Professional Cycling For the Fans - Discovery An Average Team.

Damn, I expected a little more out of Discovery. They really seem to have fallen to an average team without Lance. None of them could keep pace on the first real climbing stages and yesterday I read an article saying that they would be attacking in the mountains.

I disagree. They are the best team in the race, maybe in all of cycling. Every time I see that white, blue, and grey I shed a tear of joy.

there a very good team, without a true top GC rider, at least right now.

They are a terrific team with very good riders. Sure Lance did make all the difference. Others like CSC however, minus Basso, aren't looking much above average right now. I hear Riis' strategy changes by the hour :)

Don't get me wrong Discovery is my favorite team. But, I am disapointed in their performance. Do they have anyone contending for any jersey's, stages or GC. Without the TTT it is not looking good for any victories. I think I saw on Discovery rider try to sneek into a breakaway, why not try for more and a possible stage win?

...I think I saw on Discovery rider try to sneek into a breakaway, why not try for more and a possible stage win?

That may happen if in another week, Hincape, Salvodelli are completely out of GC contention.

That may happen if in another week, Hincape, Salvodelli are completely out of GC contention.


Hincapie winning this year's TDF was a fantasy from the get go.

I think you are correct - they are an average team with an average director sportif. . .All of this talk of Johan's genius is falling apart in front of our eyes. . .George looked pathetic today, as did Paolo and the entire team other than Jose Acevado. It is becoming apparent that Lance was the Man, the Team, and the DS for the entire team. The rest where there because you need 9 riders and a DS. . .

It is one thing to be the Man (as Lance was) and another thing to work for the Man. . .Disco has lots of folks that are very capable of working for the Man but NONE capable of being the Man. .

Regardless of how good Armstrong was, Bruyneel did a hell of a job managing a team, and holding it together for 7 years. there are so many things that can go wrong, and cost you the TDF, 7 in a row is truely amazing, and nobody, Merckx and Armstrong included, can pull that off without strong team orginization. So Bruyneel can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear, he was still pretty damn good at maximizing what he had with Armstrong. If you think back to 2003, without exactly the right tactics, 7 in a row wouldn't have happened.

Regardless of how good Armstrong was, Bruyneel did a hell of a job managing a team, and holding it together for 7 years. there are so many things that can go wrong, and cost you the TDF, 7 in a row is truely amazing, and nobody, Merckx and Armstrong included, can pull that off without strong team orginization. So Bruyneel can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear, he was still pretty damn good at maximizing what he had with Armstrong. If you think back to 2003, without exactly the right tactics, 7 in a row wouldn't have happened.

+1

Regardless of how good Armstrong was, Bruyneel did a hell of a job managing a team, and holding it together for 7 years. there are so many things that can go wrong, and cost you the TDF, 7 in a row is truely amazing, and nobody, Merckx and Armstrong included, can pull that off without strong team orginization. So Bruyneel can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear, he was still pretty damn good at maximizing what he had with Armstrong. If you think back to 2003, without exactly the right tactics, 7 in a row wouldn't have happened.

Absolutely!

People tend to forget the kind of value managers like Bruyneel and Riis bring to the table. I have a lot of respect for these guys, especially given their own accomplishments. Anyone remember Bruyneel going off the side of the road on a descent a long time ago. All he could think of as he emerged from the bushes was getting back on the bike. They have a calming effect on the team, during times of distress, often during better times also urging their riders not to just attack without a plan. You can have lots of managers, but these 'been there, done that' guys are the real thing.

Of course they are a great team. With guys such as Landis, Menchov, Evans, Kloden, and Sastre, they are a "lock" to have the yellow jersey in Paris.

Oh...they don't have those guys?

Bruyneel + Armstrong = world class
Bruyneel - Armstrong = mediocre

Guys - we can argue all we want about his greatness but without Armstrong he would have no more recognition than any other average DS in the business. . .And now without Armstrong we are seeing EXACTLY that. . .Look at the standings to date.. .this is a team HE built and Acevado is the highest placed?! George is 20mins down as is Paolo and the team fell apart today with NO leadership?

