Re: Cycling : Wed Jul 04, 2012 7:54 am  

GCM1980 wrote: An open letter to Peter Sagan... http://secretsofthepeloton.com/sagan_letter.htm Ha ha. Love Peter Sagan. It's always good to see how the old guard react when the new boy arrives. I can't wait to see his next celebration. Re my earlier comment for Wiggo - Sky are playing a dangerous game by not being bang on the front at the business end of the stage. He seemed to have a bit more protection at least yesterday though. Listened to some interviews with Goss and Greipel yesterday and their tactics for beating Cav are that they are just going to keep on trying. Hmmmmm - I think they might try to go a bit earlier and box him in a bit but I'll stick with Cav for the win today.

GCM1980 wrote: An open letter to Peter Sagan... http://secretsofthepeloton.com/sagan_letter.htm Ha ha. Love Peter Sagan. It's always good to see how the old guard react when the new boy arrives. I can't wait to see his next celebration. Re my earlier comment for Wiggo - Sky are playing a dangerous game by not being bang on the front at the business end of the stage. He seemed to have a bit more protection at least yesterday though. Listened to some interviews with Goss and Greipel yesterday and their tactics for beating Cav are that they are just going to keep on trying. Hmmmmm - I think they might try to go a bit earlier and box him in a bit but I'll stick with Cav for the win today.

[John_D]

Re: Cycling : Wed Jul 04, 2012 8:08 am  

Want to make a Boasson Hagen/Higgs boson related joke on the back of the expected announcement from CERN today, but I just can't make it work

[John_D]

Re: Cycling : Wed Jul 04, 2012 10:10 am  

GB team for the 'lympics: Wiggo, Cav, Froome, Stannard, David Millar.
Wiggo and Froome for the TT.

Re: Cycling : Thu Jul 05, 2012 8:02 am  

It's time to talk about Team Sky who in my opinion are playing a very dangerous game.

I've mentioned a few times on here about my concern about where they are at the business end of a stage. Of perhaps more actual concern is the lack of cohesion.

Cavs words and actions don't match just now. He apparently is not going for green - he apparently is just going for stage wins. So why then is he going for intermediate sprints? Why is it that Sky are giving him Eisel & EBH at the end of a stage? He claimed that he would be helping Wiggins win the Tdf in return for what Wiggo did for him at the Worlds and what he would hopefully for for him at the Olympics.

Some might argue that if Cav is drawing attention away from Wiggins by winning stages then he is doing Wiggins a favour.

I would argue that Sky need to be taking on a BMC approach. Ride at the very front for Wiggins. Stay out of trouble and give Wiggins as many loyal domestiques as possible come the sharp end of a 3 week tour. Continue as they are and they could easily be down to 5 men left in the race come the first time trial.

Re: Cycling : Thu Jul 05, 2012 8:33 am  

Ooooh, it'll be interesting to see how Lance reacts to this news. Loyal Lance men turning against their former leader. As we all know, Lance does not 'play the ball' - he 'plays the man' so get ready for a whole load of muck to be raked up about these 5 men in the coming weeks. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/report- ... -armstrong Hmmmm. Thinking about it I wonder where the source of this news has come from. Vaughters says he knows nothing about any employee of Slipstream Sports receiving a ban. Perhaps the source is Lance himself to get people talking about the stupidity of an end of season 6 month ban.

Ooooh, it'll be interesting to see how Lance reacts to this news. Loyal Lance men turning against their former leader. As we all know, Lance does not 'play the ball' - he 'plays the man' so get ready for a whole load of muck to be raked up about these 5 men in the coming weeks. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/report- ... -armstrong Hmmmm. Thinking about it I wonder where the source of this news has come from. Vaughters says he knows nothing about any employee of Slipstream Sports receiving a ban. Perhaps the source is Lance himself to get people talking about the stupidity of an end of season 6 month ban.

[John_D]

Re: Cycling : Thu Jul 05, 2012 8:54 am  

Haggis Fax wrote:

I would argue that Sky need to be taking on a BMC approach. Ride at the very front for Wiggins. Stay out of trouble and give Wiggins as many loyal domestiques as possible come the sharp end of a 3 week tour. Continue as they are and they could easily be down to 5 men left in the race come the first time trial.

They've had a bit of bad luck, Froome's puncture on stage 2, but had they taken the BMC approach you describe they'd not have been involved in anything like the number of crashes. And we saw last year, that it only takes one coming together to ruin the entire plan.
I think they've been hedging their bets a little between yellow and green. They need to make a decision on which it's going to be and do it quickly.

Re: Cycling : Thu Jul 05, 2012 9:36 am  

Today will tell. Ideal Cav stage win scenario - if he hangs back then the decision has been made.

If he goes for it then Brailsford has some sort of master plan around deflecting pressure from Wiggo or Cav is unwilling to listen or the team really does have split strategies.

So.....I'll go for a Greipel win today.

[John_D]

Re: Cycling : Thu Jul 05, 2012 9:47 am  

Haggis Fax wrote:

Today will tell. Ideal Cav stage win scenario - if he hangs back then the decision has been made.

If he goes for it then Brailsford has some sort of master plan around deflecting pressure from Wiggo or Cav is unwilling to listen or the team really does have split strategies.

So.....I'll go for a Greipel win today.

Unless... Is this the last proper sprinters stage for ages? Get this out of the way, then focus entirely on Bradley.

So yeah, Greipel.

Re: Cycling : Thu Jul 05, 2012 11:44 am  

Ok this is my take on things

Whilst I agree that BMC's approach is protecting Cadel. It's also making the team do alot of the work upfront of the peloton. Where as sky are just that little bit further back saving their legs, then helping Cav go for the intermediates and using bernie and EBH helping cav. Will we also then see Cav return the favour once the flat stages are on hold for EBH and Wiggo?

Not every team can boss he front. I'm sure leakygaz,etc... would all like to have their leaders there, but it can't be done short of having several echelons of differing teams one abreast filling the road. So whilst he is slightly back I think he's playing it right. Did you see how he let himself get caught up in tuesday last 3km crash he then saved vital energy in not having to chase Evans and maintain the same time up the climb to the finish.

On sky's game - They have openly admitted that Yellow is what they want this year and the parcours is as close as it's ever going to get to being "The Year" especially with the riders involved and more noticeably those who aren't. As for Green. Cav has stated all year that for him the olympics are key. All his training is aimed at that race. Hence the team selection which only gives him 2 riders. However it makes sense to still go for the intermediates. It's widely thought that he'll pull out on the last rest day. Now if they can get to there and Cav has managed to get the required points and still either be very close or in green come that rest day with such lack of support then I'm sure that you will see him stay and take it all the way to Paris, giving sky a very rare yellow/green combo.
If come the rest day he's well off the mark or feeling the miles he can jump off, job done, wins in hand as per plan! It's a win -win situation.
Next year though you will see a very different sky TDF team as they will have to give him more protection and support. Maybe even at the expense of Wiggo's yellow aspirations. But by then the olympics will be over and sky will have a full roster to choose from. I fully expect G, swifty and maybe Kennaugh to be in it next year.

Re: Cycling : Thu Jul 05, 2012 11:50 am  

Haggis Fax wrote:

Today will tell. Ideal Cav stage win scenario - if he hangs back then the decision has been made.

If he goes for it then Brailsford has some sort of master plan around deflecting pressure from Wiggo or Cav is unwilling to listen or the team really does have split strategies.

So.....I'll go for a Greipel win today.

They must have split strategies as they have 2 D.S's in the lead car which apparently according to EuroSport is unheard of!

I'll take Cav to come back today