While watching stage 9 I saw a shot of a CSC rider near the end of the stage and it appeared that he had a small bag under his seat. Anyone else see this and have any idea why it was there? The rider was rider an R2.5 or R2.5SL so could it have been something to get the bike to UCI minimum weight?
It could be a telemetry unit. Read this and check out the picure and see if it matches what you saw: http://www.velonews.com/tour2004/tech/articles/6461.0.html
Saeco and T-Mobile are supposedly posting some riders power data in real time on the web but I have never gotten the links to work. Other teams might be using this technology to monitor riders.
Looks like what I saw. thanks.