July 2009

[Bierzo Baggie]

Glaconman, I hope you don’t mind your training diary being converted into an occasional Tour de France meeting point… after all, you’re the one who has ridden up Ventoux

I've marvelled at the spectacle of the TdF so far, though there's plenty about it that I don't understand, like the teamwork (both between them all, and within the actual teams

Andy, each team has a team leader. If your team leader has a chance of winning the Tour, the rest of the team will work for that objective. They’ll protect their lead rider, neutralize breakaways by rivals, etc..

What makes this Tour unique is that the strongest team, Astana, has two leaders, Contador and Armstrong. The guy who normally makes all the tactical decisions is the team manager who rides around in the car. In the case of Astana it’s officially Johan Bruyneel who pulls the shots… but everybody knows it’s really Armstrong.

Now, a team leader can change mid-race (in 97 a young Jan Ullrich dropped back to ask the team manager for permission to attack fat-arse Bernie Riis, his team leader and ended up winning the race) but I don’t think we’ve ever seen two yellow jersey contenders from the same team scrapping it out in the very first week totally oblivious to the guy in the car!

I reckon Armstrong will eventually support Contador but he’s going to make it hell for him if he can… the wily old fox wants a worthy successor.

Revelation of the Tour so far ...Bradley Wiggins.