The official debate: Should Contador have waited for Schleck?

[BYOP88]

Ok on sunday Thor's chain comes off in the sprint what should Petacchi and Cav and the rest do? Aside from Thor, his team and fans would anyone else be p1ssed off if the others contested the sprint costing Thor the green jersey, I bet most would put it down to "bad luck" on Thor's part.

 

[Barrus]

Ok on sunday Thor's chain comes off in the sprint what should Petacchi and Cav and the rest do? Aside from Thor, his team and fans would anyone else be p1ssed off if the others contested the sprint costing Thor the green jersey, I bet most would put it down to "bad luck" on Thor's part.

As Greg Henderson says:

IMHO. If Greipel drops his chain in the heat of battle in a sprint. I won't be waiting. Gut feeling no one else is either.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

I think you're failing to appreciate how quickly you slow down when your chain comes off going up a 7-10% grade. Yes, ten seconds into his attack, he'd only opened up a gap of five or six seconds on AC.

And he was about to shift up and, you know, go faster.

TBH - I am not sure what you are trying to say here.

The 5/6 secs out of 10 seconds?? The only way to work out the gap would be knowing Contadors position and when he reacted- which we cant make out.

Vino is about 7/8 lengths back and is just 2 behind when AS hits the bump - and AC is suddenly there to. Great attack by AS but even Vino responded.

 

[The Crusher]

For my own part, I'm not saying that it was wrong for Alberto to go.

I'm saying two things: the evidence clearly shows Andy was the stronger rider today, and would've gained time, but for the mechanical.

And IMHO, Alberto probably did know or at least suspect that Andy had a mechanical issue.

 

[4smajeure]

Contador may not have wanted to repeat what we saw yesterday when they were doing track stands on the final climb while 3rd and 4th place gained time. Today Vino marked Andy's attack and coasted when he bridged while Contador was bridging up just as Andy was playing with his shifters. It was the heat of battle and he kept his momentum. The gain was only 13 seconds at the summit. This may be academic if they battle evenly until the time trial and Contador smokes Andy by 3+ minutes.

 

[rick bensco]

How many times should we stop racing for BABY Schleck? He is getting too cocky for me.

 

[VeloCity]

How do you know that?

Because he sat on his bike for quite a bit before jumping off to fix it.

 

[Piratical]

Another point: a lot on this forum seem to link a dislike of AC with a love of LA.

This isn't just an AC/LA phenomenon. It has to do with the fact that some "cycling fans" cannot find a way to keep interested in the sport unless they can spin every event into something that justifies their "Lance-love" or "Lance-hatred". Someone earlier suggested that the best thing about today's controversy is that it annoys the Lanceophiles. To the contrary - the best thing about today's stage is that it ought to serve as a catalyst to finally move on from all-Lance-all-the-time. Unfortunately, some don't seem to know how to do that. Or maybe they just don't want to. Too bad. All they do is contaminate every thread, like the "doper brigade" does in other forums and threads.

 

[ManInFull]

There is not a cold chance in hell AS can dig that deep. The tour was won today, like it or not.

You really believe that? Why? Andy was going to try to get some time today and he wasn't going to get much on this attack regardless of anyone's wishful thinking. So, why can't he attack tomorrow and/or Thursday and accomplish the same thing?

Tony

 

[VeloCity]

I didn't know for sure that he threw a chain, but it was immediately obvious that something was wrong with his bike; not with him.

I mean, one second he's attacking and pulling away, the next second he's slowed WAY down and staring down at his drive train in that telltale manner. Totally obvious.

Or he had unclipped a pedal. Totally obvious.

 

[Barrus]

This isn't just an AC/LA phenomenon. It has to do with the fact that some "cycling fans" cannot find a way to keep interested in the sport unless they can spin every even into something that justifies their "Lance-love" or "Lance-hatred". Someone earlier suggested that the best thing about today's controversy is that it annoys the Lanceophiles. To the contrary - the best thing about today's stage is that it ought to serve as a catalyst to finally move on from all-Lance-all-the-time. Unfortunately, some don't seem to know how to do that. Or maybe they just don't want to. Too bad. All they do is contaminate every thread, like the "doper brigade" does in other forums and threads.

