ENGLISH sport, try ENGLISH, and in context. Obviously you are not so bright, I give up - the internet just simply cant fix stupid.

Now, once you finish not only the Hooked on Phonics you may want to try Comprehension for Dummies. So, go on back to reading Lance's tweets with baited breath and have at it. I hope that you find a support group before October when Lance is again handed his ass at a small race in Kona. I am certain that once again you will need to find excuses as to why he was holding back, setting up, waiting to attack, had bad sushi, or plotting for next year.

The whole comprehension is just missing you. I wont even bring up the fact that he was not "that" much better than the rest of the peloton. (I have no doubt that Mr. Greg L would have schooled Mr. Lanceleot over and over and over again).

---

----------------------------------------------------------

What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

(1) You have personally seen Zach ride and he is a beast.
(2) Zach has DESTROYED local Cat 1/2 guys.
(3) After said destruction Zach has ridden 50 more mile and gone for a run.
(4) The bike that you saw Zach ride on had every other damn part broken.
(4) Zach lost 16 minutes on the bike to Lance at St. Croix.



And, as I pointed out in the same post - Zach is not even one of the "strongest" guys in Tri land. Continue on with your thoughts. I hope that Livestrong mails you a T-Shirt or something.

---

----------------------------------------------------------

What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

Just a recap of your position:


R10C – “Freaking what? Please. Lance could certainly NOT ride away from Bjorn, Ruble and many many other tri guys, please.”

R10C – “If there was an open 112 mile TT – no swim no run. I don’t think that Lance would put any more than 10 minutes on most Pro Tri guys, and a few would be within 1 minute or possibly even beat Lance at that distance.”

First R10C qualifier: “I should not have said “most”, I should have said “some”…I don’t think he could put much on McDonald or Bjorn – a few others.”

Rapp: “An open 112 mi TT? I’d say that I’d be happy to finish within 30min of Lance.”

Second R10C qualifier: “I also did not infer he could not beat Zach – I did say that I have ridden with others (McDonald/Rapp for instance, and they were the instance). That thought he may “beat” them – he would not be able to put anything over a half hour, if not far less on them.”

I'm actually surprised at how well Lance has been able to do. I was thinking he would be more top 10-12 at these races instead of podiums. So is it going to take until Kona for Lance to finally get his ass handed to him? If that's the case, then the Lance experiment has been pretty damn successful.

As much as you talk about how Lance is going to get schooled at Kona, why dont you seem to just give him credit. You seem to be so bent on discrediting him to somehow make the tri guys feel better. I hate to break it to you, but Lance is doing a great job holding his own so far. I dont get why that cant just be the story, but it's as if you need to keep discrediting him to somehow make your tri guys feel better. I'm not trying to take anything away from anybody, and I feel like the guy is bringing it so far. That's basically sums it up perfectly, and yet you keep saying he's somehow just barely on par with some of these top cyclists (I still have to laugh that you think the top guys would be within 1 min of him at a 112mi iTT...hell there would be gaps between pretty much everyone).

And before you come up with some cute response about hoping Livestrong sends me a shirt or something, I'm further from his camp. But I respect the hell out of him for actually going through the qualifying process and not taking a bad door way into Kona (as of yet). He's doing what he needs to do and is excelling pretty well, especially for where I thought he'd be.

---

------------------
@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

You'll learn to simply not try to comprehend what he says. It rarely makes any sense. And then he'll deflect and point out your inability to decipher the english language (while he butchers it) or something of the sort. It makes my head hurt.

Notice how Jordan never responds to him. There is a reason for that I suspect.

---

"One Line Robert"

R10C. Please, just stop typing. Lance was not "that" much better than the rest of the peloton? Seriously dude? He won 7 years in a row. I know what you are going to say he "only" won a 3 week race by a few minutes. Yes, but he did it over and over and over...

7 times. He won the tour 7 times. Smack his tri-abilities all you want, but you can't call his biking prowess into question.