It reminds me of last year on Corchavel (I think) when the team cracked and left Armstrong alone to respond to all attacks. . .It was Armstrong's leadership, calm and head-cracking that night that brought the team back.

Bruyneel + Armstrong = world class
Bruyneel - Armstrong = mediocre



Bill Walsh + Joe Montana = 4 rings
Bill Walsh - Joe Montana (and Steve Young) = mediocre. No one can coach without players.

Hau Hau Hau, seely americaine team eez too fat for climbing zee mountaines sans Ford Explorer!

Bonjour monsieur Hincapie! peut-etre you should, how do you say...not being eating zee Big Macs for petit déjeuner during zee tour?

Bruyneel is in the position of trying to direct a team with no Captain. Everyone is out there for themselves and not for the team. IT JUST DON'T WORK. I don't care if you're Bruyneel, Riis, Jeff Foxworthy or Albert Einstein. We saw it last year with T-Mobile and a few others, now we're seeing it in Discovery and CSC too. When they had Lance they had a vision - a focus - a purpose. All of the other members of a team and a job to do during certain stages to get Armstrong to Paris. Now, who knows who's working with whom, for whom, trying to out do whom, all within the same team. Bruyneel can tell his guys to back one guy or another, but I just don't see it happening. He even said that without someone in the top 10, Discovery has no leader. Bruyneel apparently was praying someone would show themselves as "the" GC guy. Buy even by the first TT, it was too late to make that decision. And it's certainly too late now.

It seems as if the boys were able to conjure up better performances when doing so for Lance. Apparently, riding yourself raw up a mountain at the risk of dying on the roadside was a better option than disappointing your leader and having to face him at the dinner table that night. Without Lance there to inspire, are they not riding as hard? Are they not as motivated?
Hard to say.

So, this brings up the question of Discovery's future. Do you think they will go outside to find a GC contender and team leader for next year or will they continue to develop one of the current riders in hopes of a GC contender.

To borrow Lance's own words, Lance was "the sh*t that kills".

cuda, couldn't have said it better myself.

Hau Hau Hau, seely americaine team eez too fat for climbing zee mountaines sans Ford Explorer!

Bonjour monsieur Hincapie! peut-etre you should, how do you say...not being eating zee Big Macs for petit déjeuner during zee tour?

Yo Frenchi,

a "seely americaine" is wearing the yellow now.

With the group there now, riding to win GC was a mistake from the start. They should have tried for stage wins, the team championship, and heck - send a couple guys up to work for Floyd.

As incredible as Ekimov is to be hanging in there at his age, the team would have been much better served to have selected Guisev. There's a rider with a bright future.

"Bruyneel is in the position of trying to direct a team with no Captain" - OK but it is HIS TEAM so by not selecting a leader he has created the situation he is in now. . .mediocre. It would seem that the weakness of most teams over the last eight years (CSC, T-Mobile, etc. . .) was NO leader but a "let's see what happens" approach which clearly doesn't work. . .so should he have selected a leader and make the team work for him? Don't know. . .what may be apparent is that he built a team with no leader but a bunch of worker bees. . .too bad.

[QUOTE=cuda2k]Bruyneel is in the position of trying to direct a team with no Captain. Everyone is out there for themselves and not for the team. IT JUST DON'T WORK. I don't care if you're Bruyneel, Riis, Jeff Foxworthy or Albert Einstein. We saw it last year with T-Mobile and a few others, now we're seeing it in Discovery and CSC too... QUOTE]

I don't disagree with the point of the post, but I think you should have substituted T-Mobile for CSC in that comment. Despite speculation that it may be Julich, CSC said right from the outset that they would be supporting Carlos Sastre once Basso was removed. Today, Frank Shleck rode entirely for Sastre. Sastre is well-placed in 5th place and is within striking distance of the podium with Dressel probably going to slip on the next big climb. In fact if he can put in the TT of his life, he could win this thing, being that he is only 1:52 down on Landis.

