Le Tour de France 2011 STAGE 8 - Aigurande-Super-Besse Sancy 189 km

[BYOP88]

Yes, but not nearly as much. Also, there are only a handful of daily stage presentations, and the world champ isnt one of them.Not necessarily. As BMC Team manager John Lelangue explains:I'm not saying that there isn't a downside to holding on to Yellow, just that the upsides are more significant.

Look I agree having the yellow jersey is good for the team on many levels, but if Garmin do want to have a guy finish top 10 on GC and have TF or Thor(although his days of that are probably behind him) contest the end of stage field sprints, then surely they need to cut down the work that Dave Z etc have to do, working every KM on every stage is more taxing than working say 60-80KM per stage. I'm guessing that Hesjedal is their GC man so he'll want Danielson and Vandevelde as fresh as possible for the mountain stages.

 

[caça-foice]

the cyclingnews road reporters are so tedentious... they are looking verus coverage...

When CAndy could not follow AC, Evans, Thor, and cia... they didn`t write nothing about it in the stage 4... It was like nothing happened...

today, they put this in the main page: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/schleck-brothers-confident-after-super-besse-showing

what a joke!!!

 

[AussieGoddess]

Yes, but not nearly as much. Also, there are only a handful of daily stage presentations, and the world champ isnt one of them.Not necessarily. As BMC Team manager John Lelangue explains:I'm not saying that there isn't a downside to holding on to Yellow, just that the upsides are more significant.

I am with you - not sure why JV is so off about having yellow. I would have thought he would be dancing jigs and screaming his happiness from the mountaintops.

they dont realistically have a good shot at winning it .... so controlling the race isnt going to cost them that much. Not saying Hesjedal isnt good - but he isnt a podium chance really, so using up some of the helpers to keep yellow as long as possible might only mean he gets 9th instead of 6th kind of thing.

As for BMC - I actually think they did ok. They didnt chase down the break - just controlled it and kept it steady. Garmin didnt really care that much if the break got 20 mins, so it was up to the GC contenders to make sure that didnt happen. BMC used 2 guys to set a reasonable pace.

When it came time to bring back the break, they said no and Astana came to do it. Yeah they used some effort to control things, but certainly a lot less than if they had got yellow a few days back.

 

[swuzzlebubble]

I am with you - not sure why JV is so off about having yellow. I would have thought he would be dancing jigs and screaming his happiness from the mountaintops.

they dont realistically have a good shot at winning it .... so controlling the race isnt going to cost them that much. Not saying Hesjedal isnt good - but he isnt a podium chance really, so using up some of the helpers to keep yellow as long as possible might only mean he gets 9th instead of 6th kind of thing.

As for BMC - I actually think they did ok. They didnt chase down the break - just controlled it and kept it steady. Garmin didnt really care that much if the break got 20 mins, so it was up to the GC contenders to make sure that didnt happen. BMC used 2 guys to set a reasonable pace.

When it came time to bring back the break, they said no and Astana came to do it. Yeah they used some effort to control things, but certainly a lot less than if they had got yellow a few days back.

BMC may have been happy to put Vino in yellow too, coming into week two?
They had him nicely in virtual yellow for a while.

 

[LaFlorecita]

the cyclingnews road reporters are so tedentious... they are looking verus coverage...

When CAndy could not follow AC, Evans, Thor, and cia... they didn`t write nothing about it in the stage 4... It was like nothing happened...

today, they put this in the main page: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/schleck-brothers-confident-after-super-besse-showing

what a joke!!!

What a showing by Andy and Fränk!! They were so great and looked so strong!!
Honestly, the amount of riders that could follow showed Alberto wasn't racing hard. If he tried as hard as he could, only Andy could maybe follow him.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Yes, but not nearly as much. Also, there are only a handful of daily stage presentations, and the world champ isnt one of them.Not necessarily. As BMC Team manager John Lelangue explains:I'm not saying that there isn't a downside to holding on to Yellow, just that the upsides are more significant.

On French TV Bernard Hinault and Laurent Jalabert were saying they don't understand BMC's tactic .
They wasted their energy to gain nothing and they disappeared in the end . The two ex-champs say they would leave Contador's team make the main work and save their forces if they were Cadel.

I don't think it's BMC bashing to question these tactics. Even ACF thought that BMC were in error. None of the riders in the break were likely to survive the GC battle proper. Taking on the chase, if the yellow jersey team isn't going to do it is often a case of who blinks first.
Now, Lelangue has told the rest that they can sit back and enjoy the ride.

 

[powderpuff]

On French TV Bernard Hinault and Laurent Jalabert were saying they don't understand BMC's tactic .
They wasted their energy to gain nothing and they disappeared in the end . The two ex-champs say they would leave Contador's team make the main work and save their forces if they were Cadel.

I don't think it's BMC bashing to question these tactics. Even ACF thought that BMC were in error. None of the riders in the break were likely to survive the GC battle proper. Taking on the chase, if the yellow jersey team isn't going to do it is often a case of who blinks first.
Now, Lelangue has told the rest that they can sit back and enjoy the ride.

You bagged BMC in the Giro last year for not taking up the chase when the big breakaway got huge time(no one thought Arroyo or Porte would hold out for as long as they did) and now here is a chance when the same thing could repeat they decide to chase and restrict the lead, you bag them again?

Go figure.. its better to waste a little bit of energy here than have to expend a huge amount of energy later. BMC still are in a strong position now and who knows later in the race they may get a few Garmin helpers if needed.

Pretty obvious Cadel and BMC are still not on your xmas card list.