltran in the mountains. If they're even then then
decision is easy.

Bob Schwartz [email hidden]

But I think the TT today showed Heras is TT'ing better this time around. An 18th (?) place showing
was very respectable.

Mike