Stage 15

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Stage 15

Day 16 Lezat sur Leze - Saint Lary Soulan 205 km

Analysis

Today's stage was really great with a lot of great racing and tactics. As expected, the attacks started early with large breaks heading up the road because everyone knew the break had a good chance of winning and wanted to make the break. For a while it looked like they might be trying to bring the breaks back in for the first road prime but that prime was too far into the stage and the teams bringing the breaks back in were the wrong teams. Did you see T-Mobile bring a break back in to get Seville in the next break?

Discovery saw the move and took advantage of it to also get a rider in the next break, George Hincapie. After their team broke so badly the day before exposing Lance to constant relay attacking, they knew they had the change team strategy and sent Hincapie up the road for two reasons. First, after their team breaking so badly yesterday, as I said they would by now, they needed a rider in the break as a control so they didn't have to set pace on the front all day. Second, they were giving George a chance to win a mountain stage.

Of the top three teams racing for the Yellow Jersey, only CSC didn't get a rider in the break but the best placed rider was so far down on GC, over 24 minutes, that CSC didn't even worry about taking over the pace setting until the break had over 18 minutes to conserve energy. That forced Discovery to set a very slow pace for the first part of the stage. Rabobank got three riders in the break to eat up as many points as possible to protect Rasmussen's KOM lead and take the stage win. They were hoping that, if Rasmussen didn't have to ride aggressively to defend the KOM Jersey, he would be able to hold second on GC. Two of the Rabobank riders rode very hard before getting dropped and took the KOM primes to decrease the points available for the other riders in the break for the KOM title.

Finally, CSC was forced to set pace to keep Hincapie from winning the Tour and the pace setting tore their team apart. CSC was already short two riders at the start of the stage because Voigt and Zabriskie had already dropped out of the Tour making CSC weaker and more vulnerable. Keeping track of which riders have dropped out of a race is very important in understanding the significance of certain tactics. When it got down to where there was only one rider with Basso, T-Mobile contributed a rider for a short stint on the front to keep the pace hard on the Discovery Team which had broken the day before.

Did you notice that, when Basso punctured, the CSC team quit towing the peloton to make it easier for Basso to regain the peloton? It is good team communication so that Basso and a few of his team mates didn't have to work against their own teams towing the peloton. That would have been a double waste of energy. As soon as Basso was back in the peloton, CSC went back to the front and to work.

Did you notice that Savoldelli and Azevedo kept Armstrong close to the front of the peloton to save Lance energy? That is one of many reasons why this is a team sport.

Did you notice that Totschnig was dropped early today because of his efforts from winning the stage yesterday? It takes a while to recover from such efforts. Have you noticed that Kloden has lost time in several GC mountain stages because he raced too hard in the KOM mountain stages wasting energy but trying to draw Lance out on those stages? He also dropped early today costing him more time. It is critical to know which stages you need to go hard in to achieve your goals and which to rest in to conserve energy. Good tactics are based on knowing how the body functions in relation to rest and exercise.

Finally, after CSC had been shredded by the towing, Discovery took control on the third to last mountain stage but Ullrich and Vino countered to break Discovery again eliminating that team support. Quickly, Basso, the Italian lion, roared off the front again and only Armstrong was strong enough to close the gap. Ullrich and Vino had wasted too much energy in KOM stages while Basso was resting and with their infighting. They fell even more behind and are out of the running for the Yellow Jersey. Team chemistry is critical for a team to win races.

Did you notice the riders, Rasmussen, Moreau, and Mancebo drop behind and lost more time because they had expended energy racing for the KOM Title in the KOM mountain stages? No body can violate the laws of exercise physiology.

Basso attacked Lance a number of times but couldn't leave him behind. Late in the stage, Armstrong returned the favor but also couldn't leave Basso behind. They were too evenly matched. Today the race for Yellow became a two rider race.

Have you noticed the improvement in Basso's performance by resting during the Tour instead of falling for the Discovery games earlier in the Tour? Basso lost over one minute in the first time trial and stage 10 each but Lance hasn't been able to drop him the last two stages, which were the two most critical mountain stages.

