I'm not so sure. The winner of the event is an individual, and organizers need to take care not to have a bad team or a one-day bad team result (crash, flats, etc.) have an overly destructive result on a single contender's chances.

LeMond would have finished off the podium in '89 if there was a TTT. And that would have been a shame, because he deserved the win. Part of the glory of his win was the fact that his team was among the worst in the field, and he did everything with no help.

So if I understand francois post correctly, no matter how bad your team does the organizers limit your loss to 2:30? What incentive does a possible podium contender have other than being another 2:30 down to go out and have his team give 100%? Some teams will use it as an active rest day and not race it. If I'm USPS, phonak etc, I have my team leaders sit in the back and not worry about working. Let 6 or 7 do all the work.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

No, no, no- if you're USPS you're going balls to the wall, just like every year. Now that no one can lose more than 2:30, and the opportunities to take time in the mountains have diminished (3 mt. top finishes like last year, but now one is the Alpe d'Huez ITT) every second counts (nice, eh?) more than ever. This is good news for Zubeldia, Mayo, Millar? etc. Lance and Tyler would do well to take every second they can (if they can) in the TTT, even with the limit. The prologue will be especially interesting, since it will likely set the order of start times for the TTT.

Ken

I would think this makes being the last team to start the TTT even MORE important:

Once your gap is at 2:30 then you keep it there, as there is no benefit to hammering it larger. So, assuming that team can hit the gap they get the best result without expending max effort.

Meanwhile, anyone before them needs to hammer all out to give them the best chance of having the max 2:30 gap, as they can't know what will happen with the teams after them.

Makes the first few stages even more important I would think.

How do they determine the start positions for the TTT?: GC leader's team or team classification leader?



T

They go in reverse order of team classification (meaning the team class. leader after the prologue is very likely to be the leader prior to the TTT), but it would be distinctly unusual for the fastest team (ex. USPS) to be more than 2:30 faster than the second placed team (ex. T-Mobile) in the TTT, even more so to achieve that gap on the course and be certain you were maintaining it. It's for this reason the top riders on top teams will approach the TTT no differently this year. For teams that have been weaker in the past (a bright orange team comes to mind) the approach suggested by desert dude does have a certain appeal.

Ken

indeed, I don't think this will change much for the big teams going for the GC (so far USPS, T-mobile, Phonak)...
However, this leaves an opportunity for the teams such as euskatel-euskadi, to relax (actually they can't go as slow as wished as they still have to make the cut off time...however, I can't remember how it is determined for the TTT) save their legs for the mountains...
It will not affect the very top leaders, but for the rest of the top 10, it will definitely have an impact...
I just dislike very much the idea of limiting the loss of time.

The difference between 1 and 22 was 4:53 the 15th placed team was 2:30 in 2003. Hamilton would have been 7th the Euskaltel-Euskadi riders would have passed him if this rule would have been in effect for 2003?????????????