Tour de France 2006

yjuosj

What is team T-mobile doing new this year? Enlighten me please!

Hookyrider

well it's not as if they issued me the 06 Team plan... I rode with Jan for all of about 20 minutes, and then spent about an hour back with the rest of the team. Total Telecom time about an hour and thirty monutes.

In short what several of the guys said, was that this year they were really working towards making a more team like team, improving communications, and things like that. It may sound small and simple, but when you don't have effective communication i.e. teammates don't have a common language - they cannot truely and effectively do their part. The important thing is they were very excited over these developements, in a good way, so I think these simple things will and can have a profound impact on how a team operates.

I also want to believe these things are what will help make the difference and I hope they do. Jan is a fantastic athlete, and I can say a hell of a nice guy for putting up with me -

HR

hombredesubaru

There is a post elsewhere on how FAT Jan looked. If you really rode with the team in Mallorca, is he as fat as the photos in cyclingnews?

And please explain how a regular guy, non team member rides with the biggest and most expensive cycling team in the world?

And that the team kept the first week of trainign silent and away from the press-presumably so Jan could lose 2-3 pounds before the official presentation pics which show him to be fat as hell.

Oh, by the way, since you really did ride with them you might have noticed that the team name is T-Mobile, not Telecom (sic) and that if you really follow cycling that has been their name for three years.

They have a small TV and print as campaign at least here in the states with Catherine Zeta Jones which is probably the largest and most inescapable ad campaign in hitsory promoting T-MOBILE, which differs a lot from the old Deutsche Telekom.

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yjuosj

I've doing some research and I believe Jan has under contract to not gaing any weight. So, I probably doubt that he's fat like you said. T-mobile is knows and as Telekom in Europe. I'm not the guy that wrote the other post, but I'm pretty sure that they call it Telekom.

Hookyrider

Finally able to post - I'm having a few computer issues ever since I did (tried) the 06' symantec update. It knocked every thing out, God bless them.

At any rate, Sorry you have to be such a skeptic… I was a little bit star struck to notice a 2-3 pound “weight issue” besides everyone was wearing cold weather gear… In fact the wild hair threw my off for a moment. Also most anyone that has followed Jan, will know that he traditionally trains in Mallorca in the early season, so it’s not like it’s classified information on his where abouts. When we arrived only the junior team was on the island, and the day the full 29 member team arrived it was all over island radio (again no secret), they even announced where they were staying – if you understood German, it would all be crystal clear to you. Sorry for the Telecom reference – I guess I still call them that, right or wrong, current or not… You ever call something by a name it’s not? How does an “every day guy” get on the magenta pain train? Well he needs a couple of friends to help in the TTT effort it takes when you have to make a U-turn in the road to double back and catch them. A lot of other riders tried and failed the day we were with them. Also I talked to the chap driving the support car before I just latched on – granted it took a little doing riding next to that Audi’s mirror through the sweeping left hand bend, but in the end I was given permission to ride 2K with Jan – I took a little more :-) After that I dropped to the back of their second group where my friends had to stay. The team members said it was okay for us to hang on as long as we liked as long as we didn’t enter their formation.

German radio and TV on that Spanish island, kind of odd, but it true - BTW Micheal Rogers legs are absolutely freakish.

At any rate I have computer problems to sort - So if you believe me great, if you choose to not believe me, I will not loose sleep over it. I know the truth, and my friends Peter and Ralph, who helped me TT my way up to the team knows. It was an exciting moment.

HR

moviekindoflife

hopefully T-Mobile's new strategy doesn't involve counter attacking their own teammates...

yjuosj

What's the deal with Alexandre Vinokourov? Why did it seem that there was a lot of confussion on who the team leader was? is he still with team T-mobile?

Hookyrider

Vinnie has moved on – Liberty I believe - I think the idea is that the fellow has tremendous potential... However he's like a rebel without a clue, his attacks are great publicity gags for air time, but they don't do him as much good as he’d like to think, often being energy not well spent/without any real sense of tactics. Worst yet and all to often his stunts/attacks were not in the interest of his leader or co-leader - in fact often times at their expense, not what you’d call a real team player. Just my thoughts.

HR

yjuosj

Is that why Jan suffered last year, because Vino is not much of a team player or was he just out of shape?

cyclingheroes

Lance said today that the tour of 2006 will be the tour of jan Ullrich and that he is sure jan will win it...

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DiabloScott

Still playing mind games.

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KennyCartman

Jan will win for 4 or 5 minutes he said!

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cyclingheroes

I spoke with Levi Leipheimer this week and he also said that he thinks Jan will win the Tour...

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moviekindoflife

jan suffered cuz he wasn't in the best shape possible. You could see vino bringing him water bottles and setting up a bunch of T-Mobile's strategic moves. He was largely responsible for lifting the pace enough in some of the mountain stages to drop everyone on Discovery Channel except Lance.

I think its Jan and Kloden that weren't team players. There is no reason to chase down your own teammate in the mountains when he goes on the attack. It happened twice in this years tour.