*** OFFICIAL Lance in France with Tight Pants thread ***

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Yeah, he was really struggling today. He personally did a good job though since he managed to stay in the right spots even without his team. If his teammates will not be there in the important moments the benefit of Telekom in having 3 good placed riders will hand them the victory. I don't think it will be Ullrich though (he never manages to accelerate from Lance), rather Vinokourov or maybe Klöden.

[jdl22]

Pretty close finish today.

[Tron]

I really don't understand the "team" concept of cycling. This is probably because I don't care about cycling. But I still want to know what the team does. Please explain.

[Victor]

riding in the front is much more work than riding in the back due to wind resistance. teammates ride in front of lance essentially pulling him along. now he saves energy.

also, accelerating to catch breakaway riders takes tons of energy. teammates do this while lance cruises along at an even pace while his mates chase down the breakaway.

[Tron]

Wait, so what do they do when they "catch" these breakaways? Get in front of him and go really slow?

[jdl22]

You mean before or after?

In order to catch them they simply lift the pace so that they go fast enough to catch them. After they do that they don't do anything specific. Normally when guys are caught they are quite tired if it's a long breakaway. If it's very short which normally happens when the guys in the large groups don't want a particular rider to get away so if he tries then they will keep the pace up and if he tries to go off the front they increase the pace even more to keep him from getting away.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

An attempt to explain I posted in another thread:
[ QUOTE ]

I guess you refer to the stage of today. I am a Tour de France-freak (watching updates on the internet before the TV coverag starts every day ).

There are many elements of team tactics and most of them are actually quite irrelevant to Armstrong as tactics plays a bigger role on flatter stages than on the climbs.

But, reasons for Telecoms actions as I see it today. Since staying on an opponents wheel is much easier than being in front the yellow yersey has a benefit. As long as he manages to stay on the wheel of his opponent his opponent will burn more energy than him (which also has consequences for later days). Armstrong has used this tactics a lot, sometimes he has rode whole stages just staying on Ullrich's wheel.

If Telecom lets Lance succeed in this defence strategy Lance will easily win as he already has a lead and probably will beat all Telecom-riders in the time trial.

So basically Telecom needs to get a good rider ahead of Lance in the general classification so that Lance will need to attack (which will cost him more energy).

Today, they sent Vinokourov on the attack. They did this probably since Vinokourov has managed earlier to keep his lead on Lance when he has been ahead. Today's stage also had a downhill finish and Vinokourov is good downhill so I guess Vinokourov's attacks really scared Lance. If Lance had had a team mate, his team mate could have given Lance a wheel and used his energy to catch Vinokourov and it would be 1-1. Now Lance had to catch Vinokourov himself and Ullrich and Klöden could just use Armstrong's wheel, 1-0 to Telekom.

Then Telekom sent Klöden and Lance just had to accept that cat and mouse games with 3 opponents without having any helpers is even beyond his capacity. He thus focused on keeping Ullrich and Vinokourov in check.

Klöden gained important seconds in the general classification making this tactic even more powerful next time.



[/ QUOTE ]

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
Wait, so what do they do when they "catch" these breakaways? Get in front of him and go really slow?

[/ QUOTE ]

lol no. i guess i should have worded it differently. they catch breakaways but what i really mean is they "pull" lance (and the rest of the peloton) to the breakaway so that lance can catch up without using a lot of energy.

[rusty JEDI]

Watching Lance in France in the background and heard something about Kloden gaining an extra 8 seconds for finishing in a sprint. Does this mean he gets 8 seconds removed from his overall time because he participated in a sprint?

Are there any other ways to get seconds taken away? Does winning a stage get you any kind of bonus? What about a sprint for second place?

rJ

[Arnfinn Madsen]

The 3 first placers in all stages except time travel receives a time bonus, I think it is 20' for 1st, 12' for 2nd and 8' for 3rd (not sure). It is deducted from a riders total time.