Tour de France Stage 4 Team Time Trial

[pchang]

Can someone explain the results to me? It makes no sense.

Discovery beats CSC by 2 seconds. How is it that Zabriskie goes from 2 seconds ahead to 1'26" behind and Jens Voigt and Bobby Julich from the same team (CSC) pass him? I thought everyone from the team got the same time. Isn't that the point of the team time trial?

[alva]

He was left behind, so his indivial time counts.

If he would have fallen withing the last Km. he time would have been the same as the group he was with.

He was very unlucky.

[Zopperoni]

Yea, another 800 yards, and he would have been fine and he would have retained the yellow jersey by .03 of a second

[alva]

That's not certain Zop. When two guys have the same time, they add up the time behind the comma from all time trials.
Weird system, I know but that's how it's done.

If he wouldn't have fallen, CSC would have would anyway.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by alva


If he wouldn't have fallen, CSC would have would anyway.

if you mean "would have won", I agree its quite likely since he is a fast rider and his team would have had a couple of seconds of "oh crap what do we do?" before pushing onward.

[pchang]

Does the jersey (numbering) order have any significance? Is the team leader always the first jersey number? Does having the last jersey number mean "you're on the team, but will be the first to get kicked off as soon as we can find someone better?" What does it mean that Zabriskie has the lst jersey number for the CSC team?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by alva
He was left behind, so his indivial time counts.

If he would have fallen withing the last Km. he time would have been the same as the group he was with.

Right. From the rules:

"Riders who arrive on their own after the 5th rider in their team will be credited for the general ranking with the actual time they took to complete the stage."

According to reports, he was pretty bloodied with a torn jersey. I'm not sure if the crashing rules apply to a time trial since the intent is to protect riders who get caught in a mass crach at the finish.

Originally posted by alva


He was very unlucky.

yes and no . . . Avoiding a crash is skill-- while sometime luck can play a big part with things like spectator interference, blowout or a touch from another cyclist, I don't think this was the case here. Riding a paceline, it is the responsibility of each cyclist not to touch the wheel in front of him. If thats what happened, its unfortunate but ultimately a case where an error by a cyclist themself has taken them well back into the pack.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by pchang
Does the jersey (numbering) order have any significance? Is the team leader always the first jersey number? Does having the last jersey number mean "you're on the team, but will be the first to get kicked off as soon as we can find someone better?" What does it mean that Zabriskie has the lst jersey number for the CSC team?

Well the "team leader" seems to have the lowest jersey number on a team. Other than that I'm not sure. If you look at say team CSC, Jens Voigt has the second highest number and I don't think anyone would put him near the bottom of the team. Rubeira occupies the #8 spot on the Discovery team

[Flubber]

Oh and Armstrong and Discovery will have to decide how much they want to keep the yellow jersey over the next few days. The next 3 stages are very flat so it will be a matter of whether they will bother to chase down breakaways. Quickstep (Booonen) and Cofidis (O'grady) may be their allies in this as they try to set up sprint finishes. Although the gaps are now such that there are any number of riders that Discovery won't be fussed if they see them go off the front.

Saturday could be interesting since its mainly flat but has a nice second cat. climb at the finish where contenders could try to move up the GC but its probably not big enough to drop many folks. Sunday has 6 categorized climbs ( but 4 of them are only cat. 3) and will probably drop off some of the field but the reality is that its a long downhill so that the pack may be able to regroup.

Monday is a rest day and Tuesday next, the race (for the GC) begins in earnest-- a long flat stage that ends with two cat. 1 climbs should weed out some of the also rans. Then 2 HC climbs the next day should split the field even further. I think these are the stages where the true contenders need to show themselves since frankly it can be real tough to get away on the flat stages when the entire peloton wants to hunt you down

[Zopperoni]

Not only Cofidis and Quickstep, also Lotto (McEwen) and CA (Hushovd/Kirsipuu) will be there to go for the sprint win.

Discovery will have an easy path up to stage ten, the huge stage to Courchevel, and stage eleven, the prestige stage to Briancon.

I expect guys like Heras, Botero, Gonzalez de Galdeano, Ullrich, Menchov, and Basso to give their best then. The next few days are for guys like Vasseur, Dekker, and Rous.

[Paul]

Originally posted by Flubber
Well the "team leader" seems to have the lowest jersey number on a team. Other than that I'm not sure. If you look at say team CSC, Jens Voigt has the second highest number and I don't think anyone would put him near the bottom of the team. Rubeira occupies the #8 spot on the Discovery team

The team leader has the 1st number. The rest of the team goes in alphabetical order.

[alva]

As far as their number is concerned, only the "1" on every jersey has some meaning.
They will usually depict how they did last year.

1 = Armstrong
11 = Basso?
21 = Ulrich
And so on. However, there are many exceptions.

[alva]

yes and no . . . Avoiding a crash is skill-- while sometime luck can play a big part with things like spectator interference, blowout or a touch from another cyclist, I don't think this was the case here. Riding a paceline, it is the responsibility of each cyclist not to touch the wheel in front of him. If thats what happened, its unfortunate but ultimately a case where an error by a cyclist themself has taken them well back into the pack.

Chances are that something went wrong with his bike that hasn't been disclosed yet (flat tyre, bad chain,...) or something as stupid as oil on the road, in those cases it is unlucky.
Having said that, he is not known for his mad leet handling skilzz.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Paul

The team leader has the 1st number. The rest of the team goes in alphabetical order.

Don't know how I didn't see that. When I actually looked at the team lists in number order it was obvious

[Flubber]

Originally posted by alva
As far as their number is concerned, only the "1" on every jersey has some meaning.
They will usually depict how they did last year.

1 = Armstrong
11 = Basso?
21 = Ulrich
And so on. However, there are many exceptions.

Actually according to http://www.letour.fr/2005/TDF/LIVE/us/400/coureurs.html its Ullrich with #11 and Basso with 21. Last years finish was Armstron, Kloden , Basso, Ullrich so T-mobile gets the 11 number based on their rider Kloden.

So its the best finish by your best team member, I guess. I assume if a person switches teams, their team still maintains the result.