Did you even watch his Tours? When he wanted to drop guys, he dropped them.

---

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

+1 and well said. When you are at the end of a pro 70.3 race standing on the podium next to ANDY POTTS or BEVAN DOCHERTY you are a very fast pro triathlete and should be considered one of the world's best. His swim is very good, his bike is great, and yes his run could use some work but it may prove fast enough to put him on top of the podium in some races. Only time will tell.

This is no way reflects badly on pro triathlon. I swear people cannot get it through their thick skulls that this guy was a swimmer, XC runner, and PRO triathlete before he was a pro bike racer. Mark Cavendish is not going to be able to do this when his cycling career is over.

Enjoy the action and discussion while he's competing, because once he stops there will never be another pro triathlete like this, someone who started in the sport, left to dominate another sport and become an international mega-icon, and then returned to the top end of pro triathlon racing. Sample size N=1.

I often wonder how we'd reflect on Triathlon over the last 15 years had he stuck with it? I'm guessing some if not most of history would be re-written.

And, to think he's doing this at 40+ years old. Good Lord, the guy deserves some credit...

Thank you. Let us never forget that this guy was a triathlete before he was a cyclist. Even if he doesn't win Kona (I don't even see him making top 5, but as long as he doesn't blow up on the run and walk I do see him top 10) it will still be fun to watch.

---

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I was thinking about that as well. What if after the first retirement, he got into tri-training right away and didn't mess around with the marathon only....Would have been interesting.

Yet - they all finished seconds from him....granted, if you ask they were all on drugs, all but Lance that is......bleh....I hate fanboys...You guys are not that far off from the "God Needed a Driver" fans of Dale Ernhart....

---

----------------------------------------------------------

What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

I never said that I thought Lance was clean. That isn't relevant to this thread in any way.

---

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I agree with R10C that LA will not prove to be "that much" stronger than the best triathlon cyclists in a 112 mile ITT. Maybe he'll have Kona fastest split over Chris Lieto. But by 10+ minutes and go sub 4:08 at Kona? No chance, Lance. I'll be happy to take anyone's money who wants to place the wager that he will.

Now, R10C chose bad examples for his ubercyclists. I love Ruble, McDonald, Bjorn. McDonald and Bjorn have both won SavageMan outright and Ruble has raced it every year and will get his win soon enough. Those three are some of my favorite triathletes in the world, purely because they have come to SavageMan and showed how badass they are. They do not help R10C's case, though. None of the three of them even have any of the top 3 bike splits* on the SavageMan course, a rinky dink little race that has hardly attracted stacked, international fields of ubercyclists. So, to pull these guys out as your examples of triathlon cyclists who Lance won't put that much time into was probably not the best to make his argument.

* - Philip Graves, Josh Beck, Josh Beck

That was my point however, Lance cant just waltz away from them - let alone the best in Tri. I do not get why people are so hell bent on minimizing the abilities of the Tri guys.

---

----------------------------------------------------------

What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

He might have burned out and said "screw it, this is too damned hard!" He must have needed at least a little down time.

Seriously though I think he was preparing to re-enter triathlon in his own, unconventional way. The marathons were a way for him to get reacquainted with run training and to see how is body would handle the pounding and abuse. Look at what else he did during this time -- endurance mountain biking events like the Leadville 100. What's interesting about that event is that is a solo, unsupported bike race that takes a long time to complete. In 2009 Armstrong won the race in 6:30. That's 6h30m of solo, unsupported concentration and high-level power output. Add a swim at the beginning and it's starting to look a lot like an Ironman.

I think he's always been preparing but it has taken years. He probably needed to see that 2:45 marathon to have some confidence that it was at least possible to run that fast, and the Leadville win showed him that he could execute a solo unsupported high-power effort for a time approaching that of an IM. As an ex-swimmer, he knows he can get the swim speed back and exactly how to go about it. He also knows he's not getting any younger so at some point he's got to step up to the plate, so 2012 it is...

