2010 Vuelta a Murcia 3rd-7th March

[python]

Van Houwelingen of raboteam:
"The difference between Rabon and the rest of the field is almost absurdly high"

is he hinting at anything ?

 

[Big GMaC]

The gut is hanging and the strain is showing.

1. Does that humpback make him more or less aero?

2. There is no way he is at 71kgs with that stomach. I mean, my stomach hangs less when I go area and I am way over 'cyclist' weight atm...

 

[craig1985]

Van Houwelingen of raboteam:
"The difference between Rabon and the rest of the field is almost absurdly high"

is he hinting at anything ?

He was initially released by T-Mobile (then Highroad and then Columbia) at the end of 2007 IIRC, but then there was a change of heart.

 

[altark123]

1. Does that humpback make him more or less aero?

2. There is no way he is at 71kgs with that stomach. I mean, my stomach hangs less when I go area and I am way over 'cyclist' weight atm...

Ouch if that is a "gut", then some bodybuilders have guts. His "gut" is even with his chest it appears, could simply be extra skin guys, or even more likely, abdominal muscles and the division between his upper abs and lower abd. And I am Lance fan, but have realistic expectations for this year. So, 8th place in a TT at his age in March is pretty good I'd say.

 

[BroDeal]

He does not look fat. He looks thick with muscle. In other pics his skin looks extremely thin in the way that older guys get when they have very low body fat.

 

[Publicus]

Ouch if that is a "gut", then some bodybuilders have guts. His "gut" is even with his chest it appears, could simply be extra skin guys, or even more likely, abdominal muscles and the division between his upper abs and lower abd. And I am Lance fan, but have realistic expectations for this year. So, 8th place in a TT at his age in March is pretty good I'd say.

I agree. Good result for his age and this point in the season. But this performance completely undermines the "Armstrong will definitely be stronger because...." campaign waged by Bruyneel, Armstrong and his more rabid fans. And I think it is plain as day that he is not 71kg. Not even close.

 

[issoisso]

He does not look fat. He looks thick with muscle. In other pics his skin looks extremely thin in the way that older guys get when they have very low body fat.

I agree. He doesn't look like he has any extra weight at all.

Which is very bad news for him.

 

[goggalor]

Oops, a disturbance in the force:

1 Frantisek Rabon (Cze) Team HTC - Columbia 0:25:10
2 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 0:00:33
3 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Team Sky 0:00:48
4 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Team Radioshack 0:00:52
5 Patrick Gretsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia 0:01:03
6 Lieuwe Westra (Ned) Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team 0:01:10
7 Stef Clement (Ned) Rabobank 0:01:17
8 Lance Armstrong (USA) Team Radioshack 0:01:18
9 Josep Jufre (Spa) Astana 0:01:21
10 David Zabriskie (USA) Garmin - Transitions 0:01:23

How long can the Hog ignore this elephant in the room? It's still early, but if Klöden keeps crushing Armstrong going up to the Tour, what then? Will the Shack keep their promise (?) of having the strongest man as captain, or will Klödi get a scolding for breaking the party line?

I think Lance was lucky Levi wasn't in Murcia to crush him as well.

 

[python]

He was initially released by T-Mobile (then Highroad and then Columbia) at the end of 2007 IIRC, but then there was a change of heart.

interesting.

van houwelingen also said they were a bit surprized by his climbing a day before.

 

[BroDeal]

I agree. Good result for his age and this point in the season. But this performance completely undermines the "Armstrong will definitely be stronger because...." campaign waged by Bruyneel, Armstrong and his more rabid fans. And I think it is plain as day that he is not 71kg. Not even close.

I don't think he is willing to get down to the skeletal thinness required. He is too into the Hollywood lifestyle. That he spends time having himself painted orange says a lot. He is more interested in looking like an athlete than being one.

 

[altark123]

I don't think he is willing to get down to the skeletal thinness required. He is too into the Hollywood lifestyle. That he spends time having himself painted orange says a lot. He is more interested in looking like an athlete than being one.

Hmm you bring up an interesting thought. It's clear he seemingly cannot get as thin as he needs to be and shed the muscle necessary, but I doubt it's because he doesn't think he'd look as good. It was the heavy weight training in the years off that killed him.

 

[Tugboat]

12 Jack Bauer (NZl) Endura Racing 0:01:38

Good effort.

Solid... he's got stronger each day by the looks of his results. Be a good confidence booster for him to ride so well in that sort of company.

 

[BroDeal]

Hmm you bring up an interesting thought. It's clear he seemingly cannot get as thin as he needs to be and shed the muscle necessary, but I doubt it's because he doesn't think he'd look as good. It was the heavy weight training in the years off that killed him.

The dude has been spending his time having pics of himself taken with his shirt off, not just when he is working out with McCaugnehey but for ads. When he was first training for a marathon he had the press taking pics of him showing off his bod during track workouts. This is not a guy who wants to look like a stick figure. The Michael Rasmussen look is not a good look. It does not match the lifestyle he has built outside of cycling.

