Merckx's view on Gilbert

[The Hitch]

Knew I should have looked at the route first!

What about his team role for the Schlecks? Will he be better for that as a consequence of his LBL diet?

Worse i think. As a powerful tter he was important to them on the flat stages when they held yellow. Not just then of course. Anytime there is a split or maybe Andy gets a puncture or something, Canc is your man. Now less so.

And theres a ttt on stage 3 though even with Canc Saxo lost 40 seconds in TDF 09 ttt and about 20 in Vuelta 10 on a short course. What i mean is they usually lose a bit of time anyway and Cancellara is one man and its only 20k. The performance of the other 8 people is more important.

They have other helpers in the mountains, cancellara isnt really needed there. Since his tt performance probably suffers his utility on the flat suffers too. So hes worth less to them in the tdf. But then Andy will be heavy favourite anyway and they understant that Canc may be the biggest name in the sport behind Contador so they cant expect him to put too much effort into domestiquing.