Johann bruyneel as a DS.

[Hugh Januss]

Remember in 2006 Bruyneel wrote that soppy letter to cyclingnews? The one where he said no one respected what he & Lance did together. He went on to say that all the drug allagations were not only false but hurtful & that Lance was clean. OP broke two weeks later then we all knew about clean cyclists.

Bruyneel has won a bucket load of Tours as a DS but none clean bar with Alberto. It must be hard to sleep at night knowing the only rider who won clean under your direction thinks your a **** and didn't listen to a word you said.

Umm, the only clean rider to win anything under Bruyneel's charge was ......ah, umm, ah........ I got nothing here.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

If someone would like to dig up the IM between JV and FA, I think it says a lot of how and why the Hog's riders have been so successful. Though I know there are people that think what was in the conversation isn't true, or manipulated, or etc.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Whereupon Alpe, you have to move the thread to the clinic!

Indirectly, this link on the Contador wheels issue.
Gazetto had the exclusive, with Berto.

Check out the last sentence.

http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...09/11/20/ciclismo/1258724643.html&sl=es&tl=en

Not something that the great dictator.....sorry director, Bruyneel had in his tactical genius handbook.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

2005 is a good example of the Genius that is Bruyneel.

2 Grand Tours in the same year with Different Riders - very hard to orchestrate no doubt.

The 2005 Giro Team put in place by Bruyneel won the day for Paola, and then Paolo was a VERY faithful Lieutenant General on the winning team Bruyneel put in place for the 2005 Tour de France - Paolo finishing top 20 with a stage win too.

By the way, sitting in a car telling Il Falcon to "attack DiLuca on the downhill" or advising Paolo to "stay with Simoni on the climb like sticky Peruvian candy" are not examples of genius DS "tactics". Tactics on the road are the rider's responsibility.

But perhaps the greatest example of the 2005 GT Genius of Bruyneel is evidenced in the Vuelta Team he put in place that year....leader Tommy D actually FINISHED the race and a TOP 10 to boot. Holy crud!

Bravo Bruyneel - Grand Tour Maestro for the Ages

What the hell is it with you people who can't figure out that Bruyneel wasn't the DS at other grand tours or many other races? Do you not understand that teams have multiple DSs?

 

[zapata]

If someone would like to dig up the IM between JV and FA, I think it says a lot of how and why the Hog's riders have been so successful. Though I know there are people that think what was in the conversation isn't true, or manipulated, or etc.

This?

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/landis/instantmessage.html

COULD be manipulated or fabricated, I guess, but..

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Mellow, that is why I said sitting in the car "are NOT examples of genius DS

Genius Moments occur laying in bed at night or lying on a beach somewhere.

They're obviously not occurring while you're posting, that's for sure.

 

[Publicus]

Not trying to get into a tit for tat type of thing here. But if you check HED's website, it states it supplies wheels for Astana. It does not say it sponsored Astana. If AC could not talk HED in to giving him the wheels for free that is his problem. However, there are many faster wheels out there than HED's or Bontrager's (the official sponsor). That is my point, if AC wanted the fastest and it was not a sponsor wheel or a wheel company giving away a wheel for exposure, I would expect that he had to pay for them. LA has enough exposure to have whomever give him the fastest gear. AC may not have. I don't think AC will ever have a problem getting whatever go fast toy ever again. The question is did Astana buy whatever LA wanted and denied AC the same access? I don't know and taking a quote from an AC interview is like trying to say the Hog was at the Giro based on information from his own website. It is one sided.

Good point. So in essence, Astana had purchased a certain number of wheels and perhaps TT wheels that were considered the best. According to AC, the team told him they could not guarantee him that he would get the best wheels that the team had, and so he purchased them. I'm not sure what the mystery is here. If you think AC is lying, call up HED, or twit or **** or tweeter Lance and Bruyneel and ask them. It all seems rather consistent with what happened at the TdF this past summer and, as I noted previously, no one has knocked it down (which it seems to me would be fairly easy to do).

 

[Publicus]

The bottom line for me regarding JB´s "genius" can be summed up with one question: Where would he be without LA? His greatest move by far was seeing LA´s potential for stage races. So to say he started with a low budget team.......economically that may be true, but that team had LA at the birth of his greatest potential. Guilding LA through La Vuelta, LA getting 4th and the rest is history. It never took genius or any other new or secret tactics to win with LA. Just a team devoted to him, protecting him and doing what all teams do for a leader and GC rider. Once JB had the 7 LA Tours behind him he could command any budget on any team he worked for and thus get the best riders. So I´d say he´s smart, cutthroat, a politician (we all know what that takes) a bully and clearly that worked well with LA in the past and will with Shack.......and that is a recipe for success.

