Oh yeah, and who can forget about this:

Cool video with cheezy '80s synthesizers and John Tesh :lol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZY9287pYZM
(5:30 - end sums it up)

edit: Although LeMond had no chance of winning the stage, he had a very good chance of being the first American to wear the yellow jersey.

:love: :roflmao2:
well played sir

Yes. Popovych took off twice, they pulled him back twice, and when he took off the third time, he broke the elastic. He was a bit over 1K out when he made his last escape if memory serves correctly. If it had been left to a sprint, there's no doubt Freire would have taken it. Being a day after coming out of the mountains, I'm not so sure it wasn't the case that Friere's legs weren't up to it. He does have a history of not making it through the Grand Tours for one reason or another.

from where i was sitting, it was pretty obvious that JB made an arrangement with Rabo.

Right. he was asked to slow to help Sastre, at Carlos' request because there were no other Cervelo teammates around to assist.

Different situation entirely than Levi's situation on stage 16.


Lemond/Hinault? Again, where are Hinault's teammates? One ahead, the rest behind. Different situation.

It's entirely possible you caught something I didn't. That's neither here nor there really though with regard to the tactics though. Bruyneel has run the same ploy several times before - sometimes having a rider handily placed in the break to help the GC man on a late climb - sometimes going for the stage win (Hincapie, Savoldelli, Popyvich).

At the time Popo got the go ahead yesterday, it looked to me like Levi had the help he needed readily at hand.

Hinault's teammates were with him helping his sorry a** get up the mountain. Did you even watch the video? On a related note, the next year Hinault backstabbed LeMond; too bad he didn't get #6. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because Lance got #7. :lol:


"He was over 1km ahead with under 5K to go when Levi got unhitched. He literally would have had to ride back down the course to help Levi out - and when have you ever seen the fellow leading the stage on the final climb do that? When have you seen anyone in a race do that?"
Pauwels was way ahead and he had to wait for Sastre. I'm just answering your original question/commentary.

ok - so I missed that Hinault had two, then one other teammates with him. It really was quite a different situation though. He was lagging before the last climb, and LeMond's success on the stage would have directly countered his own.

When I said stopped, or come back, I meant literally - make no progress, or ride back down the hill to help out. That would have been the only way Popo could have conceivably helped once it became apparent Levi was not keeping up. I have never, ever, seen or heard of either happening.

Nice diploma...you must be very proud.

You do much climbing on real mountains? I have spent many, many hours climbing 10-20mile climbs and believe me it doesn't take long to get caught if you back it down by 20%. Just look at how fast Sastre, then Basso and then Menchov and DiLuca caught Popo. In the end I doubt that it would have mattered much, he may still have kept his GC lead over Basso but in the end his chances for an overall victory are as good as gone.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm rooting against Levi, he's not my favorite rider by any means, but he is a solid bike racer. He's a definite threat in any 1-2 week stage race, he's just not going to win a GT unless all the planets align in his favor. I think if you objectively look at the tactics that Astana has been playing in this race you'll see they haven't been stellar.

I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you call me bounces off me and sticks to you.

How come you always get to be rubber? WTF just once can't I be rubber? You are such a bogartin mofo, I swear.

sastre is using what appears to be 08 dura-ace...

wtf?

Cervelo Test Team mostly rocks 7800 DA.
Old news.

Not any 10-20 mile climbs here - I can think of a couple that are 5 miles. Our best around here might barely be considered Cat 2, but even those are 50+ miles away. Not that I love big climbs anyway. :o

I'm just doing simple math here. If we use the evident onset of Levi's distress as the decision point, he's at a hair under 8 km to go on the climb, and Popovich has roughly 6 km left. By the time Levi gets to 6 km left, they're almost a full minute back. More realistically, Popo dials it back and gets caught by his teammates between 5 and 4km to go - more than a minute behind then. It's too late. Lance was definitely in a much better position, and in much better condition to help.

Read the press today. It certainly looks like the plan was for Popovych to go for the win. It just didn't work.

They are mostly using DA 7800 on Cervelo Test Team, I have seen a few bikes outfitted with 7900 as well. The 7900 is working smoothly on my S2.

Danielson is putting up a good fight at 2.20.03 back.

how many times have you had to have our cables replaced?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-SH0...eature=related

Start at 4:00 minutes.

does that arouse you?

careful there vinokurtov, i've been banned for posting a pic like that.

Yikes!

IBTB

http://unofficialjensvoigtfanclub.bl...com/index.html

If there was an official JV fan club I'd be a card-carrying member.