Professional Cycling For the Fans - Stage 4: Tours - Blois TTT

Is there anyway to judge who between Jan or Vino took the most time pulling at the front today? I would guess that's a good indication of where the T-Mobile is leaning for picking a leader for the rest of the tour.

Although Lance and Disco are firmly in control of GC, considering expectations, 3rd place and only 35 real time seconds back must be a bit of morale boost relative to the prologue. Last year they were 1.19" back.

Ullrich is the bigger guy and probably took longer pulls than anyone else overall. I also suspect that his steady riding style makes for good leading in a TTT. I do not think that any such assessment of this stage will determine the "ride for" decision. There will be time for that after Courchevel for the following stage.

Ack...finally saw the coverage. How aweful and beautiful.

Actually, I believe this will depend on the sprinters' teams. I can see Discovery letting a break go that consists of riders not too far down on time and who are not accomplished climbers. Yet, the sprinters' teams will want to chase them down, and in that case, Lance the team will probably stick close to the front until the sprinters take off for the line.

I think that you have got the crux of it. Discovery are hoping that Boonnen's team and some other teams of the sprinters will push to pull back breaks. I suspect that Discovery will try to limit the gains enough that the sprinters teams will always fee that they can do that without burning all of their matches. This is not an uncommon inherent coalition.

video link (http://v2.msbit.com/tour2005/video/ws34xa.html)
Video is now on velonews. Sure went down fast...
"You are outside of the United States and unfortunately we are unable to allow you to view these highlight videos."

Another manifestation of the Homeland Security Act?

Erling.

Double edit (though I didn't create the first one!).

Don't create the spoilers thread. Have some courtesty for others by placing them in the thread created.

Thanks,

Koffee

?? I thought the day specific threads were where the green light exists to discuss the day's results.
Most of the later posts seem to be spoiling for anyone reading this thread. Where exactly is the threshold line that constitutes "spoiler" and what needs be done to avoid becomming a spoiler?

[QUOTE=gpelpel]Don't be stupid! That has nothing to do with France-US relations:

- The F1 Grand Prix fiasco was due to two things: 1) Michelin has a very strong presence in the US, its tire quality is the best in the world and it enjoys a reputation of quality. After 3 or 4 tire blowups during the qualifying, including a major accident, Michelin couldn't risk a major accident during the race and possibly having a driver lose his life. It's also a trust issue with all the drivers using its tires. The pavement of one small portion of the track seemed to be the culprit and that involved issue #2) As you may not know there's a major internal fight within F1. Almost all the teams (except Ferrari, and may be 1 or 2 others) are threatening to quit the Circuit and to create their own within 2 years. When Michelin, who supplies most of the rebellious teams, asked for an authorization to either modify the track, or to be allowed to get a different type of tires than those used during qualifying, F1 didn't accept to bend rules even if drivers' life was at risk. That was a stupid move. I am an F1 fan and couldn't believe how the Circuit management reacted.

.....
QUOTE]

Bridgestone correctly anticipated the higher cornering loads associated with newly resurfaced turn 14 and came prepared with a harder tire that was slower on the remaining corners.

Altering the course would have placed the properly prepared Bridgestone teams at a competitive disadvantage.

The softer tire Michelin teams could have paced themselves through turn 14 at a speed commencerate with their softer tires so as to go the 73 laps and tried to minimize their disadvantage through the most critical turn with the edge they picked up on the remaining 13 turns.

The problem was spotted on Friday, Michelin could have flown in a harder set of tires if they had got on it immediately. There was only 1 blowup, that on Friday, not during Saturday qualifying. Other tires were beginning to fail after 10 laps, but had not yet failed.

At any rate, the Goodyear and Firestone teams weren't seeing rashes of tire failures going through 4 of those turns a lap with cars weighing about 300 lbs more.

Lance is way too arrogant to not wear it!
Hmmmm...



Lance Armstrong explained at the start of the stage that he didn’t intend to wear the yellow jersey today. He said it wasn’t right that he should wear the jersey which Dave Zabriskie lost in unfortunate circumstances. The CSC rider crashed with less than 2km to go in the team time trial.
:)

from Cyclingnews.com:
According to official reports, Armstrong didn't wear the almost sacred maillot jaune to the start of today's stage, but the commissaires forced the peloton to stop at the end of the neutral section, allowing Armstrong to don the yellow and wear it for the stage proper.

also from cyclingnews.com:

Luke Roberts (CSC): "I was lucky actually: If Dave hadn't slid away from me I would have come down too, the old track skills came in handy. Two guys fell back because of Dave and we had to get five to the finish line, so I had to try to close the gap again without having the four slow up in front. In the end they hesitated a bit too, which threw us off a bit and probably cost us the stage win in the end. So pretty disappointing to be so close to keeping yellow and winning the stage and then to not get either. Not our lucky day."