To look for true tacticians in cycling there are quite a few who place high in team standings, win both classics and GT stages including GC wins and basically do very well with nothing close to the talent JB has had access to.

Bjarne Riis: started with little, but through smart recruiting and very smart tactics managed to win many one day races and many GT stages.....this long before getting a hold of the bros Schleck as well as the larger team budgets he now commands.

Cyrille Guimard: perhaps the all time greatest tactician, but also had the best riders so can be debated.

Current Cervelo DS team Alex Sans Vega, Jean-Paul Poppel, Jens Zemke: considering last year was their first, an amazing win record including 09 spring classics, Giro & Tour.

Finally when was the last time JB was in the car during a race? As I said as the begining: Where would JB be without LA?

Great post. Sums up things nicely.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

This?

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/landis/instantmessage.html

COULD be manipulated or fabricated, I guess, but..

Based on all the other evidence surrounding JB and Lance, I'd stay that conversation is entirely consistent.

 

[Polish]

If someone would like to dig up the IM between JV and FA, I think it says a lot of how and why the Hog's riders have been so successful. Though I know there are people that think what was in the conversation isn't true, or manipulated, or etc.

I do not have the IM between Vaughters and Frankie, but I do have this one between Vaughters and David Millar.

It was taped one evening during the 2001 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré when David Millar scored some EPO and was bringing it back to share with Vaughters in his Hotel Room....

(Soft knocks at the door)
Jonathon Vaughters: Who is it?
David Millar: It's me, Dave. Open up, man, I got the stuff.

(More knocks)
JV: Who is it?
DM: It's me, Dave, man. Open up, I got the stuff.
JV: Who?
DM: It's, Dave, man. Open up, I think the gendarmes saw me come in here.

(More knocks)

JV: Who is it?
DM: It's, Dave, man. Will you open up, I got the stuff with me.
JV: Who?
DM: Dave, man. Open up.
JV: Dave?
DM: Yeah, Dave. C'mon, man, open up, I think the gendarmes saw me.
JV: Dave's not here.
DM: No, man, I'm Dave, man

(Sharp knocks at the door)
DM: Hey, c'mon, man.

JV: Who is it?
DM: It's Dave, man. Will you open up? I got the stuff with me.
JV: Who?
DM: Dave, man. Open up.
JV: Dave?
DM: Yeah, Dave.
JV: Dave's not here.
DM: What the hell? No, man, I am Dave, man. Will you...

(More knocks)
DM: C'mon! Open up the door, will you? I got the stuff with me, I think the cops saw me.

JV: Who is it?
DM: Oh, what the hell is it...c'mon. Open up the door! It's Dave!
JV: Who?
DM: Dave! D-A-V-E! Will you open up the goddamn door!
JV: Dave?
DM: Yeah, Dave!
JV: Dave?
DM: Right, man. Dave. Now will you open up the door?

JV: Dave's not here.

 

[zapata]

Based on all the other evidence surrounding JB and Lance, I'd stay that conversation is entirely consistent.

Yes, that would be my guess.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Whereupon Alpe, you have to move the thread to the clinic!

I guess you're right. But don't most Lance related threads end up in the Clinic anyway?

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

I guess you're right. But don't most Lance related threads end up in the Clinic anyway?

Well, they do have to keep Lance company, right?

 

[thehog]

If someone would like to dig up the IM between JV and FA, I think it says a lot of how and why the Hog's riders have been so successful. Though I know there are people that think what was in the conversation isn't true, or manipulated, or etc.

If someone has some time search for the open letter Bruyneel wrote in 2006. It's the best laugh you'll have in weeks.

 

[thehog]

Thanks Cheech.

I do not have the IM between Vaughters and Frankie, but I do have this one between Vaughters and David Millar.


.

JV: Who is it?

.
JV: Dave's not here.
DM

JV: Who is it?
DM: Oh, what the hell is it...c'mon. Open up the door! It's Dave!
JV: Who?
DM: Dave! D-A-V-E! Will you open up the goddamn door!
JV: Dave?
DM: Yeah, Dave!
JV: Dave?
DM: Right, man. Dave. Now will you open up the door?

JV: Dave's not here.

 

[Publicus]

If someone has some time search for the open letter Bruyneel wrote in 2006. It's the best laugh you'll have in weeks.