Bill Walsh + Joe Montana = 4 rings
Bill Walsh - Joe Montana (and Steve Young) = mediocre. No one can coach without players.+1

Next he'll say Lefevere (sp?, anyway QS DS) is mediocre because Boonen hasn't won a stage yet.

Hau Hau Hau, seely americaine team eez too fat for climbing zee mountaines sans Ford Explorer!

Bonjour monsieur Hincapie! peut-etre you should, how do you say...not being eating zee Big Macs for petit déjeuner during zee tour?

Stupid French. Zidane + headbutt = Loozah. :D

Stupid French. Zidane + headbutt = Loozah. :D

Now that is funny :D

Before we bury Bruyneel, we need to remember a couple of things. First, of all the DS's in Europe, he was the one who recognized Lance as a Tour-winning talent instead of the Classics-riding cancer victim everone else (Lance included) saw, with the possible exception of Chris Carmichael. So, he has to get some points for talent recognition. Second, he has managed to win all three of the Grand Tours in recent years with three different guys. I don't think anyone other current DS has puilled that off. He has to get some points here for flexibility and, again, talent recognition.

So this year, he has a problem - nobody of Lance's caliber to start in the TdF. As folks have pointed out, it's kind of hard to win a horse race if you ain't got the horse. And it will be his responsiblity in coming years to get that horse. But it is extremely hard to groom a Leader when the existing Leader is still performing at the top of his game. Remember La Vie Claire and what a circus it was when it came time to transition from Bernard Hinault to Greg Lemond? I do. There is a reason why Livingston, Hamilton and Landis all moved to other teams - the current Big Dog rarely can stand the idea of having the next Big Dog barking at his heels. There is nothing new about it: cycling has seen this kind of conflict writ large before, most notably in the form of Bartali vs. Coppi and Bobet vs. Anquetil. And that phenomenon is not limited to just bike racing - somebody mentioned Joe Montana and Steve Young, and I well remember what a zoo that whole situation was.

The point is not to say that Bruyneel is a genius. He has a ways to go to match Cyrille Guimard's record of coaching three seprate TdF winners (van Impe, Hinault and Fignon - four if you count Lemond, who first rode for Guimard at Renault and first won the Tour in his second year away from him). But he saw something in Lance that most others missed, did a good job in bringing that talent out, did a good job of building good teams around Lance, and did a good job of managing the races once they were under way. For that, he has to rank well up the list of current DS's, and way ahead of such once-supposed "geniuses" as Manolo Saiz, whose ONCE teams under-achieved like nobody's business.

Maybe or maybe if Lance come out of retirement for the heck off it and win the TDF for next year.

I'm sure Trek will love that.. Too bad for Trek this year, no more "8 TDF" label on their bikes.

It seemed to me that T-Mobile found a ***** in Discovery's armour in last year tour when they managed to isolate Lance from other Disco riders in a mountain stage, and in several other stages weakened support for Lance by dropping some of his team.

Without Lance in this years tour, it seems that the same tactic (Kesslar setting a fast pace at the right time) did even more damage.
Must be a combination of factors affecting Discovery, including some before they arrived at the start of tour - focus, expectation maybe, and importantly the high demands that Lance used to put on himself and probably his team.

Smiling as I could imagine what Lance would say in preparation training to his colleagues to reach those high demands he sets for himself.
Anyway, I am sad for George Hincapie as he has been a wonderful support rider for Lance and this tour has gone awry for him.
Hopefully the team can bounce back from this and be ready for next years tour, I love seeing the team tactics that T-Mobile and Discovery use against each other as well as the individual tactics of riders.

Stupid French. Zidane + headbutt = Loozah. :D

hahaha :D

Before we bury Bruyneel, we need to remember a couple of things. First, of all the DS's in Europe, he was the one who recognized Lance as a Tour-winning talent instead of the Classics-riding cancer victim everone else (Lance included) saw, with the possible exception of Chris Carmichael. So, he has to get some points for talent recognition. Second, he has managed to win all three of the Grand Tours in recent years with three different guys. I don't think anyone other current DS has puilled that off. He has to get some points here for flexibility and, again, talent recognition.

