TDF Stage 15: Limoux - Montpellier 187km

[The Hitch]

I like this - Hoy and Bauge for GC

Wiggo might be able to do it - who else?

Der Panzerwagen and...

Valverde !!!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Danilo Hondo is a better leadout than Mark Renshaw. Hondo does the work on his own, comes from all over the place, and does a very varied job.

Renshaw is brilliant, but his job is usually the same each time, and he gets more than enough practice at it, suffice to say he does it extremely well. He often makes a pace too strong for anybody, and if they can compete he is very adept at making his bike very wide and difficult to pass (usually within the rules, but he's not too fussed about breaking them if he has to, he just doesn't often have to).

But Hondo is something else. Him and Petacchi can be three, four riders apart, on opposite sides of the train, and then suddenly they're there, Petacchi on Hondo's wheel, up near the front, right when they need to be. And he's able to appear in different parts of the leadout too. Take stage 4 of last year's Tour. With a kilometre to go, HTC still have 3 men in the train, when all of a sudden Hondo just GOES. Completely the other side of the road, but he goes with such a pace that he has Petacchi and Hushovd behind him and Renshaw actually has to break rank from the HTC train that usually sets him up so wonderfully and follow Hondo. This makes it harder for Renshaw to re-assert the HTC train and he ends up shoulder to shoulder with Hushovd, which means Cavendish (who by this point wasn't on form, admittedly) has to come around them both - only for Petacchi to have pre-empted it.

Train sprints do nothing for me, as you know. But the entire péloton couldn't find a way to derail HTC's train in 2009. They tried group attacks, solo attacks, different teams, parallel trains, nothing worked. Danilo Hondo did it all on his own.

 

[Fus087]

Take stage 4 of last year's Tour. With a kilometre to go, HTC still have 3 men in the train, when all of a sudden Hondo just GOES. Completely the other side of the road, but he goes with such a pace that he has Petacchi and Hushovd behind him and Renshaw actually has to break rank from the HTC train that usually sets him up so wonderfully and follow Hondo. This makes it harder for Renshaw to re-assert the HTC train and he ends up shoulder to shoulder with Hushovd, which means Cavendish (who by this point wasn't on form, admittedly) has to come around them both - only for Petacchi to have pre-empted it.

Just re-watched that final. Beautiful. Every team should make their guys watch this before Sunday...