Tried copying the text, but it wouldn't format correctly and the link is dead on cycling news. But this link takes you to the text of the letter posted on another forum. Interesting read, especially in light of this year's past TdF.

http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-205425.html

We created a blueprint, a system, that was focused around building an elite team to support Lance, and even though people came and went, the team always became stronger and stronger as we replaced them and moved forward.

We based this program on the "chemistry" inside the team. In this day of professional sports where so much is often focused on the individual, we instead instilled core values such as the importance of team spirit, a strong work ethic, being passionate about what we do, trusting each other, being proud of being part of the team, the will to suffer for the greater good - and much more...

 

[thehog]

If someone has some time search for the open letter Bruyneel wrote in 2006. It's the best laugh you'll have in weeks.

Found it:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/jun06/bruyneelletter



Lance, with or without you

An open letter from Johan Bruyneel
Sports Manager, Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team

Thursday, June 22, 2006 Madrid, Spain

Greetings to Cyclingnews readers... We all know that recently there have been some unpleasant happenings in the sport of cycling. But as the 2006 Tour de France gets ready to start, I want to take a moment of your time to talk about the sport that I love, a sport where there are lot of very positive things, and where I see the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team headed.

But before we look to the future, I want to look a little at the past.

When we started in 1999 as the United States Postal Service Team with Lance we had a dream, a vision - a crazy one by some people's thoughts: to win the biggest bike race in the world, the Tour de France, and to focus our efforts on a rider who was just coming back from a very difficult fight against cancer! But we were very dedicated and committed to this goal, in fact we were thrilled to commit ourselves to something as extremely ambitious as this. We had the desire to not leave anything undone and we were extremely passionate.

And just like many new ventures we were inexperienced in the specifics of the task but we were so highly motivated we didn't really care about our lack of experience; we simply had the conviction to succeed! We had no fear of failure, in fact we liked the challenge, and yes we knew that it was a bit of a crazy challenge but we decided to go for it, and we went for it 100% - the only way really that Lance and I know how to do something.

As I looked back on 1999 I realized we had created an experimental formula, and it worked... we won! And over the years we've fine-tuned and repeated this same formula with some amazing results: seven consecutive Tours de France victories as well as championships in the Vuelta España and the Giro d'Italia.

We created a blueprint, a system, that was focused around building an elite team to support Lance, and even though people came and went, the team always became stronger and stronger as we replaced them and moved forward.

We based this program on the "chemistry" inside the team. In this day of professional sports where so much is often focused on the individual, we instead instilled core values such as the importance of team spirit, a strong work ethic, being passionate about what we do, trusting each other, being proud of being part of the team, the will to suffer for the greater good - and much more...

We learned how to work together for one goal, and we became very good at that. We had a never-ending commitment to act until we succeeded. You'll recall key moments such as Lance in the mist atop Sestrière in 1999, Chechu's selfless assistance for Lance on Luz Ardiden in 2003, the dominance of the team over the years in the Team Time Trial, and George's stunning victory in Stage 15 to St-Lary Soulan last year - all moments defined by selfless sacrifice for the team's one goal: victory on the Champs Elysées!

We learned how to overcome obstacles (and we have had to overcome a lot, 2003 in particular...). We saw that others tried to copy us - but to me that means that you're doing things right - and so we always tried to stay ahead of our competitors and we did this through better training, better technology, and better tactics. But truthfully a lot of times, we turned off our brain and listened to our heart...

It is no surprise to anyone that we have an obsessive attention to details as I believe this is where the difference is made between victory and second place. We know how to deal with pressure, and yes, we learned how to play "cycling poker" as you saw when Lance bluffed everyone in the 2001 Tour before launching his devastating attack on Alpe d'Huez! - and I can go on and on and on...

And so now we're facing the same race we have won seven years in a row. It's clear that we're in a transition period and every change takes time, but we're looking forward to the new challenge and we're extremely motivated! Yes, Lance is gone as a rider for our team, but his spirit and guidance as a leader is definitely still here. And when I look at the list of values that I noted above, they are still there as well. We still have the dream, the vision, and definitely the passion! - and all the other things on my list...

It takes the same amount of effort and time to lose as it does to succeed, so we might as well win! Is it going to be this year, or next year, or the year after? That I don't know... all I can say is that we're going to keep doing what we've been doing all along, and ultimately, we are going to win again.. and that's why I'm so excited and feeling good about the future, even without you, Lance...

And so I thank you, our team fans for your time and more importantly for your support in the past and the years to come, and I want you to know that the team and I truly appreciate it.

