Now that I’m through throwing shit at my TV, here are the moron of the day awards. First of all, when you drop a rider that you are going to wait for, send back a couple riders to help him catch up. What the hell was Tyler doing dropping back by himself, while his team stands still, and then gets blown by, by the rider he is waiting for. then he has to sprint to catch up.
Next is the USPS team manager. You only get a 20 second advantage over second place no matter how bad you beat them. Once you get the time check that you are over a minute ahead, put Lance and the other climbers on the back and coast in. The real idiot move here is that they may have eliminated their own guy that they dropped early in the race.
Last is Paul Sherwen. Did you hear that he told the world that these guys use up to 100psi in their tires, except today when it is raining they use 65psi. What a moron. I would be suprised if any team had less than 120 psi, and most would have been a t 140+psi. I’m really getting tired of this guy, he knows nothing about cycling and it’s tatics. It was funny to hear Phil Liggett’s response to Paul’s moron comment. " I think that they might use a bit more pressure".
Seemed a bit odd but I just can’t take anything away from Tyler after today’s race. Those guys still finishing second with only five riders and all their problems really was a magnificant effort. It was the ride of the day IMO.
I’m not taking anything away from his actual ride, it’s just that these guys are supposed to be professionals, and they ride like a bunch of cat 5 riders. Tyler is the captain, he needs to make good choices. If I can figure it out sitting here with my muffin and coffee, and I have nothing to gain, then surely he should be able to do the right thing with everything on the line. His little break probably cost him 20 to 30 seconds I figure. As for going fast with 5 riders, you will often find that smaller groups will do better than bigger ones. I noticed that they stayed closer together, and didn’t open up the big gaps that the full teams were opening up, especially on the slick corners. They rode well in spite of their tatics, not because of them.
You might want to change the title of your post to include the words “SPOILER” so people that haven’t seen the race yet don’t get clued in to the results.
Last is Paul Sherwen. Did you hear that he told the world that these guys use up to 100psi in their tires, except today when it is raining they use 65psi. What a moron. I would be suprised if any team had less than 120 psi, and most would have been a t 140+psi. I’m really getting tired of this guy, he knows nothing about cycling and it’s tatics. It was funny to hear Phil Liggett’s response to Paul’s moron comment. " I think that they might use a bit more pressure".
monty,
I think in general I would have to agree with you.
Maybe Paul Sherwin was taking bar, not psi? What do you think about 65 bar in a bicycle tire? Maybe he thought we wouldn’t know anything about tire pressure.
Maybe he was having a bad day!
Last is Paul Sherwen. Did you hear that he told the world that these guys use up to 100psi in their tires, except today when it is raining they use 65psi. What a moron. I would be suprised if any team had less than 120 psi, and most would have been a t 140+psi. I’m really getting tired of this guy, he knows nothing about cycling and it’s tatics. It was funny to hear Phil Liggett’s response to Paul’s moron comment. " I think that they might use a bit more pressure".
Granted he uses a bit of hyperbole, it’s TV ya know, but his point about reduced air pressure in those conditions is valid. And as a former fairly-successful cyclist Pauly knows plenty about cycling and it’s tactics.
Hey take it easy on Sherwen, besides, I think he has a bit more professional experience than any of us forum posers do. At any rate, I suspect he didn’t convert very accurately. Everything over there is metric. Typically Paul will assess pressure in BAR or atmospheres of pressure. Whereas we continue with PSI. Go look at your bike pump and you will see how he could have got this wrong. Ligget spends enough time in the states so that he understands the difference.
Noval was not eliminated; he finished less than 14 minutes behind and would have had to finish at least 18 minutes behind to be eliminated.
I will preface the following by admitting that I am not a particularly good cyclist, have never riden in a paceline and my only time racing on a bicycle has been in my one triathlon to date. I can think of two reasons why USPS would keep pushing the pace. First, send a message: we just kicked your ----! All of you. Thought you were ready for this Tour. Think again! We did this with 8 riders! Unless you have a huge lead on LA before the last TT, you might as well concede the yellow jersey. Why not go home now as you might have a chance in the Olympics, but you don’t have one here?
Second, it is probably easier, and therefore safer, to keep doing things exactly the way that you have been doing them for the first 60KMs instead of trying to slow down just a little, but not too much. I understand that the turns at the front are fairly well scheduled so it would seem easier for the riders to keep doing things in exactly the same order, especially when they are getting tired.
Tyler is the captain and sometimes captains have to help domestics in order to help the all team. That’s what makes this guys captains… If I was the director of phonak I would look for this little details (maybe that’s why I’ll never be…). Tyler showed he cares for the team (of course he would be the most defeated if they didn’t finished 2nd) and one domestic can make the difference.
I would bet you 2 snickers that the guy that was left behind (Pereiro?) worked twice as much after.
USPS couldn’t just let it go at the final K’s. They just had to take it easy and that was what they did. If you check, in the last Km’s they didn’t win any time just maintain the lead.
I agree with your observations except for the USPS tactics. There are at least two reasons I can think of at the moment why they should have not let up in the final kilometers. One, they need to insure that they put the full time gap into all the teams, not just Phonak, only 12 secs seperated Phonak in 2nd and T-Mobile in 4th. Had they finished exactly 20 seconds ahead, Ullrich only loses 32 secs wheareas as it stands, he is down another 40 secs. Secondly, and more importantly, you have to insure the victory in spite of a potential crash in the final kilometers.