 

[altark123]

The dude has been spending his time having pics of himself taken with his shirt off, not just when he is working out with McCaugnehey but for ads. When he was first training for a marathon he had the press taking pics of him showing off his bod during track workouts. This is not a guy who wants to look like a stick figure. The Michael Rasmussen look is not a good look. It does not match the lifestyle he has built outside of cycling.

We'll simply have to disagree on this one. The man loves to win, it's what drives him to compete, and I refuse to believe he would risk his ability to compete on looking good. It's not like he looked bad when he was in winning shape the first 7 years. He did love to show off his body when he wasn't racing but I have to believe things have changed.

 

[Berzin]

He does not look fat. He looks thick with muscle. In other pics his skin looks extremely thin in the way that older guys get when they have very low body fat.

You mean in the way older guys get when they have very low body fat due to ingesting massive quantities of HgH.

 

[zapata]

About the race: think anyone can rob Rabon of this? I'd like to see Westra attack and gain the necessary minute or so, but that hardly seems probable.

 

[BroDeal]

You mean in the way older guys get when they have very low body fat due to massive quantities of HgH.

Although I have no doubt that Armstrong is still doing what he used to (his blood profile from last year's TdF shows that), I did not mean low fat from drug use. Older dudes look different than younger ones when they have very low body fat. Skin gets paper thin, and it is not as compliant.

 

[Ninety5rpm]

Oops, a disturbance in the force:


How long can the Hog ignore this elephant in the room? It's still early, but if Klöden keeps crushing Armstrong going up to the Tour, what then? Will the Shack keep their promise (?) of having the strongest man as captain, or will Klödi get a scolding for breaking the party line?

I think Lance was lucky Levi wasn't in Murcia to crush him as well.

Remember that professional sports are primarily an entertainment business, and marketing/publicity considerations can trump pure sporting tactics.

In pro cycling, winning is not an end in itself, but is a means itself to achieving the more important end: publicity, attention, money.

In most cases organizing your team to optimize your chance of winning and focusing your team to optimize publicity are one and the same, but there are exceptions. Compromises can be made in overall chances for winning on GC in order to improve chances of stage wins, to get the green jersey, mountains jersey, or, even, simply to showcase a certain Texan.

 

[BroDeal]

Remember that professional sports are primarily an entertainment business, and marketing/publicity considerations can trump pure sporting tactics.

In pro cycling, winning is not an end in itself, but is a means itself to achieving the more important end: publicity, attention, money.

In most cases organizing your team to optimize your chance of winning and focusing your team to optimize publicity are one and the same, but there are exceptions. Compromises can be made in overall chances for winning on GC in order to improve chances of stage wins, to get the green jersey, mountains jersey, or, even, simply to showcase a certain Texan.

Yup. Kloden was better than Armstrong at last year's Tour, but he was forced to support Armstrong. Why would anything change this year? Leipheimer will be the interesting situation. He will likely be better than both of them.

 

[theyoungest]

About the race: think anyone can rob Rabon of this? I'd like to see Westra attack and gain the necessary minute or so, but that hardly seems probable.

Westra is 14 mins back on GC, so "hardly probable" is an understatement

 

[inputjoe]

Oops, a disturbance in the force:


How long can the Hog ignore this elephant in the room? It's still early, but if Klöden keeps crushing Armstrong going up to the Tour, what then? Will the Shack keep their promise (?) of having the strongest man as captain, or will Klödi get a scolding for breaking the party line?

I think Lance was lucky Levi wasn't in Murcia to crush him as well.

Armstrong has nothing to worry about, Kloden only knows the party line.

 

[thehog]

Ouch if that is a "gut", then some bodybuilders have guts. His "gut" is even with his chest it appears, could simply be extra skin guys, or even more likely, abdominal muscles and the division between his upper abs and lower abd. And I am Lance fan, but have realistic expectations for this year. So, 8th place in a TT at his age in March is pretty good I'd say.

How often are we going to drag out "not bad for his age" when he's just plain ***.

 

[zapata]

Westra is 14 mins back on GC, so "hardly probable" is an understatement

Ach! Thought I read one minute somewhere? You're right, fourteen minutes, that's a bit of a stretch. Still, I can hope!

 

[flicker]

Yup. Kloden was better than Armstrong at last year's Tour, but he was forced to support Armstrong. Why would anything change this year? Leipheimer will be the interesting situation. He will likely be better than both of them.

Leipheimer cannot ride a GT without a bad day. One bad day means losing hella lot of time.

I would like to see Levi win but I can not see him avoiding that bad day.

Cannot blame that bad day on ballsolo.

 

[Ninety5rpm]

Yup. Kloden was better than Armstrong at last year's Tour, but he was forced to support Armstrong. Why would anything change this year? Leipheimer will be the interesting situation. He will likely be better than both of them.

I think there is a chance that with a more than a year of racing under his belt and all the training, if his condition is not there LA will be ready to admit defeat to age, especially since he has already hinted about this in his tweets. I can see a press conference where they announce LL as their leader, and that LA will work for him.

The problem is that LL is not getting younger either. We'll see how he does in P-N, but this is a normal peak time for him (winning TOC).

We might see no Shacks in the top 5 at the TDF 2010.