So this year, he has a problem - nobody of Lance's caliber to start in the TdF. As folks have pointed out, it's kind of hard to win a horse race if you ain't got the horse. And it will be his responsiblity in coming years to get that horse. But it is extremely hard to groom a Leader when the existing Leader is still performing at the top of his game. Remember La Vie Claire and what a circus it was when it came time to transition from Bernard Hinault to Greg Lemond? I do. There is a reason why Livingston, Hamilton and Landis all moved to other teams - the current Big Dog rarely can stand the idea of having the next Big Dog barking at his heels. There is nothing new about it: cycling has seen this kind of conflict writ large before, most notably in the form of Bartali vs. Coppi and Bobet vs. Anquetil. And that phenomenon is not limited to just bike racing - somebody mentioned Joe Montana and Steve Young, and I well remember what a zoo that whole situation was.

The point is not to say that Bruyneel is a genius. He has a ways to go to match Cyrille Guimard's record of coaching three seprate TdF winners (van Impe, Hinault and Fignon - four if you count Lemond, who first rode for Guimard at Renault and first won the Tour in his second year away from him). But he saw something in Lance that most others missed, did a good job in bringing that talent out, did a good job of building good teams around Lance, and did a good job of managing the races once they were under way. For that, he has to rank well up the list of current DS's, and way ahead of such once-supposed "geniuses" as Manolo Saiz, whose ONCE teams under-achieved like nobody's business.


Add to this list the 2004 Giro, with Simoni and Cunago. What a mess that was/is.

It seems as if the boys were able to conjure up better performances when doing so for Lance. Apparently, riding yourself raw up a mountain at the risk of dying on the roadside was a better option than disappointing your leader and having to face him at the dinner table that night. Without Lance there to inspire, are they not riding as hard? Are they not as motivated?
Hard to say.

^^Agree completely with this sentiment and observation.

well if disco does well this year then I'd start singing praises to Johan. I mean I'm sure he's good, but he had probably the best TDF rider ever on his team.

Zabrieski had a good point on the last issue of bicycling magazine where he downplays Riis' genius, something along the lines of the DS can shout directions all they want but if the rider doesn't have it, he can't follow instructions.

Basketball analogy this time, Phil Jackson won championships with Jordan and later with Shaq and Kobe. How's he doing without those best players in the game?

You can't blame Riis too much for his teams performance, he maintained Bobby Julich was the man. When he went out CSC was done.

Brunyeel on the other hand deserves all the blame. He should have named a GC long ago instead of this 'race 2 replace' crap.

Before we bury Bruyneel, we need to remember a couple of things. First, of all the DS's in Europe, he was the one who recognized Lance as a Tour-winning talent instead of the Classics-riding cancer victim everone else (Lance included) saw, with the possible exception of Chris Carmichael. So, he has to get some points for talent recognition. Second, he has managed to win all three of the Grand Tours in recent years with three different guys. I don't think anyone other current DS has puilled that off. He has to get some points here for flexibility and, again, talent recognition.

It was Armstrong, who asked Bruyneel to become his DS, just after Bruyneel had retired from cycling. Bruyneel did not have a "vision" about Arsmtrong winning the Tour, but it's Armstrong who wanted to find the DS that would make him win.

About Bruyneel's race intelligence, it is real, but still after having watched the last 7 Tours very closely, in critical moments it has always been Armstrong making the "right" decision on his bike. Finally Bruyneels tactics could only work, because in 95% of the cases LA's team riders were in excellent shape to fulfil them. The other 5% of the time (for example 2005 in the Vosges stage, when Armstrong was totally isolated) it's Armstrong's pure strength that saved him. So, afterwards, it looks like "wow, what a brilliant strategy", but in reality it's about being fit, and right at the top constantly 8 with a bit of luck, too, I must admit).

