Winter weight gain

Ernst Noch said:

Tom Kunich said:

I do get a little fit of giggles when a man who never finished any lower
than 4th in 8 Tours is abraided by non-racers as not having sufficient
motivation.

This is the freaking point. And as somebody else said once in this
newsgroup: If it wasn't for Lance, every RBR expert would chatter about
how gaining weight in winter is THE formula for success in the tour.

The mags and the buzz would be all about how to push the big manly gears like
Jan. The only thing he ever did wrong is have a career that overlapped with
that freak of nature.

Ron

Mad Dog said:

I'm not convinced that Jan paid quite as much attention to detail and have no
idea how much the coaching and DS input made a difference for Lance. I suspect
it was a significant advantage and have wondered for years how much better Jan
could have been with the best possible (for him, his lifestyle and attitudes)
support systems.

Dumbass -

Jan doesn't have the killer instinct like LANCE does and that
characteristic of his extends to *his own choice* of entourage.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Kurgan Gringioni says...

Quoted message said:

Jan doesn't have the killer instinct like LANCE does and that
characteristic of his extends to *his own choice* of entourage.

What makes you think that Jan has made all of the personnel decisions on the
teams he's ridden on? It's easy to think Jan is an easy-going doofus that has
stumbled along in a world of mediocrity but I have a higher opinion of him than
that. You, on the other hand, are exceedingly mediocre and boring.

Mad Dog said:

I'm not convinced that Jan paid quite as much attention to detail and have no
idea how much the coaching and DS input made a difference for Lance. I suspect
it was a significant advantage and have wondered for years how much better Jan
could have been with the best possible (for him, his lifestyle and attitudes)
support systems. Training is a very nebulous subject and the athlete is often
too close to the day to day aspects to be able to make judgements about when to
make the right adjustments. Having the right person around to look at the data
and make the right fine tuning adjustments is a huge advantage.

Right on,

what we must not do is confuse the two questions:

1) Could Jan have been better with different training and a different
support system?
2) Could Jan have beaten Lance with different training and a different
support system?

For 1) I'd say this is true for nearly everybody to a certain degree,
for 2) I'd say that the answer can only be a guess. There is the unknown
of how much margin Lance had still left, and the unknown of how much
better Jan could've been.

To maintain that 2) is true is a bold statement, because it seemed that
Lance always had some reserves and always was able to control the
situation. I'd say we will never know how good he really was.

Secondly Jan trained at least well enough to hold everybody else at bay
most of the time, so it seems unlikely that he just missed the last
little bit to beat Lance for all the tours he got second.