TDF SPoiler

[bostondrunk]

Ouch! Can you believe those two idiots slowed in the last km and let themselves get caught!!!? I didn't see the live coverage, just the live text on cyclingnews, so maybe it wasn't as close as they made it soud...

:crap: :crap: :crap:

[BumbleBeeDave]

Can you say "DOH!!!!"

BBDave

[tom2517]

it really was that close, i feel bad for those two, as they practically got swarmed by sprinters within 50 meters to go. but then, may the best win and they just weren't good enough.

[EnduroFit]

I was watching it live and I couldn't believe it! I think they were worrying more about each other when the group just slammed them! Watch the recap and laugh at how slow they were going...

[bostondrunk]

they were good enough, just not smart enough!!! Their team directors must be ready to kill them!! Not to mention how stupid the two of them must feel. I'm suprised they didn't have their directors screaming in their microphones telling them to move NOW!

[Climb01742]

big motors and big brains don't always go together apparently.

[Marron]

I'll bet they were dying to go and it was the managers screaming at them to let the other guy go first. Waaay too cute for a rider off the front with 500 meters to go.

[Dr. Doofus]

the doc thinks its uncool to bash on those cats...they're domestiques, ferrchriissakes...they won some races as amateurs, but it frankly has never been their job to win races as pros..its been their job to get water, go like hell at the front of the bunch when they have to, taxi-drive a leader up through the pack, lots of stuff that's as hard as making the right decisions to win a race, just different...and their lack of on-the-job training in the business of winning pro races was their undoing...it ain't a Cat 2 race where nobody really knows what they're doing (despite what they think)...nope, a pro pack has little pity for indecision born from inexperience....

If Kroon had bridged and stuck withthem, he'd be the ideal guy to win that kind of stage...a domestique who has the savvy to win, and who has come up for his sponsor on a number of occasions when he's had to.

it weren't too boneheaded...ignert, but not boneheaded...boneheaded is when you knowd better like Gianni Bugno losing to Rolf Jaermann at the Amstel Gold in '93...or the Panasonic and Buckler cats just letting Colotti walk away with a Tour stage in '91 cause neither one would chase...or Moncassin in his should-have-been breakout year of '97, when he threw two monuments away...the doc is blathering....

[David Kirk]

Maybe it's just me but........those guys were busting ass and some folks were sitting by the computer sitting on theirs.

It's hard to call them idiots for doing their best. What did you do today?

Dave

[bostondrunk]

Bullsh$t Dave. I will never say they aren't strong riders, amazingly strong, but they were amazingly stupid today.
What do you think they are thinking to themselves right now, "Gee, we rode really smart today!! ".
S...T...U...P...I...D..
and I'm sure they know it.

[jeffg]

Maybe it's just me but........those guys were busting ass and some folks were sitting by the computer sitting on theirs.

It's hard to call them idiots for doing their best. What did you do today?

Dave

Dave --

Fair point, though armchair critics are part of every spectator sport. I certainly don't think the two escapees were "idiots," though it is hard to deny that they made a mistake of judgment. In the words of Thevenet:

"Les sprinteurs ont mis en route trop tard. L'étape s'est bien sûr quand même joué sur un sprint du peloton, mais je pense que si les deux de tête s'étaient bien entendus jusqu'au bout, ils ne devaient pas être rejoints. Ils ont finassé sur la fin. Ils ont mésestimé la vitesse de percussion de la fin du peloton."

Je n'ai rien a ajoute! (et je parle francais comme une vache espagnole) ;)

[David Kirk]

Is it possible that they just didn't have anything left after the long break? That hey were indeed going 100% ?

Dave

[bostondrunk]

Yes, they hit the 500 meter mark to go and stopped pedaling, thats it....

Please, they stood there and stared at each other.

[Dr. Doofus]

not surprising..neither one is a sprinter...or even a late-in-the-leadout train guy...and one of them is a skinny orange guy, so you know he's clueless about sprinting...lack of tactical awareness in a sprint, and perhaps lack of confidence in their own sprints, led to the waiting game....

again, the Doc and I don't think either one was a moron..just very green about that aspect of the pro game (like Baden Cooke knows *anything* about where to attach on the Tourmalet...or Jan knows how to sneak away from the sprinters in the last kilo...pro cycling is full of complex sub-specialties that look easy to fans, when they are most definitely not)...they each got a lesson today in what *not* to do in the last kilo...lets hope they get another chance in their careers to get it right

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . it takes a cycling rocket scientist to look behind you, see the train coming, and come to the conclusion you better drop the hammer--whatever size hammer you have left.

