adam_mac84

I think I remember seeing him in a classic in April. Tried to see if he had any results listed somewhere online. If he is preparing for TDF, he must be doing it in secret. Has he even been racing?

I don't think the Schleck brothers will be doing much this year in the Tour. However, maybe I am missing something.

seanthebear

He's in a secret training camp honing those TT skills.

ijsbrand

He did win the 2010 Tour de France this year... In February that was.

Meanwhile, I've seen him compete, in his favourite classics like Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but he never was up to much.

ijsbrand

He will take part in the Critérium Du Dauphiné, that starts this Sunday.

ultraman6970

Well from that link you can see he has not done that much this year. TdF might become an obsession for the bros and probably won't win it this year either.

prettyshady

Laying low and trainning. 100% commitment on the TDF

Bacciagalupe

Same as Cadel Evans. Menchov too.

Welcome to the age of the Tour de France specialists.

baj32161

And what a boring age it is.

ultraman6970

Well from what I can say at least cadel did show up his class in the Dauphiné, but darn AS just sucked as usual. He lost 29 secs in 7 km? Even darn voeckler (17 secs) and old big george did better than AS. The guys that lost a minute or even more are domestiques, they dont even bother going fast or even racing this with a TT machine, they just go 40 to 45 to just finish. If they dont have chances they dont waste time even bothering going fast. 30 secs in such a short distance is a looooooottt of time. For the record... vino got 19 secs down but he really hasnt raced in a while plus the accident almost got him out of the sport.

If they took 29 secs out of him in 7 kms, I dont want to even think what they will get out of him in the TdF

For the TdF the guy will lose...

1 stage TT... 7 km... at least 20 secs outta evans and others.

Stage 9.. 41 km... no idea if its a TTT or individual. If individual he should be losing at least 1 min 30 secs. If TTT maybe 30 secs just because cancellara, the rest of the team no idea how will do.

Stage 19.. 53.5 km.. if individual here the guys should get at least like 3 mins or even more from him. If TTT then same situation than before Cancelara will tow them big time and they will lose like a 1 to 1.5 minutes if not more.

Doing round numbers he should be giving away at least 5 mins just in the TT (if all are ITT), If some are TTT at least 2.5 to 3 minutes thanks to cancelara.

In the mountains no way evans will get 5 or 6 mins away from him, wiggo the same, dont even tell rodriguez and ryder. Voekler is climbing more now... sure he will show up something and then we have vino sticking it form behind too with 19 secs so who knows.

I doubt Johan Bruyneel is too happy because IMO AS doesnt look like too much as a TdF contender at all specially when all the guys that are 30 secs ahead after all can climb as well.

I say wiggo will win this.

ijsbrand

There are no team time trials in this year's Tour de France.

This weekend saw some rumpus in the Flemish media, when team manager Johan Bruyneel openly criticized his main riders and their lack of success. When confronted with this Andy Schleck mainly said he didn't understand why Bruyneel had done this. Had Schleck been team manager, he would have stood by his men through thick and thin.

Bacciagalupe

I don't think spring performances mean much for a Tour specialist. E.g. Andy did poorly in the Tour of California, and still nearly won last year.


Yes, very likely. I don't think doing more races in the spring will necessarily improve his TT time. It might not look good if he pulls a Rasmussen and gets amazing at TT'ing overnight.


Or, they could just have a personality clash. One minute the Schlecks had a whole team built around them with Riis, the next they're working for Radio Shack and answering to Brunyeel. Sometimes that can work out well, sometimes it doesn't.

adam_mac84

I wonder what kind of form Cancellara will have for TDF. Seems like a bit of rest, and not contesting all of those classics may do him some good come July. A chance of contention? Or too much climbing for him to take enough out of people in the TT's?

Seems to me like he gets himself up and over climbs pretty well (unlike a pure sprinter), is a decent sprinter, and good TT...

ultraman6970

Cancellara can't climb, that's his problem, he can TT and climb some short type of stuff but for a tour he really can't climb at all. He will pull up at the front like a darn machine but he can't go in real climbing like voeckler did last year for example (and voeckler is not a climber). He weights too much, too big and too fast, bad combination.

The TT in the TdF are individual TTs??? Darn... AS is toasted big time then, specially in the longest ones, He will lose minutes in those stages. stage 9 has some climbing but is stuff that cant be really be called climbing... the longest hill is 379 meters... bad news for him. And stage 19 that is the longest one and is full with up and downs and no matter how good you are climbing and up and down road will kill him as well... he is so f... ed i even see the guy behind him catching him from behind in this one.

ultraman6970

Dunno if you guys read this...

