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Stage 19

July 26 Cluses - Bourg-en-Bresse 176.5 km

Today, USPS used the first break up the road to control the peloton and keep the pace down so Armstrong could save his legs for tomorrow's TT. The other top GC contenders and most of the other riders wanted the same thing. Yep, this is still a team sport and you still use the break to control the peloton. You should pretty well understand that concept by now.

Did you notice that the flatter riders were back in the break today? We finally saw riders like Dierckxsens back on the attack. Jalabert liked the fact that there were no riders up the road who threatened his leads for KOM and Combativity so he took a rest day and didn't even bother going for left over points on the cat one and two climbs. he is now KOM for 2002. Congratulations.

The riders in the break were there for one reason, to win the stage. The lone possible exception would be Hushovd who was in fifth on Combativity. No one in that break was a threat to anyone in the top 10 on GC. That is why they got up the road and got so far up the road.

Did you see Telekom send a rider up the road in a break again? They didn't want the sprint contested again. Was it just the particular sprint or is something wrong with Zabel?

Did you see Lotto try to bring the break back in for the sprint but USPS went around them and shut it down? No one up the road was a threat to anyone in the top four for Points so USPS said no sprinting until the end of the stage. They laid the law down.

Did you see BJR lead the chase against the break when they realized that Hushovd was in fifth for the Combativity Title and was a threat to Renier who is in second? They went to the front and chased pulling in some time but word got to the break so they formed a 10 man team time trial and beat the 7 riders left riding for BJR. This was one of those times when being down on riders cost the team. 10 pairs of legs out rode 7 pairs of legs so BJR shut the chase down and called it a day.

Did you realize that the riders in the break did not contest the sprints for points or KOM? They probably made a deal to share all winnings from the primes evenly with every one who was still in the break for those primes. This is a standard action for a break who wants to stay off. It encourages every one to race exclusively for the break so they wont disrupt the paceline and will increase their chances of staying off.

But hold it, weren't there cash prizes for the sprints? Yep, but they were probably only one or two thousand dollars apiece where as the prize for the stage win was over $7,500. So every one shared the sprint prize money to make sure they had a shot at the stage prize money which was a larger sum.

Did you notice that USPS began taking back time on the break starting at about 30 km from the last cat 2 climb and until that climb? The break sat back to rest for that cat 2 climb knowing that that would be where the final attacking would start. When the attacking started, the break began to open time on the USPS chase again.

These riders had all done their course analysis and knew when the last attacking would start for a break which was far enough off to stay to the finish. They set their tactics and did their riding accordingly. They do what I am teaching you how to do. Learn it.

Did you notice that when the commentator discussed Dekker's previous year's wins that he listed two stage wins as race wins? In the pro circuit, they are treated as race wins including points for the annual titles. Stage wins and subtitles are very important to the pro's. The prize lists show this.

For Example, look at just the information the race commentator provided about the purse money for the Tour. The GC winner for the Tour gets over $300,000 dollars and the Points and KOM title winners each get over $22,000. Have you made over $22,000 racing this last month? The product endorsement contracts they will get for the next year will be many times that.

On the end of today's stage results, did you see that Flores Igor who is leading (or following) in the race for the Lanterne Rouge (Red Lantern or last rider on GC) fell off the back of the peloton just behind two other riders? They were racing for the Red Lantern Title. The trick is to be the last rider to make cut off. If you don't make cut off, you are out of the race. So it is a tricky guessing game.

The big change on the standings for the day was that McEwen finished ahead of Zabel in the final sprint and took the lead for the Points Title by one point. There will be one really hot and anticipated sprint finish in Paris. The only other change in today's standings was that Hushovd did move from fifth to third just behind Renier for the Combativity Title. The other riders used the break to get rest for tomorrow's time trial.

Tomorrow

Regnier Durette/Macon will be a 50 km individual time trial and will be the last major sorting of the top riders on GC. The course format for this stage is significantly different than the course format for the first time trial which will probably cause the finishes to be at least a little different and could cause problems for some riders. Approximately 3 km into the stage is the start of the cat 3 climb which rises at 4.4% for about 7.5 km and then drops for about 9.5 km to a rolling and slightly down hill finish.

Technique is very important for riding a time trial like this. You have to get up to a good speed in the first 3 km while saving a little something for the climb, then you must really hammer the climb hard to make all the time you can, then you must accelerate over the top of the climb to get your speed up as high as possible as quickly as possible, then you ease off your pedals just enough to permit your legs to rest a little while not losing any speed so you can carry as much of your momentum from the down hill as you possibly can for the rest of the race. If you lose any of that momentum because of a flat, mechanical problem, or crash, you wont get it back and will lose time all the way to the finish.

The climb will be hard on the flat road racers and the down hill will be hard on the pure climbers. It will be anyone's guess who will benefit most. Most of the top riders should finish in just about the same order as the first time trial and, for fun, I have decided to assume that they all will do about the same and will use my trusty calculator to make a fun guess at how the time trial will effect the top ten standings. Let's see how close I can get to it.

Below is a chart showing the GC before the time trial and how I feel it will look after the time trial. I am hoping there will only be a few differences between the real standings following the time trial and my guess.

Challenging yourself like this helps you learn and I encourage you to challenge yourselves by being the example. Plus it makes watching the Tour even more fun.

Tomorrow, we will see how close I got. :-)

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