Oh, well . . . I'll watch it tonight, then make an informed insult! ;)

BBDave

[bostondrunk]

Bumblebeedave...
I may dislike your paint job and your general color choices, but this time, you
got it right, mac! :beer:
Doofus, like the mr. color blind just said, you don't need to be a pro to figure out yer gonna get caught if you stop pedalling.
Where is the jerk?! He probably knows both riders personally, whether or not they dope, what kind of bikes they secretly ride,etc. !!!! :D

[Dr. Doofus]

you guys must have won every dang race you ever entered...geeeshhh....

it *does* take a cycling rocket scientist to know when to make the jump without towing the other guy to the line...

the simple difference between what the greeks (who didn't ride bikes cause they worked out naked) knew as *techne* -- skill or knowledge that could be learned -- and *metis* -- the instinctive knowledge of how to do the right thing at the right time. Yer Achilles, yep, there's your skill guy...yer Odysseus, there's yer tricky *metis* guy.

All you 'puter racers out there got yer techne...but being able to make that jump in the last 500m...to slow down enough to kill the other guy's jump (cause you think...you think...you got more explosive power from a standing start than he does) but to keep your own...and to cut yer margin so you got him sweating but yer gonna stay cool and make the jump so you get ahead of that chargin pack just sooo...and yer not gonna tow that other fella cause then you hear it for two more weeks from the head guy (where if you both blow it, oddly enough, you don't look quite as bad)...well if you can do all that yer one pretty cool crafty cycling customer...you gotcher metis...now I know all you geniuses out ther never..ever...made the wrong move in the heat o battle...nope...that's why you got all them nice bikes...yessir....

[bostondrunk]

Its one thing to open up a sprint and lose, its another to not even try, and allow the pack, which you knew was coming, to swallow you up. No, I've never not at least tried. No one is claiming to be better riders than these two guys (although I think Roy Munson may be), just that they completely screwed their race today...

[gt6267a]

i'm watching the replay on OLN right now. Right before the commerical they showed a Cofidis rider pushing one of the Domina guys, and pushing him hard. the cofidis guy pushed because the domina guy was trying to get into the chase group to slow it down.

it was interesting to see phil and paul disagreeing over what to do about it. one of them was basically saying, "that's racing" and the other was saying "you can't push off taking a hand off the handlebars, that guy should be thrown out of the tour"

i am wondering if there will be a ruling?

[Dr. Doofus]

these guys quit at 500m *because* they were pros...

in the last kilo, they had what, 14 seconds? *Maybe* enough time to slow down from 1000m and 300m/400m (which is still far out to start a sprint), get position, and make the other guy blink first before the pack gets too close

what you guys don't see is that "too close" means "if we jump now and try to win all we will do is f-up the spinters' lines, so we better just stop or else we'll have the psycho McEwen after us for the rest of the Tour"...better to pack it in than cause a crash or get in the way of a sprinter in the last 200m...its called knowing your place.

so they had from 1000m to 500m or 600m to play with. 600-500m out is waay to far to start a sprint...all that would have happened is that the guy who blinked first would have delivered the other guy to the line.

the truth of the matter is (from this wannabe sportswriters ignert view) that they didn't have a large enough cushion...25 or 30 seconds would have been enough...they're pros, they can judge the speed and see the distance and know that they were too far out to start the sprint, and too close in to be anything other than a rolling road hazard *to their collegues* if they tried to duke it out

they did the reasonably intelligent and professional thing, by, yes, quitting

[Bruce H.]

In deference to your superior knowledge and all.. Landaluze might have won the stage if he did not worry about the other guy and the timing. He did indeed join the sprint, but too late. He did however finish 10th and not by too large a deficit.
Bruce H.

[Sandy]

You may like the Boston Drunk. You might not like the Boston Drunk. But one thing is for sure, you surely know how he feels about a subject. I like that.

Scotch Sandy

[Climb01742]

hey, doc...if we armchair racers ceased making our dumb, ill-informed comments, we'd never be able to post. you wouldn't want that, would you? ;)

[Dekonick]

Either way they did their job and got LOTS of air time for thier sponsors. Sucks to see em lose it in the last few meters tho. They almost had it.

As far as knowing your place it kinda reminds me of LeMond and Hinault...before LeMond became the legend.

Heh - I had OLNTV on in the background while I was working on the 'honey do' list. The ^%#$ cutters were on and had 'fan mail' -

one letter was 'dear cutters... do you know anything about cycling?'

made me smile.