ishuffle wrote:
you forget Levi
Um no, he specifically mentioned him
Suitcase of Courage wrote:
There is still a long way to go, but the GC win is out of the question for Levi, Wiggins, Rogers, Basso, Sastre. They've lost too much time to too many great riders.
Now I see; I think differently, Levi has a great chance to wear yellow in Paris!
Cadel wrote:
ishuffle wrote:you forget Levi
Um no, he specifically mentioned him
Suitcase of Courage wrote:
There is still a long way to go, but the GC win is out of the question for Levi, Wiggins, Rogers, Basso, Sastre. They've lost too much time to too many great riders.
Stop projecting, clown.
der der der wrote:
0/10. You're trying too hard. Your life must suck lol.
The reality of it is that lance really hasn't been considered a serious contendor behind closed doors. lance has been hyped to get people watching but he can't match schleck or contador in the high mountains. he also showed after yesterdays stage that he can't even tempo ride up a hill with the top guys. the bummer part is that these last few days, shack used its best guys to pull lance around. popo and brachovic are going to thrashed and kloden is suffering because their roles on the team were to work for lance. i think horner has some in the tank given he was sipping a coke struggling to stay as slow as lance was yesterday.
i'd like to see all of their firepower working for levi. he's now their best shot. i don't think he can win but i think he's got a shot on the podium. contador has shown he's not superhuman and evans seems to have melt downs in yellow. i think its schleck's tour to loose.
if any of these guys has one bad day, levi has a shot. lance will work for him but i think he's too toasted to be able to help.
whats projecting? lol youre mad cuz i nailed it ha!
You guys need to brush up on Lance's previous victories especially 2001 stages 10 through 14.
Figures that you'd be ignorant.
Lance is done as far as the general classification. No way is he coming back from 12 minutes down. That may give him the freedom to go for a stage win from a break. I expect Radio Shack will support Liepheimer in the GC but not as their sole objective as they would for Lance. A good result for Levi would be to finish top 5 though it's more likely he'll be a few places behind that with only a long shot at a podium placing.
As someone who just started watching the tour in earnest, I didn't understand why Lance didn't at least try and be 5-7 minutes back. He just coasted rather then try and make up time. The announcers on Versus said "at this level, whether you're 2 minutes or 10 minutes back, it doesn't really matter... your tour is over". Certainly someone of Lance's pedigree would have SOME shot of getting a podium spot of he could have narrowed the time to 5 or 7 minutes, right? AS and AC look pretty unbelievable, but after those 2, wouldn't LA still have been "in it"?
Mad Hatter wrote:
Certainly someone of Lance's pedigree would have SOME shot of getting a podium spot of he could have narrowed the time to 5 or 7 minutes, right? AS and AC look pretty unbelievable, but after those 2, wouldn't LA still have been "in it"?
5-7 minutes is a pretty insurmountable deficit for anyone. the only way he could come back from that is if all of the other top contendors had a similar meltdown on another stage.
I don't buy that Lance beating Kloden in that stage was an F-U to the German fans at all. They still had time bonuses at the end of the stages that year; Lance picked up another 10 or 20 seconds by taking the stage, otherwise I think he might have been inclined to give up the stage - though he was pretty unforgiving in 2004 after a close race in 2003.
This is all very interesting, and I am a TdF fan.
But ... this isn't 'letsbike.com'!
Mad Hatter wrote:
As someone who just started watching the tour in earnest, I didn't understand why Lance didn't at least try and be 5-7 minutes back. He just coasted rather then try and make up time. The announcers on Versus said "at this level, whether you're 2 minutes or 10 minutes back, it doesn't really matter... your tour is over". Certainly someone of Lance's pedigree would have SOME shot of getting a podium spot of he could have narrowed the time to 5 or 7 minutes, right? AS and AC look pretty unbelievable, but after those 2, wouldn't LA still have been "in it"?
You're right. Many of his tour wins have been by several minutes, and he could have put more into his opponents those years if he had wanted. But the reality is that he just gave up. I think he still could have finished 3rd with some great climbing.
Why did he give up?
Two possibilities. One is that the Landis claims seem to be damaging. Maybe Armstrong is trying to keep a low profile.
