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Stage 16
Day 18 Gap - L'Alpe d'Huez 187 km
Analysis
It was a really big and fun day with a ton of exciting and fun
stuff. At first, the attacks were hard and strong but the chases
were bringing them back in. They didn't say who was chasing but,
based on who was in the breaks, it was almost certainly the sprinter
and KOM teams. It looked like the sprinter teams were trying to keep
the breaks in for the only road prime before the start of the first
climb.
Then CEI decided to do an excellent release attack that forced the
break to happen and I'll bet most of you missed it. If you have read
my e-book, you shouldn't have because I teach just what they did.
They released Arroyo into the break and he went to the front of that
break to force the pace while CEI was already on the front of the
peloton and shut the pace down. This gave them the offensive control
I teach in my book which permitted them to not chase and tow the
pack all day even though their rider was in first on GC.
By using this strategy, they were literally able to quickly force
the break off and establish it. The break suddenly jumped from the
front of the peloton to a lead of over 3.5 minutes in no time.
In the break was a ton of fun. CSC sent three riders up the road for
the stage win and to move Schleck into the top two for KOM. They
also sent him up the road hoping they could force the other teams to
chase Schleck late in the last climb so Sastre could sit on the
other GC riders' wheels and rest but Sastre didn't have the strength
to stay with Landis and Kloden to take advantage of the strategy.
Good move though.
DSC sent two riders up front for the stage win but Martinez crashed
and was put back into the peloton. Lampre put Cunego into the break
for the stage win and he was able to cut Fothen's lead for the White
Jersey in half by getting second in the stage.
De La Fuenta and Wegmann made the break for KOM but only De La
Fuenta was able to benefit from it adding 28 points to his lead.
Rassmussen didn't try to get into the break and was obviously
working for Menchov on GC like I said he might. The big question
here is, since Menchov did so poorly on today's mountain climb, will
RAB have Rassmussen go for the KOM Title in tomorrow's stage? If he
gets in the break, he could catch and pass De La Fuenta. Decisions,
decisions, decisions! Don't you just love bike chess? :-)
When they hit the first HC climb, all hell broke loose. Riders
suddenly began attacking the fronts of both the break and peloton
while other riders began attacking the backs of both the break and
peloton. A very big event was Boonen out the back of the peloton
"pedaling squares". Any time a rider starts pedaling squares, his
legs are gone and he is very likely out of the race and, sure
enough, Boonen hung it up for this Tour. That made big changes in
the Points Title because now McEwen almost certain will win it.
Did you notice that the manager of the GST team said that RAB would
likely try to break the PHO team today. It is just like I teach in
my book, you go after the top GC riders' teams and then go after the
riders. It is much tougher to get to a GC rider when he has a team
to protect him and very easy when he doesn't.
CEI did do some chasing to keep the break in enough that it wasn't a
threat to Pereiro but, most of the time, the other teams were forced
to do some chasing because of the break. It saved CEI's legs.
On the last climb, did you see Merckx and Mazzoleni dropped back
from the break to help their team leaders, Landis and Kloden
respectively? The two riders were placed in the break so they could
drop back on the last climb and help their team leaders. Did you
noticed that neither rider did much work or attacking to save
themselves for helping their team leaders on the last climb? Old
trick but still a good one.
Two telling events on the last climb came when Menchov dropped early
but was able to not loose too much time and when Landis attacked and
dropped Evans who was also able to not loose too much time. Landis
is a little stronger on the steeper grades but not a lot.
As expected, Landis took the lead from Pereiro today but not by
much. By any means, this race is not over yet. The first six riders
on GC are still within three minutes of Landis which is extremely
close this late in the mountains and after L'Alpe D'Huez. All of the
top ten riders on GC finished within 2 minutes of Landis. This means
that all of these riders are very well matched at both climbing and
time trialing keeping this a very close race. One really bad or
really great day could turn this race up side down in just one
stage. It is very likely that this race won't be finalized until the
last time trial and even then it could still be close. NO ONE has
the ability to just blow this race wide open in one stage. They are
going to nickel and dime this race to death with gains of just a few
seconds here and there. It will be close and it will be fun.
We still have two more hard days in the mountains and the only title
that is looking like it may have been decided is the Points Title.
KOM will be heavily contested again for at least tomorrow and
probably the next two days. Even the battle for the White Jersey has
started to develop some possibilities with Cunego closing in half
the time on Fothen. Watch that fight.
What a race!!! Wow, cleaning up the drug mess opened this race up
and has made it very exciting and fun. Maybe we should get rid of
the rest of the dopers. :-) It would probably make the sport even
more fun.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow's 182 km stage has four KOM primes of which the first two
are HC climbs and the last climb is a cat 1 at the top of which, the
stage finishes. There is also a cat 2 climb just before the
finishing climb. I rated this stage as the second most significant
mountain stage of this Tour.
There should be a lot of early attacks with big breaks and fast
racing. Watch for KOM riders, stage winner hopefuls, CSC, DSC,
Cunego, Fothen, and other potential battles. I expect Kloden and
Sastre to probably move up on GC to possibly the top three and we
need to see if RAB will shift their focus from Rassmussen racing for
Menchov, who is likely to loose more time and could even drop out of
the top five, to racing for the KOM Title. That will be a tough
decision for RAB.
