Haha, nice. He is not the manliest looking man, that is for sure.


I think Lance (and the rest of Astana, sitting 4th,5th,6th..13th) played it nicely today. I agree with Fat Boy, why kill yourself today when you know there are weeks/stages to come.

dropped 15" doesnt matter.

this race is about leipheimer, who lost no time today. armstrong is the media guy, and wearing the # ending in 1, but LL is the astana GC man. I'd be willing to bet that although they'd never say it out loud, astana does not consider di luca or anyone currently in the top 20 not named basso or rodgers to be a threat to LL on the overall GC.

Lance is definitely the media man. I agree about Levi, he is looking great in the first 4 stages and of course the Gila last weekend.

They should consider Di luca a threat he only won the Giro before.

Plus Di Luca put the fear of god into Contador last year in the Giro. He was only 21 seconds behind Contador after stage 19 last year.

maybe they should, i'm just opining. I wouldnt consider Di Luca a threat to overall winner, maybe podium, but not winner. whoever wins the long tt wins this giro, IMO. I just dont see Di Luca being that guy vs. Leipheimer, Rogers (who needs to stay upright and finish without having a "bad day"), basso, or menchov.

I'm not even sure why Rogers' name is in there. His best Tour finish is 9th, which was great but at 14 minutes back a long way from the podium.

^3x world TT champ, seems like he can climb/recover and do it again next day, very strong team surrounding him, TT heavy giro, already positioned well after TTT and 1st mtn top finish. kind of an unknown quantity as a stage racer since he crashed out of the TdF when his form was reported to be on and IIRC, he has ridden other GTs in the service of others.

/\/\/\what he said/\/\/\

sporza's coverage, which can be pretty lance-centric, was getting fed up with the director at rai who kept showing LA, when the action was happening at the front.

Lance sells, but from a purists standpoint I don't get how his image helps in the last 2k when the race was full on.

He couldn't hang and got spit out the back. If that's "playing it nicely" I was positively spectacular in the first stage at Gila this year.

Here's why.

You're saying staying with the front group on the last 1km of a climb would kill Lance. He must be in worse shape than we thought.

Watch Sastre. He normally doesn't race much early but did several of the spring classics and showed solid form in Leige. Very solid. He'll be completely ignored by the media, but don't be surprised to see him quietly lurking around the GC guys, then pouncing. Stage 17 has his name written all over it.

I agree that he did get dropped and that he definitely could have done better, but he is also just returning from surgery and all of that so I can also understand why he is playing it safe.

I wasn't saying that if he stayed with them he would have killed himself. I was trying to say that I can understand why he eased off and didn't try/or maybe couldn't try his hardest to save it for later stages.

Great video by the way and I will be looking out for Sastre.

+1
especially with 74km of ITT left and given his Vuelta performance last year it's his to lose

Sounds familiar.

Lance had to deal with a mechanical problem in the last few km of the climb.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/horner/20...ng_begins.html
http://www.astana-cyclingteam.com/ra.../giro0409.html

I may be crazy, but does anyone think that Lance was holding back to make people doubt his form a bit? I'm sure he could have pushed through the last few k or so when he decided to sit up if he wanted to... hell, he could have probably won the stage if he didnt care about the next few weeks of racing..

Three years ago I'd buy that but right now I really don't think he has the fitness to pull off a bluff. I do think that with the Tour now up in the air he will try harder to do something in this race than he would have otherwise. I think he's eyeing the long TT.

J.M. Soler for KOM, barring injury.

menchov either. both those guys will find a way to lose.

ed rader

Rodgers is a crystal ball. Menchov is a known quantity.

The taciturn roooskie has won the Vuelta twice. Beating the EPO laden flea sized Spanish and Basque climbers on their home soil is no small feat, and deserves acknowledgment. He was 4th in the Giro as a warm-up last year if you throw out Ricco, and was on the TDF podium if you throw out Kohl.

He belongs in the conversation.

yeah, rogers crashes going downhill but menchov can crash going uphill and that takes true gc talent.:thumb:

but not by di luca.

Stage 4 proved nothing. It's too early too make a call on anyone's form. Some riders need to get through the first day in the mountains before they find their climbing legs. Others, like Di Luca, were perfectly suited to the final climb. The group at 6 seconds is meaningless as far as determining form goes. Someone left a gap of 1 second to the front runners, meaning they got docked time to the winner. As for Armstrong, he would have hung on if he was capable, but see how he goes today before making a call on him.

Fantastic ride by Wiggins, but him coming in only 32 seconds down shows it wasn't a full on ballbiter climbers stage. There were 43 riders within one minute of the winner on a mountain top finish.

Menchov is 2x winner of the Vuelta.