To be honest for me the best thing out of this stage is the fact that Schleck finally appears motivated to crush Contador instead of playing the nice guy and appearing to wait until he gets massacred in the final TT.
Another great thing that came out of this stage was finally a stage win for Voeckler, was waiting the entire tour for that one

 

[indurain666]

For my own part, I'm not saying that it was wrong for Alberto to go.

I'm saying two things: the evidence clearly shows Andy was the stronger rider today, and would've gained time, but for the mechanical.

And IMHO, Alberto probably did know or at least suspect that Andy had a mechanical issue.

Which evidence? AS tried to go with about 10 k to go and he couldn't... he gave up...everyone regroups and puts in a wimpy acceleration that even Vino, who is not even close to the top 5 riders was able to follow.

AS lost 20 seconds in the descent and that is without AC pulling, who is a better TTer than Sanchez or Menchov.

I am curious to see what are you fanboys going to say after Alberto crushes AS in the TT and perhaps the Tourmalet too.

VAMOSSS ALBERTOOOO!!!

 

[ManInFull]

For my own part, I'm not saying that it was wrong for Alberto to go.

I'm saying two things: the evidence clearly shows Andy was the stronger rider today, and would've gained time, but for the mechanical.

And IMHO, Alberto probably did know or at least suspect that Andy had a mechanical issue.

Explain your logic. What confirms that he was the stronger rider? Is it because he cut the deficit before the summit? Or is it because he decided to do that we all knew he HAD to do and he slipped his chain before AC fully responded?

 

[The Crusher]

TBH - I am not sure what you are trying to say here.

The 5/6 secs out of 10 seconds?? The only way to work out the gap would be knowing Contadors position and when he reacted- which we cant make out.

Vino is about 7/8 lengths back and is just 2 behind when AS hits the bump - and AC is suddenly there to. Great attack by AS but even Vino responded.

Fair enough. Based on the footage, and where Alberto eventually appears, I think Andy probably put in a well-timed attack, with Alberto out of position (hmm, maybe he was on a nature break... chaingate turns into ****gate!).

And yes, INITIALLY Vino goes hard to close the gap on Andy. But if you look at the video, from around -0:44 to -0:42 you get a nice helicopter view from the side that let's us measure his progress. The helicopter is going to be far away with a lot of zoom == almost no parallax, perfect for measuring. So if you measure the distance from bike to bike at the moment the camera angle changes around -0:44, and then measure it again right before the wheel hop, you do see that Vino is closing, but it's just a few inches. Less than 1/4th of a wheel diameter. And this is when Andy was hoping to shift up a gear and go faster.

 

[Blakeslee]

Just finished reading the article containing Contador's post race comments. I strongly disagree with most of the explanations he gave and I don't think he is being entirely honest about what happened at the top of the final climb.

1. Contador was not attacking when Schleck dropped his chain ("I attacked before he had a problem with his chain"), he was attempting to respond to the attack made by Schleck before he dropped his chain.

2. Contador clearly knew Schleck had a mechanical as soon as he passed him ("at the moment I attacked I didn't know what had happened to him, and when I found out I was already a long way ahead"). When Schleck dropped his chain Contador was still a fair distance behind and had a clear view of Schleck before he passed him. In my own racing experience it is very obvious when somebody drops a chain in front of you on a climb (both by visually watching the rider and by the noise it makes). Considering how far Contador was behind when Schleck dropped the chain and how close he passed to Schleck I find it hard to believe Contador did not know exactly what was going on.

3. Contador was not just following Menchov and Sanchez ("When I did find out what had happened we already had a big advantage and it was too late to do anything about it as we were all riding hard"), Contador was the one who made the initial acceleration after Schleck dropped the chain. As soon as Contador passed Schleck he went full gas with the other riders following him.