Courtesy of thepaceline.com

(All rights reserved/Copyright Knapp Communications Pty Limited 2006)


"Is it going to be this year, or next year, or the year after? That I don't know... all I can say is that we're going to keep doing what we've been doing all along, and ultimately, we are going to win again.. "

 

[thehog]

Tried copying the text, but it wouldn't format correctly and the link is dead on cycling news. But this link takes you to the text of the letter posted on another forum. Interesting read, especially in light of this year's past TdF.

http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-205425.html

Thanks. Here's the text;

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/jun06/bruyneelletter



Lance, with or without you

An open letter from Johan Bruyneel
Sports Manager, Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team

Thursday, June 22, 2006 Madrid, Spain

Greetings to Cyclingnews readers... We all know that recently there have been some unpleasant happenings in the sport of cycling. But as the 2006 Tour de France gets ready to start, I want to take a moment of your time to talk about the sport that I love, a sport where there are lot of very positive things, and where I see the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team headed.

But before we look to the future, I want to look a little at the past.

When we started in 1999 as the United States Postal Service Team with Lance we had a dream, a vision - a crazy one by some people's thoughts: to win the biggest bike race in the world, the Tour de France, and to focus our efforts on a rider who was just coming back from a very difficult fight against cancer! But we were very dedicated and committed to this goal, in fact we were thrilled to commit ourselves to something as extremely ambitious as this. We had the desire to not leave anything undone and we were extremely passionate.

And just like many new ventures we were inexperienced in the specifics of the task but we were so highly motivated we didn't really care about our lack of experience; we simply had the conviction to succeed! We had no fear of failure, in fact we liked the challenge, and yes we knew that it was a bit of a crazy challenge but we decided to go for it, and we went for it 100% - the only way really that Lance and I know how to do something.

As I looked back on 1999 I realized we had created an experimental formula, and it worked... we won! And over the years we've fine-tuned and repeated this same formula with some amazing results: seven consecutive Tours de France victories as well as championships in the Vuelta España and the Giro d'Italia.

We created a blueprint, a system, that was focused around building an elite team to support Lance, and even though people came and went, the team always became stronger and stronger as we replaced them and moved forward.

We based this program on the "chemistry" inside the team. In this day of professional sports where so much is often focused on the individual, we instead instilled core values such as the importance of team spirit, a strong work ethic, being passionate about what we do, trusting each other, being proud of being part of the team, the will to suffer for the greater good - and much more...

We learned how to work together for one goal, and we became very good at that. We had a never-ending commitment to act until we succeeded. You'll recall key moments such as Lance in the mist atop Sestrière in 1999, Chechu's selfless assistance for Lance on Luz Ardiden in 2003, the dominance of the team over the years in the Team Time Trial, and George's stunning victory in Stage 15 to St-Lary Soulan last year - all moments defined by selfless sacrifice for the team's one goal: victory on the Champs Elysées!

We learned how to overcome obstacles (and we have had to overcome a lot, 2003 in particular...). We saw that others tried to copy us - but to me that means that you're doing things right - and so we always tried to stay ahead of our competitors and we did this through better training, better technology, and better tactics. But truthfully a lot of times, we turned off our brain and listened to our heart...

It is no surprise to anyone that we have an obsessive attention to details as I believe this is where the difference is made between victory and second place. We know how to deal with pressure, and yes, we learned how to play "cycling poker" as you saw when Lance bluffed everyone in the 2001 Tour before launching his devastating attack on Alpe d'Huez! - and I can go on and on and on...

And so now we're facing the same race we have won seven years in a row. It's clear that we're in a transition period and every change takes time, but we're looking forward to the new challenge and we're extremely motivated! Yes, Lance is gone as a rider for our team, but his spirit and guidance as a leader is definitely still here. And when I look at the list of values that I noted above, they are still there as well. We still have the dream, the vision, and definitely the passion! - and all the other things on my list...

It takes the same amount of effort and time to lose as it does to succeed, so we might as well win! Is it going to be this year, or next year, or the year after? That I don't know... all I can say is that we're going to keep doing what we've been doing all along, and ultimately, we are going to win again.. and that's why I'm so excited and feeling good about the future, even without you, Lance...

And so I thank you, our team fans for your time and more importantly for your support in the past and the years to come, and I want you to know that the team and I truly appreciate it.

