[reference to Stage 5 Paris-Nice]
and so many guys got caught again in crosswinds, bravo Riis. Given good riders he will be winning races left and right. Can't understand why anyone will choose other team over CSC, is money that important?

Nice move by Vino, I almost thought he didn't make it. Too bad he is out of GC. And Bertolli, what a sprint. I could not believe he managed squeezed in.

I liked Dekkers quote "..I'm the stupidest man in the peloton.."yes, great work by Riis and CSC. yilded them quite a domination of the top ten. Only USPS as a team didn't get caught out. Shows who the strongest DS and teams are. Bjarne has gone the 'rehab the underachiever route' with Jorg, Julich, Basso and look at the results.
Vino was nails as always. TMob should send him as captain to the Giro He deserves leadership in a GT and Jan owns the Tour.

I liked Dekkers quote "..I'm the stupidest man in the peloton.."yes, great work by Riis and CSC. yilded them quite a domination of the top ten. Only USPS as a team didn't get caught out. Shows who the strongest DS and teams are. Bjarne has gone the 'rehab the underachiever route' with Jorg, Julich, Basso and look at the results.
Vino was nails as always. TMob should send him as captain to the Giro He deserves leadership in a GT and Jan owns the Tour.

Good quote from Dekker, I have always like him. At least he owns up to his srew-up, which is not what Vino did. After Vino missed the split in stage 2, h talked about how he was delaying his fomr this year for the Tour and so forth. I believed him. Now I know he was just covering is @rse because he was asleep at the handlebars. You don't win 3 stage of P-N without being on great form. And you certainly don't win them the way Vino won them, like on stage 7, where he powered away from a group along the coast into a strong wind and hold 'em off to the line. Delayed form? BS. He, like Dekker were caught napping by the CSC juggernaught. Bravo to Dekker for fessing up.

Which also leads me to Landis. Too bad he was asleep at the wheel in stage 2 as well. I mean geez, USPS had made him captain for the race and he misses <I><B>THE</B></I> split of the race while most (5) of his teammates made it.

Vino leading t-mobile for the Giro would be interesting, but I don't think it'll happen.

give Vino a credit. Yes he got caught, but given the fact he had to give up on GC he made best of it. And doesn't 3 stage wins carry more UCI points then winning GC?

I am guessing he has his eyes on much higher prizes like classics and grand tours. If you watched him last year, this is the way he likes to win. He will take a flier 5-10km to the finish, and he certanly has the power to hold off peloton and make it happen. Paris-Nice was a great opportunity for him to test what we will see alot in next few month, this is how you win classics. Besides, you think CSC would let him go if he was GC threat?

agreed on the fact that CSC let him take those flyers. But he's like the new kilomaster, crazy attacker and his first stage did you see his legs buckling and his bike wobbling the last 100 meters. guy knows how to do a well timed assualt on the finish line. We'll have to see how sucessful he is when he's cleary a threat and marked. I do think he should have fessed up though, he may be planning a Classics assault but his form looked fine. Though once again it makes me question the DS of T-Mob. Maybe Ullrichs former tactical blunders are not all his fault. I gotta say if I was an aspiring pro Johan and Bjarne would be my top choices. Jorg made some comments about how hard Manolo drives his team to their own failures (like last years Vuelta), he tries to dominate from day one and burns out the team so they can't support when it's needed.

Vino can do well in tour and he doesn't need full team support. If he has enough legs to stay in touch on finishing climbs and doesn't loose much time in ITT, his attacks can be danger on GC. With stage hilly enough to get rid of sprinters there won't be much firepower left in peloton to chase him last few miles of stage and he can easily nip 10-20sec in late attack. T-mobil isn't gonna chase own man /even the stupidest DS will be happy to see other teams sweat/, so it will be up to Postal and Liberty Seguros, maybe Phonak. The rest will be only interested in stage at that point and if there's a break on the road /and there will be/, no help will come from peloton.

CP

I gotta say if I was an aspiring pro Johan and Bjarne would be my top choices.
Have to disagree on Bruynel: riding for Johan would mean giving up on personal ambitions in favour LA. It seems Heras living USPS is the best thing happend to team in last 3 years, at least now they race more then tour and Vuelta. Riis is da man.