I can’t believe that all you guys out there are defending Paul Sherwen. First of all I believe he is from England, where they use yards, pounds, PSI. Secondly I know that a bar is 14 psi or so, so your 65 bar would be a bit excessive, don’t you think. All I can think is that he is just horrible at math, but he learned the same system that I did.
Another note to his commentary. Remember when he said how horrible Tyler’s tt position was. He has no idea about what makes a good tt position, good thing Tyler does…
He’s just old school, but all in all I like most of his commentary, just wish he would get with the times…
He is “old school” but based on your assetment, I’d bet he’s ridden in a few more tours than you. Postal’s tactics were spot on today. As has already been indicated, they did slow down towards the end. They gained maximum time without killing themselves. I could only see what was shown on OLN, but it didn’t appear any of them were spent by any stretch of the imagination. They worked much harder last year.
Mr. Sherwin was a very good domestique in his day. His on-the-fly analysis may not always be correct, but I doubt any of us would do any better. That being said, Phil Ligget did correct him a few times today, and his tire pressure comment was a bit embarrassing. Don’t know where he was born, but he’s lived in Zimbawe (or maybe South Africa?) for quite a while. Owns a gold mine with one of his investing partners being…Lance Armstrong.
Point one…maybe that was bad on Tyler…it didn’t seem to have killed their chances, though. 2nd place to USPS. I think you’re wrong.
Point two…you’re just plain wrong and don’t fully understand the rule. You still have to finish x:xx:xx ahead of team x to put the entire time into them.
Point three…While Paul’s math and conversions may be off, his point was made. And he knows far more about the sport than you ever will.
So go have another cup of joe and relax. Sheesh…like you’ve never done anything wrong.
Have you ever ridden a TT in the rain before (much less a TTT)? I have done both. The more pressure you have in your tire in the rain the more likely you will fall. A TTT you have to deal with squirly wind currents down around your front wheel. Maybe 65psi is a bit low, 85-90 is about what I’ve been told to do before. Next time it rains, get a five or six of your buddies together on your race set-ups and go all out (uh…that is much harder than you do in a triathlon) and do a hard TTT on a road that has a few corners and is kinda technical with your tires pumped up to 150-165 psi and see how many of you actually fall.
Perhaps 65 PSI is tad shy of what they ran but I"ll bet they didn’t run anywhere near 140 PSI.
I regulary run 85-95 psi (Conti tubulars) in wet RR’s and crits. They simply corner better and the lower pressure has never kept me from staying with the front groups.
Postal is also known to run 22mm tires rather than 19mm tires in TT’s due to superior handling and flat resistence. They are also smart enough to know that a flat for any of the motors in that train would seriously derail the mission. I wouldn’t be suprised to hear they used a Tufo type sealent in the tires.
Just because a 19 mm tire blown to 140 PSI is more aero in a wind tunnel and provides a miniscule amount of better rolling resistence doesn’t mean that what is ran in the real world.
As far as tactics, they have to keep on rolling as they can. One or more of them could have crashed or flatted or blown up. The farther down the road you are, the better. Keep pushing the pace, get the finish line faster.
Postal has proven over and over that they really think through the race and prepare accordingly. Luck has something to do with it and they have had their fair share. Luck also favors the prepared.
One reason to win by more than 20 seconds is that the team time breaks only applied to riders finishing in the top 5. Simoni did not finish with the top 5 Saeco riders and ended losing 2:42 even though the first Saeco group only lost 1:30. Now postal may not be afraid of Simoni, but due to the complexity of the scoring, I would have wanted to win by as many seconds as possible, in case any GC guys got dropped from there team.
Even so, how do you know that Postal couldn’t have won by more, and eased off to only win by 1:07. When you are going good in a team TT, it is hard to ease off just a bit.
As for Hamilton, I am glad that while sitting on your couch you are able to second guess riders who are making split second decisions, in the rain while riding at threshold.
Yes, I have raced in both the tt and the ttt. I raced bikes professionally in the early and mid 80’s, so I know a little about bike racing. Sure the roads were wet, but these guys ride a point to point ttt that is primarily straight. We see the turns at the end and through the town, but the majority is just plain straight hammering. So why would you sacrifice the speed of a hard tire for a couple turns at the end. You just have to take it easy on the turen, which as you could see many teams did not. I also question the use of the disc wheels in a ttt. They are so stiff, and probably contribute more to slipping than a hard tire. If you are in the draft most of the time, a 3 spoke that handles much better would have been a better choice I think. I noticed that Ullrich’s team used front and rear spoked wheels, just didn’t have the motors to push them, besides him.
Paul raced seven times in the Tour de France from 1978-1985. During his cycling career, he garnered the British National Road race championships in 1987. Since retiring from the sport '87 he has covered the Tour de France every year for several television networks around the world. He also worked closely with Lance Armstrong in his early professional career as the Public Relations Director of the now defunct Motorola Cycling Team. Paul and his family live in Busia (not England) , a small town on the Uganda/Kenya border where they operate a gold mine and use the Metric system.
Taking it easy is a recipe for disaster. What if the team had crashed, wouldn’t that extra minute of cushion come in pretty handy? Or what if Lance had gotten a flat. You NEVER give up time if you don’t have to. Also, if you mentally ease up it can increase your chances for mistakes.