Rest Day & Coach's Analysis
This has been a greatly improved Tour with really great tactical
battles. I want to stress again that the reason for this daily
tactical analysis is to teach bike racing to you racers, coaches,
and fans.
One of the things I try to stress is that even the pro's are human
and we humans ALL make mistakes. Winning a bike race is
never riding a perfect race but making as few mistakes as possible
and being best for that race at recognizing and capitalizing on the
mistakes of others. I hope I have been able to get this
message across by "picking on", as some disgruntled fans put it, the
pro racers. What I am trying to show is that even the pro's
are human and not bike gods, therefore, they also make mistakes,
even the great Lance Armstrong.
Bicycle road racing is especially prone to this because our regular
road races are so long they give our best pro's ample opportunity to
make plenty of mistakes and the stage races are mostly mistake
management and damage control. Lance has proven to be the best
at recognizing the mistakes of others and capitalizing on those
mistakes while getting away with his own mistakes. You have
even seen me make mistakes like this year when I also fell for
Discovery's faked bonk on stage 8. I made the very human
mistake that Lance was betting everyone would make and that was to
follow their expectations instead of listening to gut which made it
possible for Lance to use our expectations to fool us. It was
a great tactical move and helped Lance put away the T-Mobile Team.
Two of the most important things for you to learn in bike racing are
to learn from other's mistakes so you decrease the mistakes you will
make in racing and learn to see other's mistakes and take advantage
of them. You can only do that if you learn to study the
mistakes of even the pro's which means you have to pick on them.
I teach you in my book that your strengths are tools you use to beat
your competition and your weaknesses are tools you give your
competition to use against you. Always race against your
competitions' weaknesses and never permit them to use their
strengths against your weaknesses.
The other teams have finally learned the things I have been teaching
for years and the result has been much better tactics and battles.
These battles have brought us to where Lance has been able to put
all of his competitors at least five minutes down on GC and out of
contention for the Yellow Jersey except for two riders, Basso and
Rasmussen. I expect Rasmussen to lose so much time in the last
time trial that Ullrich and, possibly, even Landis will pass him on
GC and Lance probably expects the same thing. Therefore,
Rasmussen's threat is minimal if at all.
I also expect Mancebo and Leipheimer to lose too much time in the
last time trial dropping down on GC and for Landis and Vino to move
up on GC with Vino possibly moving up as much as three or four
places. Therefore, with Ullrich over five minutes down, Lance
has to focus the rest of his race on Basso while keeping only a
cautious eye on Ullrich.
The only reason Basso is down any time on Lance is because of his
mistake of riding sick in the Giro. Now that he seems to have
almost completely recovered from that mistake, he has ground to make
up and the questions that have to be answered include, where, when,
how, and if he can make up that time. We have seen his
climbing improve as he recovered. It is only logical that his
time trialing has also improved but by how much?
Lance can't take a risk on this one and must go into the last time
trial with as much time on Basso as possible because it could be
that Basso may beat him in the time trial. To be safe, that is
what Lance has to plan for.
But Lance and Discovery have done exactly what my course analysis
said they should not do and they seemed to do it even earlier in the
Tour as an act of defiance towards my analysis. That was to
use their old strategy of towing the peloton for stages at a time
after taking the lead instead of using a more offensive control
system like mine. Because of it, Lance is right where I said
he would be if he used the strategy they have used.
Yesterday, I got to see glimpses of the race on CBS (that is all you
get to see on CBS) and I saw a story you have not seen or heard from
anyone else. What I saw was Lance seeking as much shelter as
possible on weaker riders' wheels even after stronger riders had
attacked him and gone up the road. A number of times in the
last two stages, Lance sat on weaker riders' wheels after Basso and
Ullrich had attacked and left him behind. He was doing two
things. First, he was trying to get the weaker riders to chase
the attack down for him and, second, he was delaying his counter
attacks until there was as little distance as possible left to race.
You racers have all been there and done the same thing. You
should know from experience that the only time you behave that way
is when you are getting tired and start seeking shelter on riders
wheels to rest as much as possible to conserve what energy you have
left. I saw a tired Lance Armstrong conserving energy and
trying to get weaker riders to chase the attacks against him and
those riders finally refusing to do his work for him. There
were a number of times that the small group he was hanging on the
back of actually parted to make him come forward and work. It
was only when Lance knew they wouldn't do his work for him and that
the distance to the finish had decreased enough that Lance managed
to counter attack, catch, and fight with the other top riders.
Lance is in trouble and Basso knows it.