According to the wife (who is home watching live)
Phil and Paul said that the race commisioner threatened to
give Lance the boot if he didn't wear the maillot jaune.
interesting, I thought they would just fine him.

marty

So . . . if Zabriskie had crashed within the last 1K of the team time trial, instead of at 1.5K, he would have been given the team time. Correct? He was 2 sec ahead of LA going into the TTT, and Discovery beat CSC by 2 sec, which means Zabriskie and LA would have been tied for overall time. In that scenario, who wears yellow the next day?

Zabriskie as he had best time up to that point.

"You are outside of the United States and unfortunately we are unable to allow you to view these highlight videos."

Another manifestation of the Homeland Security Act?

Erling.

Would you accuse the UK's crazy security laws for not being able to listen to all of the BBC streams online?

Zabriskie as he had best time up to that point.

Lotek, I read somewhere that they would add up the 10ths of a second. Was that source incorrect?
Your explanation makes more sense because I think the TdF does not record 10ths officially.

yah that's what I read.
Officially if it were an absolute tie (same time beyond 10ths?) as DZ had
best time up to the point he would get the win.
at least that's my understanding.

Marty

I think when two riders are tied in seconds, they go by the tenth/hundreths from each of their time trial performances.

correct, the acutal time differential on the stage was 1.79 seconds..

Where two or more riders make the same time in the general individual time placings, the fractions of a second registered during individual time trials (including the prologue) shall be added back into the total time to decide the order.

If the result is still tied or if there are no individual time trial stages the placings obtained in each stage shall be added and, as a last resort, the place obtained in the last stage ridden shall be taken into consideration.

yah, thats what I said. . .

In the post-stage show today, it seemed that DZ has indicated that he hit a crack in the road the day before. If you look carefully at the films, you can see a strip - guessing it to be about 3 or 4 meters by a tire width or two - near the middle of the left lane (in which they were riding). He probably dropped his tire into that, and then went down.

Lends credence to the "lapse in concentration" theory, as everyone else passed that point unaffected.

i wanted the OLN reporter to ask "so georgie, are you gonna hop on the first break tomorrow and leg it out? You're only 55 seconds off the yellow jersey? Think about yourself for a change!!"

I get your joke, but this is EXACTLY a strategy that Discovery discussed -- it would force other teams to chase and let the eam get a free ride rather than work har. Because of this it would have been difficult for George to get free. Also, the sprinters teams had reason to pull back the break and Discovery never let the time grow too large.

Lance is way too arrogant to not wear it!

Well, apparently not, since he attempted to not wear it but was required to).

Lotek, I read somewhere that they would add up the 10ths of a second. Was that source incorrect?
Your explanation makes more sense because I think the TdF does not record 10ths officially.

My understanding is that in a tie, they give the jersey to the rider that finished higher in the current stage, which would have been LA in this case. This is also consistent with a comment made by one of the guys on OLN (can't remember which one).

Aside from the honor of wearing the yellow jersey, this incident actually has virtually no effect on the Tour overall because it is just a matter of a couple of seconds. LA lost as much time, and the honor of beating DZ (and CSC) in the Stage 1 ITT when he pulled off of his pedal. DZ will not be the final GC guy for CSC, so his extra 1:26 is not really an issue either.

for the time checks,do they get the time from the 5th rider or first?

Did anyone else notice these front hubs?

for the time checks,do they get the time from the 5th rider or first?

5th

Did anyone else notice these front hubs?

disc brakes???

I'm really starting to wonder about these. They dont appear to have any structural importance. Probably some sort of aero fairing but I can't picture the advantage yet.

i thought they were ruled illegal. those are fairings attached to stock TT wheels. the riders were swapping wheels before stage 1 for fear of being ruled illegal...I suppose uci said they were OK

I'm really starting to wonder about these. They dont appear to have any structural importance. Probably some sort of aero fairing but I can't picture the advantage yet.

I think I remember a discussion on some thread earlier in the tdf (can't recall if it was here though) discussing aero hubs. Opinion was it was of less benefit due the lower speed near the axle.

i did a search for TTT (terrible terry tate :D) and found this thread was first on the list, i was at this stage in france partying in blois, it was great. Was anyone else there? I have pictures online if anyone is interested.

im kinda out of the tour de france mode for a about 11 months, maybe in july

Post the link. I'd love to see them. According to what I have read, there will not be a TTT in the 2006 TDF.

Post the link. I'd love to see them. According to what I have read, there will not be a TTT in the 2006 TDF.

http://www.eightytwo.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core:ShowItem&g2_itemId=6104

my pics. there is 12 pages of them. That was such a great time, we were right on the 300m to go mark.

my favoirte picture (http://www.eightytwo.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core:ShowItem&g2_itemId=6355&g2_imageViewsIndex=1)... this guy almost took my head off!!