OK, the title is a little corny but the point I want to discuss is why is Floyd the only guy in the last few years (since Pantani?) to go all out and go for broke? Is it simply because he bonked yesterday and truly had nothing to lose? Why don't some of the other riders do it. . .win or die gloriously? I was listening to the OLN broadcast today and either Phil or Paul were discussing early on how he was going to ride potentially his last tour with a valiant charge, not thinking he could hold on and get back into the hunt.

So, why do we see this so rarely? Was Armstrong's hold on the peloton (physical and mental) so great that no one dared? Eddie Mercxx aparently called Floyd and told him that 6th or 26th are the same and go for it (as he did). Why aren't we treated to more men like Eddie and Floyd?

I think in most of the last 7 years, Armstrong's strength, and his team's strength made it impossible, or at least made the people think the odds were so low it wasn't worth the risk, and they road to conserve other goals, such as high placings .I don't discount Landis' amazing ride. But a dominant team effort like the Blue train was capable of would have mad ethis much ore unlikely.

Before Pantani, it was Hinault in 1986 who attacked solo in the mountains to take the yellow jersey. He then followed up the next day with a similar solo attack. He was caught by a group with Lemond. Hinault left everything on the road and blew up and Lemond took a lot of time out of him and then took the yellow jersey the following day..

People attacked Armstrong pretty relentlessly as I recall. He always had an answer. Oscar was pretty impressive a few days ago, putting 30 minutes into the peloton. But, man, ya gotta be impressed with Landis.

Tyler did it... with a broken collar bone.

Ullrich tried a couple of years ago, twice. He couldn't do it. CSC (Jens Voigt I think) helped bring him back

Technically, Rasmussen did it yesterday, but he wasn't really a GC contender. Nor was Tyler when he did it.

I think it happens so rarely because so rarely is anyone strong enough. The other teams didn't let him go today, they couldn't bring him back. This was obvious on the final climb, when even though he was solo all day, no one could make progress on him, except Sastre, who got about a minute, than lost most of that on the finishing descent.

OK, the title is a little corny but the point I want to discuss is why is Floyd the only guy in the last few years (since Pantani?) to go all out and go for broke? Is it simply because he bonked yesterday and truly had nothing to lose? Why don't some of the other riders do it. . .win or die gloriously? I was listening to the OLN broadcast today and either Phil or Paul were discussing early on how he was going to ride potentially his last tour with a valiant charge, not thinking he could hold on and get back into the hunt.

So, why do we see this so rarely? Was Armstrong's hold on the peloton (physical and mental) so great that no one dared? Eddie Mercxx aparently called Floyd and told him that 6th or 26th are the same and go for it (as he did). Why aren't we treated to more men like Eddie and Floyd?

Pantani attacked in hte mountians beacuse he knew he would lose significant time in the TTs. Merckx was just Merckx. I think you hit the target perfectly. Someone else in this thread said that Eddy told Floyd 6th or 26th no difference. Not 3rd or 23rd. Lance was positively brilliant at making it seem the chance of something good happening by attacking him wildly wsa small but the chance of falling off the podium was very very real.

I bet if Floyd had been in 3rd at 2:30 down he would have waited till the last climb to try for 1:30 and tried for the rest in the tt. It was the confluence of circumstances that put that strong a rider that far back with that many other riders higher up that were worried about their other competitors and had already written Floyd off. Long breakaways suceed in every grand tour ... they just rarely have a true gc threat in them because the other teams always respond to a gc threat.

I think in most of the last 7 years, Armstrong's strength, and his team's strength made it impossible, or at least made the people think the odds were so low it wasn't worth the risk, and they road to conserve other goals, such as high placings .I don't discount Landis' amazing ride. But a dominant team effort like the Blue train was capable of would have mad ethis much ore unlikely.

landis caught the breakaway group and dropped them one by one. on a stage like this one the train is only as good as the strongest rider because physics is more important than aerodynamics plus landis can descend like a demon.

landis was previously trying to ride a conservative race al la miguel indurain but he realized after being worked over by CSC and T-mobile and being dropped that he was the strongest rider with a weak team.

a lesser man would have abandoned or blamed his team, and landis could could have even blamed his hip.

but he didn't do that. landis said he would keep fighting because anything could happen.

he woke up that morning and knew he could make it happen.

ed rader