It should be an interesting competition between Schleck and Contador for the next few years. Andy is improving, but he still needs to get a lot better at time trials if he wants to win the big one. I don't think the team swaps will be such a big factor. If anything, it may favor Contador. Both Scheleck brothers are rumored to be leaving Saxo-Bank to start a new Luxembourg based team. Contador may step into that GC leader spot in his place.

I believe that Universal Sports will carry the Vuelta. At least it did last year. I watched the Giro d'Italia and the Tour of Basque on Universal Sports this year. The video is not HD and the commentary and production are not even close to Versus but....not bad.

I tend to agree. There is the 'Frank Factor', but fair to say I think that Contador's team support -- while much better than many predicted -- was not quite up to Schleck's this year. Also, Contador may not have been 'at his best' in this Tour. If Contador does (as is heavily rumoured) step into the GC spot on Riis' team, bringing with him his Spanish climbing domestiques, the result will be pretty formidable.
OTOH, the gap between the two (as individuals) has clearly closed up a little, but as said above AS will have to do something about his time trialling.

I thought TT will not happen next year. Is that true? Even if it does, I think AS will be better if he keeps training for it. Oh and gets better at shifting Sram Red. Just sayin................. :-0

On another message board, several of our hill climbers / engineers / physicists have been calculating power to weight for climbs up the Tourmalet. The analysis shows a power to weight ratio of 6 Watts/kg. That is about 10% less than the old number of 6.7 watts/kg that was used as a bogie to win the TdF as a GC. Our conclusion is less or no doping in the tour. For Schleck, Contador and others this means it will be more difficult for AC and AS to gain competitive advantage since one would assume they are both genetically gifted but still made of flesh, blood and bones. We are all oxygen transport limited in some way which is where doping has its greatest impact. IMO, Andy has to put on some more muscle to get his power up for the time trials. It is doubtful that either man will be able to significantly increase their power to weight ratios and gain an advantage in the mountains.

I think the future battles between these guys and their teams will make for great racing and I am sure that there will be others who join them at that level.

I have heard that there won't be an opening prologue, but not that there won't be an ITT later on. Stage 2 will be a Team Time Trial, so having a strong team will be very important. The course is supposed to feature the Alps next year like this year's did the Pyrenees.

Something tells me Andy's team will be running Dura Ace or Super Record next year. ;)

Thanks for the info. I was wondering how things compared with previous races. Still, the sustained power on climbs was just amazing. I wish they'd do the full NASCAR helmet cam, bio monitoring, power/speed, etc. stats. The technology is there.

They even have the data, at least for some teams, but they didn't use it much. They did provide some watt output now and then. I think they are afraid of geeking out too much and turning off the "mass audience".