I know the Hincapie haters won't admit it, but this is the not the same guy who was in the Tour last year.

He was 8th in the TT last year and he lost big time this year. He hung on the back of a mountain breakaway last year and couldn't sit in the trailing group behind the peloton doing no work this year.

I think it's safe to say that the collarbone injury affected George and/or his training more than Discovery let on.

Stupid French. Zidane + headbutt = Loozah. :D

'he who lives in glass houses........'....how'd the seppo's go again?.....ummm did they win a game?....seppo's & soccer = Loozahs :D

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Hincapie

I know the Hincapie haters won't admit it, but this is the not the same guy who was in the Tour last year.

He was 8th in the TT last year and he lost big time this year. He hung on the back of a mountain breakaway last year and couldn't sit in the trailing group behind the peloton doing no work this year.

I think it's safe to say that the collarbone injury affected George and/or his training more than Discovery let on.

I'd agree with that. However, the idea that Hincapie, even without the collarbone injury, was going to be on the podium was a bit fantastic. One opportunistic stage win does not a GC contender make.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Hincapie

Wow, and just when I didn't think I could see a more immature post from you.

I think Disco is an average team this year. Just look at the results so far. Its very difficult to make an argument that they're not an average team this year. No GC contender means that they're average. Heck, they don't have a contender for any of the jerseys. They need to sign a top five contender. I'm tired of all of "when will Discovery make their move" talk. They were great with Lance. They're average without him. If they add another serious contender, they could easily be great again.

Hau Hau Hau, seely americaine team eez too fat for climbing zee mountaines sans Ford Explorer!

Bonjour monsieur Hincapie! peut-etre you should, how do you say...not being eating zee Big Macs for petit déjeuner during zee tour?

This whole tour is a best of the rest kind of thing. Everyone in this tour is third best actually. The second best guys all got removed from doping, and we know who could win easily...very easily this year.

This whole tour is a best of the rest kind of thing. Everyone in this tour is third best actually. The second best guys all got removed from doping, and we know who could win easily...very easily this year.

That about sums it up. But it has been interesting because its so wide open...

Actually if you look at the rider salary they are an Avg team. OLN showed a graphic last week and Disco was mid pack with a $13M rider salary. T-Mobile was on top spending $30M on their riders.

'he who lives in glass houses........'....how'd the seppo's go again?.....ummm did they win a game?....seppo's & soccer = Loozahs :D

Both true and very funny Hitchy :D :D :D .....but wait this gets even better...
... in relation to the ultimate objective at the Cup, said 'seppos' faired just a bit worse than some ex-cons, but then again they didn't have that critical lock-picking skill in the genes to bail them out! Too funny, no? :D :D :D

I think it's safe to say that the collarbone injury affected George and/or his training more than Discovery let on.

I love George and will be pulling for him all the way, but you can't blame the collarbone when the yellow jersey is being worn by a rider with a dead hip socket. I think that hip socket is more critical than a bum shoulder in the mountains.

George needs to find his own inner strength and ride to win.

George needs to find his own inner strength and ride to win.

Nope - the English speaking fans need to understand that all the talk of Hincapie doing well in the Tour was hype designed to sell English speaking magazines.

The guy could not possibly win this event.

I think that hip socket is more critical than a bum shoulder in the mountains.
It isn't the hip or shoulder, per se, that's the issue. Landis hasn't lost any training time due to the hip in over two years, Hincapie was off the bike and had to recover just last spring, and there's no telling from here, how much that set his preparation back.

It isn't the hip or shoulder, per se, that's the issue. Landis hasn't lost any training time due to the hip in over two years, Hincapie was off the bike and had to recover just last spring, and there's no telling from here, how much that set his preparation back.

Don't get me wrong. I'd be as pleased as anyone to see Hincapie do well. I heard reports that George only lost 1-2 days of training, and was off the road for just a couple weeks as a result of the accident. If this is true, I think it must be something else.