The other, to be more optimistic, is that GC placings aren't the most important thing, especially as you move off the podium. Stage wins can be more impressive, more visible, than a fourth place finish. And his competitors will be more likely to let him get away from the pack if he's not a threat (losing by 10 minutes instead of 2 minutes). And if you think you have no chance at the GC, why not conserve energy for another day? He can also be a super domestique for Levi, a podium for Levi would be great! Or honestly, as long as Levi is a serious threat it's still good publicity for the sponsor.
Compare it to running then... If were running a marathon and trying to hit 5:30 each mile, but fell down and ran one mile at 5:45, would you then try to run a 5:15 to make up for it and then get back on pace?
...No, you get back on pace and try to make up the time slowly.
Lance went way too hard after his main crash before the climb, dropping his teammates to get back up at the front. He said he was "pegged" by the time he got up there and had barely started the hard climb. Thats when he started going backwards.
He should have relaxed once he got to the back of the peloton and picked everyone off slowly going up the climb. You know how passing people in a race feels, it's rejuevenating and uplifting mentally.
He paniced and blew his wad...
Did you watch the Tour last year or just read about it? There was a rift in Team Astana last year...Lance was pissed Contador wouldn't ride for him, even though it was clear Contador was the class of the field. By the end of the Tour, Lance and Alberto weren't even eating team meals together, much less on speaking terms. Gave up the win for a teammate?...let's not re-write history.
agsdfasdf wrote:
Why did he give up?
Two possibilities. One is that the Landis claims seem to be damaging. Maybe Armstrong is trying to keep a low profile.
Yeah. He didn't climb several minutes back up to the greatest climbers in the cycling world (who were already hammering) because he was worried about Floyd Landis. And he's riding the Tour de France promoting 18 different products, trying to raise more money for his foundation with his commercials are everywhere because he's trying to "keep a low profile".
Seriously. Sorry to bitch slap you with the sarcasm but I don't think you thought this one through.
Lances real mistake wrote:
Lance went way too hard after his main crash before the climb, dropping his teammates to get back up at the front. He said he was "pegged" by the time he got up there and had barely started the hard climb. Thats when he started going backwards.
He should have relaxed once he got to the back of the peloton and picked everyone off slowly going up the climb. You know how passing people in a race feels, it's rejuevenating and uplifting mentally.
He paniced and blew his wad...
Ohhhh. That's it. He should have "relaxed". How simple!
He could not "relax" once there. That's absurd. He coul barely breathe. The peloton was pushing hard when he went down and even harder once he caught up (to position themselves for the climb). He lost over a minute after the crash -- one in which he went down at over 60 kph.
He did not "panic". He had no chance. At his best EVER he might have been able to minimize his losses to those guys to a minute or two. He is 6-8 years past his best ever.
Mike in LA wrote:
I don't buy that Lance beating Kloden in that stage was an F-U to the German fans at all.
You are correct. What happened was that late in the stage, Armstrong had a comfortable GC lead and figured that all of the contenders would only mark him, not his teammate who had done most of the work for him in the mountains. So he eased off and tried to graciously give the win to the teammate. But Ulrich went after the teammate even though the guy was nowhere in the overall standings. Ulrich was trying to put some time on Basso.
Well Armstrong could not allow Ulrich to put time on him so he had to chase. And Ulrich had towed Kloden and Basso along. So there was no way the teammate was going to get the win anyway. Kloden went for the win. Armstrong decided that if his teammate could not get the win, at least he team should. So he went after Kloden.
It had nothing to do with the German fans or Kloden. By the way the spitting stuff happened on the time trial up Alpe de Huez on a different stage.
Oh and the teammate who Armstrong tried to give the win to? Floyd Landis.
dsfhjljk;lkjs wrote:
Yeah. He didn't climb several minutes back up to the greatest climbers in the cycling world (who were already hammering) because he was worried about Floyd Landis. And he's riding the Tour de France promoting 18 different products, trying to raise more money for his foundation with his commercials are everywhere because he's trying to "keep a low profile".
Seriously. Sorry to bitch slap you with the sarcasm but I don't think you thought this one through.
The yellow jersey and stage winners get tested automatically. I hate to be a pessimist but you could tell from his demeanor throughout the race, even before it, that his head wasn't in it.
Obviously I'm not saying he could have caught the leaders, but he could have limited his losses better than he did.
PS -- Not too surprised about Cadel's performance today. From now on he's not allowed to dismiss others as not being "climbing specialists".
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