Obviously, Basso had not fully recovered by stage 10 from riding the Giro sick and, if you understand exercise physiology, you know he cannot have fully recovered from that mistake yet but he has clearly recovered more. Clearly, if Basso had not gotten sick in the Giro or had quit and recovered for the Tour when he did get sick in the Giro, he would have done better for the first ten stages and would not have lost the time he has lost. There are several big questions here. First, if he has not fully recovered yet, how many stages of riding hard will it take to break him like he broke after everyone thought he had recovered during the Giro? Remember that he broke after only two really hard stages of riding in the Giro when most people thought he had completely recovered. The answer to that question depends on how recovered he was before he started riding hard again in relation to how hard he rides.

The second big question is, if Basso has recovered enough to improve that much on his climbing in the last five days, how much will he improve on his time trialing in the next five days? I guess we will also always ask the unknowable questions of, if Basso had not made the mistake of riding the Giro sick, would he have lost any time in the first ten stages and would he have been able to drop Lance in the last two stages? Interesting questions.

The great thing about this is that Basso's performance shows that Riis knows how to recover an athlete well enough to win the Giro and the Tour in the same year making it possible for Basso to become cycling's next winner of the triple crown. This is because it would be much easier to recover a rider from just winning the Giro than from riding it sick and Basso is trading blows with Lance in the two most significant mountain stages in the Tour when Lance didn't even ride the Giro.

Does this mean we finally have a coach who can coach more than one race a year? That sounds exciting, doesn't it.

Basso's performance also means that next year's Tour won't be a lame duck Tour because, even after riding the Giro sick, Basso is giving Lance a great fight. The other riders and coaches better take note of what Riis has done with Basso and know Riis has another year to develop Basso before next year's Tour. Will Basso become the next Lance Armstrong or better? I have decided to do a special review in my post Tour analysis for the top riders who have the potential for being a threat for next year's Tour to show you how to learn from you losing to make yourself a better rider. You will like it.

Very importantly, have any of you noticed the phenomenal change in George Hincapie in the last seven years? It wasn't that long ago when George was a flat sprinter who had trouble climbing out of bed much less the Alps. He used to always get dropped in the mountains and wasn't a great time trialist. This year, he finished 4th, only 55 seconds behind Lance in the first time trial, and just won the toughest mountain stage in this Tour. Guess what that makes George? One of the best GC riders in the world! Oops, bet you missed that one.

Gee, I thought all the experts were telling you that you can't make that radical of a change in an athlete with training. I guess they are wrong. I have been telling you that you can for years and George just became the best possible proof of it. Read my book. I sure hope someone else notices the change and gives George a chance to ride for GC next year against Basso. That would be a great battle. :-) The changes in George should be one of the most exciting things to happen in modern sports because it opens up all kinds of possibilities to athletes by simply changing your training program and destroys one of the greatest myths in sports.

So, where do we stand in this Tour? Lance has a 2'46" lead over a considerably recovered Basso and we don't know how well Basso will ride the time trial. That should be a scary thought to us Lance fans. Also, Discovery destroyed itself and will have to find ways to nurse itself back to life and not break again in the next three mountain stages. Fortunately, tomorrow is a rest day and today Discovery used the tactics I teach in my e-book to also break CSC. So now the teams for the only two riders still in the hunt for the Yellow Jersey have both been wounded and they must use better tactics or expose their team leaders to significant tactical opportunities by the other team. He who adapts best wins!!!

Is this Tour getting interesting or what? Don't you just love bike chess? And, to make things even more interesting, stage 16 is a nasty little critter that can open up all sorts of strategic and tactical opportunities.

BTW, congratulations to George Hincapie for a spectacular win and phenomenal improvement. You are the man, George!!!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a rest day so I will provide my usual coach's analysis for the Tour up to this moment, the analysis for stage 16, and what to expect in the coming week. This has turned into one of the best Tours ever with really great tactics and battles but it isn't over yet. :-) Don't you just love bike racing?

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