Courtesy of thepaceline.com

(All rights reserved/Copyright Knapp Communications Pty Limited 2006)


"Is it going to be this year, or next year, or the year after? That I don't know... all I can say is that we're going to keep doing what we've been doing all along, and ultimately, we are going to win again.. "

 

[L29205]

Good point. So in essence, Astana had purchased a certain number of wheels and perhaps TT wheels that were considered the best. According to AC, the team told him they could not guarantee him that he would get the best wheels that the team had, and so he purchased them. I'm not sure what the mystery is here. If you think AC is lying, call up HED, or twit or **** or tweeter Lance and Bruyneel and ask them. It all seems rather consistent with what happened at the TdF this past summer and, as I noted previously, no one has knocked it down (which it seems to me would be fairly easy to do).

Judging by the coverage of the Prologue, it looks like LA was riding Bontrager. The disk is not HED it is a simple flat disk and all of the deep rim front wheels look the same to me. Next I am not saying AC is lying, I am not saying that he did not have to buy his own wheels, I don't know what the status of the wheel supply was for Astana. I am stating that saying you don't have access to the best wheels can mean anything. It can mean that he wanted to ride Zipp (which looks like he did from the video) instead of the mediocre Bontrager or slightly better HED. However, this is getting way off topic if you would like to continue to discuss feel free to personal message me or we can start a new thread.

 

[Hugh Januss]

I think we all know what sort of "chemistry" assisted in Bruynell's winning record.
That seems like as uncomfortable a choice of words as the headline about Basso adopting a new "killer atitude". Kind of like truth through irony, if you know what I mean.

 

[Publicus]

Judging by the coverage of the Prologue, it looks like LA was riding Bontrager. The disk is not HED it is a simple flat disk and all of the deep rim front wheels look the same to me. Next I am not saying AC is lying, I am not saying that he did not have to buy his own wheels, I don't know what the status of the wheel supply was for Astana. I am stating that saying you don't have access to the best wheels can mean anything. It can mean that he wanted to ride Zipp (which looks like he did from the video) instead of the mediocre Bontrager or slightly better HED. However, this is getting way off topic if you would like to continue to discuss feel free to personal message me or we can start a new thread.

I assure you it won't be the first or last time that a thread deviates from the original post. AC rode a carbon fiber HED H3D wheel during the two ITT's.

 

[Polish]

Thanks Cheech.

Cheech and Chong were heavy dopers lol.

and like Lance, they "never" tested positive either

Daves Not Here.....Audio.....
.
.
.
.

 

[usedtobefast]

Cheech and Chong were heavy dopers lol.

and like Lance, they "never" tested positive either

Daves Not Here.....Audio.....
.
.
.
.

tommy chong served time for marketing a type of bong. it was a trumped up charge and he did 9 months in federal prison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Chong

 

[L29205]

I assure you it won't be the first or last time that a thread deviates from the original post. AC rode a carbon fiber HED H3D wheel during the two ITT's.

I agree that these threads drift back and forth. The original issue with wheels was the prologue not the ITT's. If Astana had issues getting equipment to from point a to point b, it does not mean that one person got better treatment than the other. We don't know that. If I was at the level of AC I would buy whatever wheel I could beside Bontrager. I would ***** about it but we could still be reading too much into the issue. What matters is did LA get wheels that AC didn't have access to? From reviewing the video I don't see it. Next, a team has to choose what wheels they can bring in. They may or not match the rider. Maybe a bigger rider would like a wheel with more mass to try to carry him up the hills, Maybe a smaller rider wants a wheel with less so he can be more explosive, maybe a rider does not want a wheel that they feel will impact their performance on a certain course. The team may not be able to provide what everyone wants. I can say that every rider on the pro tour can say that they didn't get the fastest wheels for them on a given day. We don't know what wheels where offered to AC on the day in question and if they were different then LA.

 

[Publicus]

I agree that these threads drift back and forth. The original issue with wheels was the prologue not the ITT's. If Astana had issues getting equipment to from point a to point b, it does not mean that one person got better treatment than the other. We don't know that. If I was at the level of AC I would buy whatever wheel I could beside Bontrager. I would ***** about it but we could still be reading too much into the issue. What matters is did LA get wheels that AC didn't have access to? From reviewing the video I don't see it. Next, a team has to choose what wheels they can bring in. They may or not match the rider. Maybe a bigger rider would like a wheel with more mass to try to carry him up the hills, Maybe a smaller rider wants a wheel with less so he can be more explosive, maybe a rider does not want a wheel that they feel will impact their performance on a certain course. The team may not be able to provide what everyone wants. I can say that every rider on the pro tour can say that they didn't get the fastest wheels for them on a given day. We don't know what wheels where offered to AC on the day in question and if they were different then LA.

Excuse my inaccuracy. He rode a HED H3D
for the prologue and the Annecy ITT. I stopped reading after I noticed that comment.