At least Sastre had the guts to take things in to his own hands and do what needed to be done - even though it was a late effort. He is in a great position now, and will be on the podium in Paris. That wasn't a guarantee this morning.

It is more likely today than yesterday, but still not guaranteed. He needs a good time trial.

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"Bad tactics" You are kidding, no? Getting your ass kicked is not a tactic. They had no answer.

All the GC guys have to be tired. Will there be attacks tommorow? or will they just ride it out tommororws stage and rest a bit for the TT sat?

They were letting Iles Baleares/Caisse d'Epargne do the work early in the stage. Then both teams [Edit: CSC and T-Mobile] took the reigns in the valley. Those three teams probably didn't expect Landis to hold his own in the descents/valley (he lost only a couple minutes there) where a charging peloton should make up a lot of ground on a single rider.

Bottom line: they were tagging each other thinking that Landis would fizzle at some point (that's a long raid), win the stage but only by a couple minutes. What Landis pulled out is quite a feat; and along the sheer athletic talent, he's got some great descending skills.

Really nice. This is indeed one for the books.

Alex

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First with the head, then with the heart. -- HG

They gambled and lost. What Landis managed to pull off today hasn't been seen in the Tour since before most of these guys were born.

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Perhaps they've spent themselves a bit much going for stage victories.

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Coach at KonaCoach Multisport

Tmobile will attack early. CSC will be forced to respond, and things will generally get quite chaotic I suspect. I remember thinking this morning before even watching... "Landis is going to have to just go for it."

These guys should have reacted. It's just like when Phonak didn't react to Perioro.

Anyway,, I'm a n00b, what do I know? ;)

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Trae McCombs
TSR - Sponsored by the Masses. Racing for the hell of it.
Ironman Finisher 2005 -- 14:09:18

For once I have to agree with you, but not just today. this has been the Tour de Bad Tactics.

I know this won't be a popular opinion, but in reality neither Floyd or Pereiro should even be in contention for the yellow jersey at this point. Only tactical blunders by the other teams have them where they are.

In earlier stages CSC and/or T-Mobile should have:

A. Not let Oscar ride to a 31 minute stage win, even if Floyd was in yellow and Phonak didn't chase.

B. Neither team should have let Floyd get the big gap he got today.

Anyway Floyd did a great race today to get back into contention and Pereiro did a great job of holding on to yellow.

you don't remember indurain going away with bruynel on his wheel the whole ride?
Or Pantani in the 1998 Tour in the rain? Or Hinault/Lemond destroying the field?

Floyd was remarkable today. I could not help but think during the stage (I watched the whole thing this morning) over and over again, about what a marvelous example his ride was of the importance of proper fueling/hydration and maintainence of core body temperature. I didn't hear a lot of the post race conversation from yesterday, but just from watching Floyd implode yesterday, coupled with today's assault, I figure that he simply didn't eat/drink enough yesterday and probably overheated, too. His constant attention to eat/drink/cooling today was probably what he missed out on yesterday. Can't say I recall, ever, seeing a guy remain that dedicated to his fueling as he did today.

CSC - it didn't look to me like any of the teams had what it took today. The continuously squished up peleton is a give away that nobody had the juice to pull hard, I don't really think it was much in the way of tactics. When they all finally did decide to go - they were already done, as evidenced by the lack of ability to gain much on Floyd. Then when Sastre went - alone - it was even further proof.

Still - Floyd was obviously the story today. What an amazing turnaround. Never seen anything like it. Go Floyd!

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Elivis needs boats.

Tactics are an easy thing to criticize after-the-fact and from across the globe. This year's race was wide-open, and could be won by quite a few people. You can't chase everyone, so you make the best decisions you can at the time based on what you know and what you think your team is both capable of and able to recover from. Doesn't do much good to chase someone down today if you can't stay with the peloton tomorrow. As Floyd said, when he felt good he tried to ride conservatively so that when he felt bad he'd still have something in him. I think most teams are following that approach.

With no real favorite, I suspect it's difficult to persuade any team (except the sprinters' in the early stages) to put in work and chase down the flyers. Most teams are content with some stage wins, but I don't think many teams are super confident that their leader can win the yellow jersey.

Neither CSC nor T-Mobile have a solid leader, so they're forced to ride conservatively and NOT over-extend themselves.

I remember Indurain's ride very well. I hated Bruyneel after "stealing" that win (although he was just doing his job. I did forget about Pantani's ride though. Maybe before they were born is a slight exaggeration, but it hasn't happened in a long time. 1998 and 1996 with Riis.

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Sure they probably should have worked harder a bit earlier, but it's so easy to say what decisions should have been made after the fact. I've seen & read interviews with several of the riders, including a few CSC riders and Riis and they simply didn't think there was any possible way he could keep up that pace and have anything left for the final climb. None of the GC guys wanted to put in that kind of effort so soon in the race, figuring it could mean suicide for them.

And yeah, they left it fairly late, but they started riding soon enough that they should have been able to bring him most of the way back, but most of the GC guys didn't wind up gaining much, if any time at all from that point. It just didn't look like any of the other GC guys were on a great day, but Floyd certainly was.

Any way you slice it, Floyd was going to get a chunk of time back today, but yeah, it probably could have been less.

I'm not sure CSC and T-mobile could have pushed the pace so early on and survived. Even when they did pick it up a bit the main people leading the peloton were out the door as soon as they hit the climb (think Jens) - they didn't have anything left. Even Frank was spent after what seemed like a few minutes. The GC contenders didn't really have much to offer on that last climb and would have been done sooner if they'd gone after Landis so early on. IMHO.

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Searching for the bliss of ultimate exertion.

What do you mean CSC is smart they only had 1 team member busted for drugs, the rest got off!

Sastre himself on a velonews interview said that his team did as much as they could and could not have gone any harder earlier in the day. T-Mobile blew as soon as they hit the last climb. Most of the teams are not complete between starting low or the general attrition of the race. People can make fun of Discovery all they want now, but for six straight years they finished with their full nine guys and those nine guys were consistently made up of guys would could be decent GC riders in their own right. When Ulrich attacked Armstrong in 2004 during a day in the Alps, LA had Floyd Landis to chase him down. None of the teams in the tour have that kind of 9-man strength.

Chad

Jaylew, your analysis is spot on, as other posts I've seen from you. it's refreshing to read stuff from people that know one or two things about cycling :-)

Of course CSC are not dumbasses, but they did make a huge tactical error, one that if it was T-Mobile doing it, everyone would be bashing them.