Will the GC contenders battle on stage 10?

Mrbadog

Wednesday's stage 10 could be interesting. It is the longest
stage, with 11 categorized climbs, including a 1st cat 63K
from the finish with sections of 15% grade. There are 2nd
and 3rd cat climbs between that and the finish. The total
amount of climbing is 10 or 11,000 vertical feet.

Will any of the contenders attack on this stage?

David N. Welton

mrbadog@comcast.net (mrbadog) writes:

> Wednesday's stage 10 could be interesting. It is the
> longest stage, with 11 categorized climbs, including a
> 1st cat 63K from the finish with sections of 15% grade.
> There are 2nd and 3rd cat climbs between that and the
> finish. The total amount of climbing is 10 or 11,000
> vertical feet.

> Will any of the contenders attack on this stage?

They'll arrive in a group. Maybe a few important ones will
get dropped. A solo or a few guys will arrive in a break.

--
David N. Welton Personal: http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
Free Software: http://www.dedasys.com/freesoftware/ Apache
Tcl: http://tcl.apache.org/ Photos:
http://www.dedasys.com/photos/

Psycholist

"mrbadog" <mrbadog@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:34308c7.0407110919.7762e2b6@posting.google.com...
> Wednesday's stage 10 could be interesting. It is the
> longest stage, with 11 categorized climbs, including a
> 1st cat 63K from the finish with sections of 15% grade.
> There are 2nd and 3rd cat climbs between that and the
> finish. The total amount of climbing is 10 or 11,000
> vertical feet.
>
> Will any of the contenders attack on this stage?

Virenque will go on a flyer to get KOM points. There will be
some interesting moments on the climbs, but everything will
come back together on the run-in to the finish ... at least
for about half the peloton.

As they keep saying, nobody will win the tour on this stage,
but a few folks will get shelled out the back.

Bob C.

Peter Allen

"mrbadog" <mrbadog@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:34308c7.0407110919.7762e2b6@posting.google.com...
> Wednesday's stage 10 could be interesting. It is the
> longest stage, with 11 categorized climbs, including a
> 1st cat 63K from the finish with sections of 15% grade.
> There are 2nd and 3rd cat climbs between that and the
> finish. The total amount of climbing is 10 or 11,000
> vertical feet.
>
> Will any of the contenders attack on this stage?

Virenque will, of course.

Otherwise no-one with GC interests will be trying to show
how strong they are, but we'll probably see how strong
someone isn't at some point. My money's on Simoni.

If one of the GC guys were having an especially good day,
they might be able to get away towards the end of the stage
and get some time, but it'd not be more than a few seconds,
and it'd come at the cost of being really knackered for the
next few days - which would lose them all that time and
then some.

Anyone else fancy Bettini to win this one?

Peter

Gary

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Half the peloton? More like a "select group" as the boys
on OLN say.

psycholist wrote:

>"mrbadog" <mrbadog@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:34308c7.0407110919.7762e2b6@posting.google.com...
>
>
>>Wednesday's stage 10 could be interesting. It is the
>>longest stage, with 11 categorized climbs, including a
>>1st cat 63K from the finish with sections of 15% grade.
>>There are 2nd and 3rd cat climbs between that and the
>>finish. The total amount of climbing is 10 or 11,000
>>vertical feet.
>>
>>Will any of the contenders attack on this stage?
>>
>>
>
>Virenque will go on a flyer to get KOM points. There will
>be some interesting moments on the climbs, but everything
>will come back together on the run-in to the finish ... at
>least for about half the peloton.
>
>As they keep saying, nobody will win the tour on this
>stage, but a few folks will get shelled out the back.
>
>Bob C.
>
>
>
>

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text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01
Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-
Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title></title> </head> <body text="#000000"
bgcolor="#ffffff"> Half the peloton? More like a "select
group" as the boys on OLN say.<br> <br> psycholist
wrote:<br> <blockquote type="cite"
cite="midccrvr1$7vom$1@news3.infoave.net"> <pre
wrap="">"mrbadog" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="ma-
ilto:mrbadog@comcast.net">&lt;mrbadog@comcast.net&gt;</a>
wrote in message <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="new-
s:34308c7.0407110919.7762e2b6@posting.google.com">news:3430-
8c7.0407110919.7762e2b6@posting.google.com</a>... </pre>
<blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Wednesday's stage 10
could be interesting. It is the longest stage, with 11
categorized climbs, including a 1st cat 63K from the finish
with sections of 15% grade. There are 2nd and 3rd cat climbs
between that and the finish. The total amount of climbing is
10 or 11,000 vertical feet.

Will any of the contenders attack on this stage? </pre>
</blockquote> <pre wrap=""><!----> Virenque will go on a
flyer to get KOM points. There will be some interesting
moments on the climbs, but everything will come back
together on the run-in to the finish ... at least for about
half the peloton.

As they keep saying, nobody will win the tour on this stage,
but a few folks will get shelled out the back.

Bob C.

</pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>

--------------090504050902010202090801--

Mrbadog

Maybe you guys are right. But I am intrigued by the following, quoted
from an article on Tyler on Active.com:

"In fact, as Hamilton revealed, he had even gone so far as
to reconnoitre one critical stage in the Massif Central that
Armstrong had skipped going to see. And the strategy he aims
to employ on that day?

"I can't say," he replied with a grin."

They are talking about stage 10. For Tyler to beat Lance, I
don't think he can simply let Postal neutralize all the
mountain stages until the last climb and then play into
Lance's strategy of attacking on the last climb. This has
always given Lance maximum gaps with minimum energy
expenditure. Forcing Lance to race from further out perhaps
is a way to beat him.