I think T-Mobs tactic will be to send Vino on certain attacks and force the others to chase while Jan sits on. Vin has to reckoned with if he's close on GC and it will take some stres off Jan. IMHO jan should have signed with CSC instead of Coast.


Understand your point about Johan but I was merely using it from a race day tactical standpoint and not on a personal ambition issue. But considering USPS took 2 GT's last year (with 2 diff leaders) and multiple riders (Floyd, Max) have made the podium this year and with George only finishing 2 seconds off the P-N podiumand looking good for the classics it seems to me your personal ambitions at USPS are only subjugated for the Tour and if Lance was on any other team it would be exactly the same thing. The proofs in the pudding that their method work and I tend to agree that T-Mob has too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Tyler made the comment about CSC, it was the other reason (besides $) he left. He rode for USPS and saw what a team constructed around 1 goal can do. He didn't slag Bjarne in any way but said CSC's multiple ambitions in the Tour (Team, Sastre, Pil) may have cost him a spot on the podium. His contract with Phonak allows him to build the Team around him for his ambitions. Look at all the great 5 time winners, with the exception of Big Mig they all ruled their teams with an iron fist. (Until the Lemond/Hinault meltdown.) Even Anquetil had riders removed from the team if he thought their ambitions got in his way. He, like LA was more than happy to help his teammates win lesser events but the Tour was his.

T-mobile maybe has too many chiefs, but if you watched Paris-Nice careful they rode pretty smart race, they had a guy whipping up the pace when it was needed. On stage 7 Kesler was pushing pace up on last climb and on stage 8 they had 2 domestics killing themselves before Vino pushed over the top and noone but Deni had legs to follow.

They maybe not set up to control race, but they don't have to, after all it is his race to loose for LA. I certainly hope they had learned from that disastrous Alpe-d'huez stage in '01. When Big Mig was de-throned in '96, that's exactly how they did it, they didn't try to control race. Of case Riis knew what he was doing.

If they ride TTT good enough they will have many riders to send on break, and any of them can walk away with victory. They can send Evans up the road, have Postal chase him down then shoot Vino and have Jan sit on LA and try to take a few seconds in sprint. Problem is LA cannot rely on ITT anymore, if Jan as strong as he was last year, it will be wash out, and if Postal spends too much effort chasing wrong guy they won't have anyone to push pace up that last climb.

Besides there're only 2 stages beside Alpe d'Huez ITT with mnt top finish La Mongie and Plateau de Beille, other 4 mnt stages like Saint-Flour, Villard-de Lans, Le Grand Bornand and Lons-ie-Saunier have rundown finish which will favor guys like Evans, Botero /if he ever gets into shape/ or Vino.

I think the entire t-mobile team will ride support for Jan. I think Vino will be given some leeway to attack, but what will be interesting, is that attacking by Vino, could favor Armstrong, no Ulrich.

Vino is an explosive rider, and Ulrich is anything but. Postal could very well end up using a Vino attack against Jan. Look at the previous years Tours and you'll see that Lance's big attacks in the mtns come as a counter. Somebody attacks, Lance counters and goes on his own. There is no way Jan could follow a Vino attack, but Lance could. Then Ulrich is left to chase.

The only way this scenario could work for T-Mobile is that when Lance counters an attack from Vino, Vino is able to follow Lance's counter. Then Lance is left to drag Vino up a climb. Now, I'm pretty sure this would still favor Lance as while Jan is more than just a challenger to Lance in the TTs, Vino is not.

T-Mobile has some very big tactical questions to be answered for the Tour. Postal has no questions.

Asiago

all great points. look we're geeking on the Tour before the classics even start. Gonna be a good race. Persoanlly I'm thinking darkhorse (Recovered Beloki, Heras) of some sort to squeak in while the chiefs are feuding.

look we're geeking on the Tour before the classics even start. Gonna be a good race.

I don't think I've ever been this excited for Le Tour before! It's gonna be great!

I don't think I've ever been this excited for Le Tour before! It's gonna be great!
I've already programmed my TiVo.

Tour will be very exciting, so many strong riders with diff agenda. Don't discount Tylor with Sevilla and Heras. Don't think Beloki will be a factor but who knows too early to say. Afterall when he finished he always finished on podium.