4. The time Contador gained today almost certainly locks up the race for him ("And anyway I don't believe that 30 seconds at this point in the race is going to decide whether or not you win the Tour de France"). Even if Schleck were to drop Contador on the Tourmalet stage it is unlikely Schleck would be able to gain enough time in that one stage alone to stay ahead of Contador after the final time trial. Schleck would have needed to gain time on the Tourmalet and the 31 seconds to have any realistic chance of defending his lead in the time trial stage.

 

[IndyJoe]

Ok on sunday Thor's chain comes off in the sprint what should Petacchi and Cav and the rest do? Aside from Thor, his team and fans would anyone else be p1ssed off if the others contested the sprint costing Thor the green jersey, I bet most would put it down to "bad luck" on Thor's part.

This is so "apples to oranges" that it's not even worth discussing.

 

[skidmark]

Another great tweet, now by Greg Henderson:

But that has absolutely nothing to do with a GC. Same as in Paris-Roubaix: someone gets a mechanical, too bad. But that's a one-day race, not one with cumulative time at the end of 3 weeks. That's why they have the 'if you crash within 3km of the end of a flat stage you get the same time' rule, because it is widely perceived as unfair to decide a GC on luck, and although you can't limit all situations of bad luck (eg. Vino's crash with 20km to go early in the 2007 tour), that rule helps in a situation where most nervous crashes occur. Losing a sprint due to a skipped chain = bad luck. Getting attacked on a climb due to a lost chain = bad luck that could have been mitigated by opponents behaving in a sportsmanlike way.

 

[dolophonic]

How many times should we stop racing for BABY Schleck? He is getting too cocky for me.

Yeah that was a bit of heat check right there.
Shleck was not dropping anything but his chain ...
Riders were already reacting.I'm sure if they could go back in a time machine a lot of guys would do things differently, perhaps Lance would not have even started the tour!

Notice also when Shleck was setting "tempo" on the climb after he lost his teammates the group was growing not diminishing. That may tell you how fast he was climbing.

 

[Piratical]

I am curious to see what are you fanboys going to say after Alberto crushes AS in the TT and perhaps the Tourmalet too.

VAMOSSS ALBERTOOOO!!!

With that gushing sign-off, you have no business calling anyone else a fanboy.

 

[VeloCity]

if armstrong did the same as contador 99% of this forum would just beat the keyboard from pure hatred

its not about what happend but who did it

Probably, but there again, some deserve it more than others.

 

[schnebit]

I'm sure Schleck would be dismayed to see the sheer number of Lance chamois-sniffers coming to his defense by displaying their stunning lack of any cycling knowledge.

Invariably, Lance's fans demonstrate themselves to be the lowest common denominator of the cycling world.

Is it possible for you to post something without the word 'Lance' in it? I'm starting to think that you have a secret mancrush on him...

 

[US Patent Exploding Cyclist]

You really believe that? Why? Andy was going to try to get some time today and he wasn't going to get much on this attack regardless of anyone's wishful thinking. So, why can't he attack tomorrow and/or Thursday and accomplish the same thing?

Tony

Because he descends on the hoods?

 

[Piratical]

Maybe Lance won't return his texts?

 

[schnebit]

Little known fact to nitwits who bag on Huffy bikes.

Hampsten won his Giro on a....Huffy.

An even littler-known fact - it's a Huffy-branded Serotta...

 

[alberto.legstrong]

Pistol shot podium antics when you beat the strongest rider who has a mechanical is beyond classless.

You keep saying it was mechanical over and over in each post and I am like 70 pages from the end of this thread! Just saying it doesn't make it a mechanical.

It was Andy's error shifting. Whether or not AC should have attacked hard after that is certainly debatable. But it was not a mechanical.

Now tell me why Saxo was allowed to keep attacking when the mj had three flats on the cobbles. Oh THAT'S DIFFERENT !!!