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/schl...um-du-dauphine

“I’m not necessarily looking for a place on the GC but I’m going to try and test myself on the Col de Joux-Plane [on stage 6 - ed.],” Schleck told Velochrono.fr. “The Dauphiné isn’t an objective in itself.”

So what in the world he went to do then??? sight seen?

seanthebear

no he means what he says....he'll keep his powder dry and then throw everything at the one big climb to see if he has the form to be a contender at TDF. He's not dumb, he knows that with the time trials this year his only chance is to target a coupla climbs and put in at least five minutes on the field on 2 separate days. We all remember "chaingate"...if he can find the form again that allowed him to attack AC at such a key moment...well he might just have a chance. I doubt it will happen though, Cadel, Wiggo et al are gonna be watching his every move.

ultraman6970

I agree and I understand they need to test themselves but is a tiny naive to think that all the top dogs came to just play with sand and not trying to win the race just like AS is stating. No matter what's the final objective, sure wiggo went to try to win the race, same with evans and the others; the only one that is saying that he is going to basically test his climbing abilities is him just because his plans are focused in the TdF, just silly or he is bluffing. Thing I doubt because lose like 5 secs per km in such a short TT it just confirm that the guy is sucking maybe more than ever for this season in TTing.

Sure wiggo is climbing more this year, and what could be really bad is to see wiggo and others blow AS @ss in his own terrain.

Oh well, want to see the race and there is no feeds for it.. .darn!

ijsbrand

Look here.

ijsbrand

Schleck drops out of the peloton, and loses 3:10 minutes in the first stage.

Bacciagalupe

The Dauphine has long been a warm-up race for the TdF. It includes many of the same climbs as the Tour, and the timing is right.

Work too hard to win the Dauphine, and you could peak your training too early. IIRC that likely happened to Armstrong in... 2003? and caused some issues for his Tour effort that year.

Again, when we're talking about a contemporary Tour specialist, I wouldn't pay much attention to pre-Tour performances. Or, to cite another example: Contador decimated the competition in the 2011 Giro, but cracked in the 2011 Tour -- perhaps because he drove so hard in the Giro.

Sky will put tons of firepower behind Cavendish, who I expect will go for Green this year. That's going to limit resources for Wiggins. I wouldn't count him out, but I don't think I'd put him ahead of Evans or Schleck just yet.

ultraman6970

JB has to be very happy.

DXchulo

How could you not put Wiggins ahead of Schleck? You have the prologue (6.4km) plus a 41.5km TT and a 53.5km TT. That's 101.4km on the TT bike. Yesterday Wiggins gained 28 seconds on Schleck in a 5.7km prologue. Last year Schleck lost 2:31 to Evans over 42.5km, so even on the low end I'd expect Wiggins to gain 5 minutes on Schleck over 101.4km. There are only two summit finishes, so Wiggins would have to crack pretty hard to lose that much time. He lost 1:21 to Cobo on the Angliru stage at the Vuelta last year, which is much more difficult than any summit finish you'll see at the TDF in 2012.

As for peaking too early, there's really no evidence that Wiggins has peaked too early and there's no way to compare the 2011 Giro (absolutely brutal, 3 weeks) to the 2012 Dauphine (TDF warmup, 1 week). I'll give you the Cav argument, but RadioShack seems to be a dysfunctional mess at the moment and there is no TTT, so that may benefit Evans more than anybody.

However, I would say that the poor prologue performance is more worrisome than the 3:10 he lost today. Most of that was lost after the climb itself and towards the end they showed a shot of Schleck's group and they weren't exactly hammering to the finish line. I don't doubt that Schleck can find his climbing legs in time for the TDF and I will agree that he doesn't have to be on top form yet, but he needs to show something on Stage 4- that he was able to improve his TTing at least a little.

Bacciagalupe

...and today has to insist up and down that he hasn't peaked too early.

• Sky is going to focus on putting Cav in Green.
• Wiggins has one, count it one, grand tour podium in his career -- 2011 Vuelta, 3rd place.
• Wiggins was down 39 minutes in the 2010 TdF; he's not gonna make up that kind of time with 2 TT's.

• Despite team weirdness, RS will line up behind the Schlecks.
• Andy won't excessively mark Contador this year.
• You may not like the guy, but he did ride off the entire peloton on the Galibier last year. Can Wiggins do that?
• Assuming neither of them crashes, if Andy goes so far down on time that he can't possibly make it up in the mountains, and Frank has a better time, don't be shocked if RS switches gears and switches its GC strategy.

I agree the stage lineup isn't looking good for AS. But I think animosity towards the Schlecks is resulting in the (American) public underestimating them.

z90

I would think he'd be pretty unhappy to see his best GC hope showing poor form.

ultraman6970

I was being sarcastic JB is well known for having a nasty temper

z90

Ah! Missed that.