R10C,

Out of curiousity... you labeled me a Lance Fan-boy (I'll admit that I enjoy watching him, however, I enjoy watching many triathletes), I have said that I think he'll come somewhere between 6th-10th at Kona (barring a major blow-up, which happens to some pros every year). Where do you have him finishing?

---

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

ad hominem


you lose.

I think it is relevant, if you believe that some of Lance's cycling prowess comes from drugs. If he had stuck with tri, he may well have never been exposed to the drug culture that we all can agree was rife in cycling during his time.

Also it was the cycling links that allowed him to get the treatment to beat the cancer. Would he have got that support if he had been a triathlete?

It's irrelevant in that R10C is just deflecting again. He probably doped. Everyone in cycling was doping.

I am getting killed in this debate, oh yes, I'll throw out the doping thing again. Lance doped. So everything these people say must be wrong.

---

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Phil Graves is another uber biker who hasn't quite mastered cycling in the longer tris. He has a 3:33:56 time for an open 100 mile TT and is 22nd in the UK all-time list (Sean Yates is 9th with 3:30:49 back in 1997... a few years past his best like Lance). The record is 3:22:45. So he is only 11 minutes behind the very best cyclists who have ever raced on British soil a 100 mile TT. Yet he only did a 4:44 in Ironman Hawaii in 2009 (after having won Ironman UK that same year) and his 70.3 splits are not destroying the field. He has an 18:58 10 mile TT (30th on list behind people like Obree (18:27 in 1993, his peak) and Wiggins (17:58 (2nd) in 2006 when he was still an out and out TT specialist unlike now)) and low-mid 50s in Olympic tris. However, when the distances get longer his biking prowess becomes less obvious in triathlons (2:10ish for 70.3). He bonked in Hawaii, but this is a guy who races 100mile TTs and you would think would know how to survive/cope/hydrate in this sort of effort.

Being an amazing cyclist doesn't mean Lance is gonna translate it to the longer tri stage and destroy everyone on the bike leg, especially when he isn't used to 100+ mile TTs....Phil Graves actually races 100 mile TTs. Of course Lance is a better cyclist than Graves, but maybe this helps to understand why Lance isn't destroying anyone on the bike so far in tris.

Maybe the swim has something to do with things on the bike as well as holding back a bit for the run, which is weak for both (Graves is a very fast swimmer, faster than Lance...3/4th out of the water in 09 behind Potts & Flannagan).

The cool thing is that it seems Graves, after a couple quiet years in tri, is gunning for the Ironman WCs this year so maybe Lance will have some comp/help on the bike:

2012 - Provisional Race Schedule
April 22nd: Rudy Project Round 3 TT
April 29th: Birdwell Wheelers 25-mile TT
May 7th: Tadcaster Triathlon TBC
May 13th: Yorkshire 10-mile TT Championships
May 20th: Ironman 70.3 Austria
June 6th: Anfield 100-mile TT
July 1st: Ironman Austria
July will be training in St Moritz
August 11th: Ironman NYC
September 16th: Savageman Triathlon
October 13th: Ironman World Championships, Hawaii

Sorry, I'm not having a go, but I just believe that you cannot extrapolate that staying in tri, Lance would have been at the same level in cycling ability as he is now.

So who here thinks that Lance doesn't already know what he can do in a 112 mile TT with a run afterwards and perhaps even a swim beforehand?

My bet would be he knows exactly how fast he can go while still being able to run. He may not have the exact numbers (barring hot weather, winds etc) but my bet would be he knows what he can do already.

Wouldn't a Graves, Armstrong. Lieto legal TT make for an interesting scramble for Crowie,Macca and the rest?

---

Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

He may have what he thinks he can do, but without having done this, in a race, in Hawaii, I don't see how anyone can know what he'll do.

I have a guess, but I could be way off.

---

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Maybe Lance does know, but Magwister is saying that it might not be as fast as the fanboys think it will be. So we will all have to wait until October to find out!