On the other hand, Basso will still be feeling some of the effects
from riding sick in the Giro and the big questions for him include
how much has he recovered and how many days of hard riding can he do
before he breaks again like he did in the Giro after only two hard
days of riding following what most people thought was a complete
recovery? Basso has this weakness and Lance knows it.
This means that the really big question of this Tour is who will
break first, Lance or Basso? They are both vulnerable.
Lance has dug himself into the hole I said he shouldn't dig.
Can Basso bury him in it or will Basso's hole swallow him first?
Discovery is wounded but finally used the offensive control system I
teach to get back at and break CSC in stage 15 so that it is also
wounded. If Discovery continues with its normal team strategy
of towing the peloton instead of offensively using the control
break, it will become very vulnerable by the cat 1 climb at 61 kms.
If not, then expect them to send a rider up the road in the control
break forcing CSC and others to chase so Discovery can rest.
Even with the latter strategy, Discovery may be so weakened by now
that they will still break on the cat 1 climb and will probably
break on the HC climb leaving Lance exposed to more attacking.
This is very important in light of what I taught you about where
Lance would be by now with his old strategy in relation to the rest
of this race, most specifically, the next four stages.
Tomorrow's stage is the most significant of these four stages.
It is only 180.5 kms but has a very threatening climbing combination
about the middle of the stage. There is a long, 16.5 km HC
climb, which is one of the toughest climbs in this Tour, and it is
preceded by a 9.3 km cat 1 climb. If the other teams can break
Discovery on the cat 1 climb leaving Lance exposed, they may be able
to break Lance on the longer HC climb even after today's rest.
It is possible for one of them to lose as much as over five minutes
in tomorrow's stage if they break on the HC climb and don't make a
key break that goes up the road without their team to help chase.
This is their best hope and worst fear between now and the time
trail in five days.
With increasingly tired legs, stage 18 poses similar threats though
the climbs are not as tough. But their legs won't be quite as
strong either. The key is to break the team exposing the team
leader, break the team leader, and get up the road in a break they
can't chase down without their team. You have to do it right
or it doesn't work. If done right, it is a killer move and can
turn this Tour upside down. Watch for it.
Lance and Basso probably won't want to go hard in stage 19 because
stage 20 is the time trial but Lance does want as much time on Basso
as possible by stage 20 and Basso wants to decrease Lance's lead as
much as possible by stage 20 and, if possible, have the lead.
This Tour even has the remote possibility of going down to the last
stage because of the time bonuses for the top placings in that
stage. If the race gets close enough between now and then, a
short gap and a time bonus could mean the Tour.
For tomorrow's stage, there is a road prime only about 27 km into
the stage. The sprinter teams may wont to keep it together
until that prime but the GC teams may want a control break up the
road before that. If Discovery continues to use their old
strategy, they will let a break go up the road and tow the peloton
to the cat 1 climb where they will probably break again. As
soon as they break or show weakness, expect Basso and Ullrich to
start attacking to break Lance because they know he is tired.
Look for them to try to get a break up the road and open as much
ground as possible before the top of the HC climb so Lance won't
quickly catch the break early on the downhill. Expect to see
the stage won by a break so the break attempts will be large with as
many as 15 riders in attempts. Expect to see Hushovd and
O'Grady try to make the early break hoping to make the finish high
enough placed to earn more points for the Points Title. Expect
to see KOM riders like Pereiro, Boogerd, and Moreau to try for the
break. Expect to see a relatively small pack of GC riders
either finish behind the early break riders or win the stage.
If this Tour hasn't been exciting enough for you, stick around six
days. It has a lot of promise left in it because of the
course.
I have finally realized an opportunity and method for the US cycling
fans to get improved coverage of the Tour on the broadcast TV from
CBS, ABC, and NBC. We have tried for years to get improved
coverage of the Tour by working on the broadcast stations themselves
but they won't listen. The trick is to go straight to the key
advertisers and tell them you want better Tour coverage and the
broadcast companies won't listen. Tell them that the current
coverage is mostly artsie photography accompanied by poet drivel
with little meaningful information. What you want is more
information like I provide on this site about course and tactical
analysis. Tell that you have plenty of cycling friends who
just won't watch that crap the broadcast stations are forcing on us
and that greatly improved quality of coverage will greatly increase
the viewership of the coverage. Also tell them to cover
football, baseball, and basketball the way the broadcast stations
cover cycling and watch the revolt. Those fans won't stand for
that puke. Maybe it is time for you cyclists to revolt for
better coverage.