Richard Anderso

> Will any of the contenders attack on this stage?

I think not. There is only one cat 1 climb and it is too
far from the finish. The last 30 km is downhill which
will allow anyone dropped on the climb a chance to catch
up. The climbers and most of the rest of the field will
ride together.

derby

The first significant separation should come on Stage 12.

Raptor

mrbadog wrote:
> Maybe you guys are right. But I am intrigued by the
> following, quoted from an article on Tyler on Active.com:
>
> "In fact, as Hamilton revealed, he had even gone so far as
> to reconnoitre one critical stage in the Massif Central
> that Armstrong had skipped going to see. And the strategy
> he aims to employ on that day?
>
> "I can't say," he replied with a grin."
>
> They are talking about stage 10. For Tyler to beat Lance,
> I don't think he can simply let Postal neutralize all the
> mountain stages until the last climb and then play into
> Lance's strategy of attacking on the last climb. This has
> always given Lance maximum gaps with minimum energy
> expenditure. Forcing Lance to race from further out
> perhaps is a way to beat him.

An ITT race between Lance and Tyler would be cool to see.
Tyler held 'em off (sort of) on Pau-Bayonne last year, but
USPS wasn't chasing. Still, he stayed away from Telekom single-
handedly...

Maybe a Vinokourov-style escapade.

--
--
Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall
"We should not march into Baghdad. ... Assigning young soldiers to
a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning
them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it
could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater
instability." George Bush Sr. in his 1998 book "A World Transformed"

Stewart Fleming

Ewoud Dronkert wrote:

> On Sunday 11 July 2004 19:19, mrbadog wrote:
>
>>Will any of the contenders attack on this stage?
>
>
> No, it will be on Quatorze Juillet when Sevilla attacks
> (with Dekker).

Could this be the first Bastille Day for ages to have a
Frenchman in yellow?

Gym Gravity

Peter Allen wrote:

> Anyone else fancy Bettini to win this one?
>
> Peter
>
>
Good choice. I choose O'Grady.

Peter Allen

"mrbadog" <mrbadog@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:34308c7.0407111833.26488cd9@posting.google.com...
> Maybe you guys are right. But I am intrigued by the
> following, quoted from an article on Tyler on Active.com:
>
> "In fact, as Hamilton revealed, he had even gone so far as
> to reconnoitre one critical stage in the Massif Central
> that Armstrong had skipped going to see. And the strategy
> he aims to employ on that day?
>
> "I can't say," he replied with a grin."
>
> They are talking about stage 10. For Tyler to beat Lance,
> I don't think he can simply let Postal neutralize all the
> mountain stages until the last climb and then play into
> Lance's strategy of attacking on the last climb. This has
> always given Lance maximum gaps with minimum energy
> expenditure. Forcing Lance to race from further out
> perhaps is a way to beat him.

The problem with this is, say Tyler goes away on the second-
last climb of the day. Then Lance has to race from further
out, sure, but he has help, because everyone else with GC or
stage aspirations wants to catch Tyler - and there will be
some downhill and relatively flat stuff where the chasing
group will work together (or some of them will) while Tyler
has to ITT it. Which means Tyler has to work a lot harder,
and sit up near or over his lactate threshold for much
longer than anyone else.

In any case, I'm not sure that Lance is strong enough this
year to put much time if any into Hamilton by attacking up
the last climbs; and I'm fairly sure he won't win the Alpe
ITT. OTOH, he has a few seconds now and can probably get
some more on the long ITT.

Peter

K. J. Papai

"Peter Allen" <pda24.ac.uk>...
> "mrbadog" <mrbadog@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:34308c7.0407111833.26488cd9@posting.google.com...
> > Maybe you guys are right. But I am intrigued by the
> > following, quoted from an article on Tyler on
> > Active.com:
> >
> > "In fact, as Hamilton revealed, he had even gone so far
> > as to reconnoitre one critical stage in the Massif
> > Central that Armstrong had skipped going to see. And the
> > strategy he aims to employ on that day?
...
> The problem with this is, say Tyler goes away on the second-
> last climb of the day. Then Lance has to race from further
> out, sure, but he has help, because everyone else with GC
> or stage aspirations wants to catch Tyler - and there will
> be some downhill and relatively flat stuff where the
> chasing group will work together (or some of them will)
> while Tyler has to ITT it. Which means Tyler has to work a
> lot harder, and sit up near or over his lactate threshold
> for much longer than anyone else.
>
> In any case, I'm not sure that Lance is strong enough this
> year to put much time if any into Hamilton by attacking up
> the last climbs; and I'm fairly sure he won't win the Alpe
> ITT. OTOH, he has a few seconds now and can probably get
> some more on the long ITT.

I am fairly sure that Armstrong will win the Alpe time
trial. I just looked at the Michelin jpg map provoded to
Mike Jaco by someone (Ewoud?) and noticed that the
switchbacks favor Lance.

I think L.A. is completely motivated to win that ITT. Mayo
will be too weakened to put up a fight still then. Heras
won't be motivated due to being too far down on the GC.

This Wednesday at least 4 of the 5 guys in front of Lance on
GC will be gone and out of the way. After Saturday it will
all be sorted out with nothing but thje top guys in the best
GC positions between then and the Paris finale. If Lance has
60 seconds or more lead going into the stage 19 ITT then
it's game over.

This year's Tour will not eb as close as last year.

-Ken