Roger Zoul said:Preston Crawford <[email hidden]> wrote:
:> On 2005-07-13, Dave Stallard <[email hidden]> wrote:
:> > Chris Zacho The Wheelman wrote:
:> >> Every year we watch him force his up the mountains. Every year we
:> >> watch him watch helplessly as Armstrong spins away off into the
:> >> heavens, And every year he stubbornly insists on mashing those
:> >> monster gears, consistently losing the Tour to Armstrong's
:> >> "grannies"!
:> >>
:> >> Isn't it the pro's who keep harping to everybody about
:> >> maintaining a fast spin (and fiercely condemning anything else)?
:> >> I really wonder what would happen if this big German was to
:> >> notice the obvious and follow this advice...
:> >
:> > What I hear is that he just doesn't train hard enough in the off
:> > season. That could be all wrong, I don't know.
:> >
:> > It's got to be tough coming in second that many times. Can
:> > anybody say "Poulidor"?
:> >
:> > Dave
:>
:> I think part of the problem is that T-Mobile (and to some extent CSC)
:> never really knows who they are working for. Look at what happened
:> last year with Kloden. Look at how one day Lance is saying Vino is
:> his
:> biggest competition and the next day it's Ulrich. I just don't think
:> they have a team. They have a bunch of great cyclists who happen to
:> be
:> on the same team. I think they'd be smart to work for Kloden,
:> personally, as he's proven he can climb.
But he hasn't proven he can win. Ulrich has.
:>
:> Preston
Yes, 8 years ago. The Tour is a different tour now. I think climbers
used to be specialists kind of put in the corner with sprinters. They
had their own jersey, and their own competition, but you didn't HAVE to
be a terrific climber to win. I don't think Ulrich is a terrific
climber. Good, but not great.
On the other hand, I think that's the #1 thing Lance has done
differently and that teams will have to emulate in the future if they
want to win. Lance discovered that he could open much bigger time gaps
on mountain stages than possible on the flat stages. So that was the
focus in training and on race day. As a result, we've seen these
mountain stages almost like a broken record. Remember the year he was
down 30 minutes? The year half the peleton would have been eliminated
because of the breakaway Beloki lead, except that the judges had the
ability to not eliminate half the field since there were so many people
in the peleton. Then Lance goes out and gets back all the time in 2 or 3
stages, I can't remember which.
I think the future of the tour is for riders like Valverde. Guys who can
do pretty good on the flat stages, have a good team protect them, do a
decent time trial, and then smoke everyone in the mountains. That
doesn't fit Jan Ulrich's profile. Thus I don't think he will ever win
again.
Preston
