What was T-Mobile thinking????

Okay, this is going to be the LAST of my Tour de France analysis posts....

I was really bothered by the fact that Vinokourov kept attaching and being pulled back by his own teammates. I've sort of tried to figure out why. What follows is the result of what my little brain could figure out.

Please understand that tons of this is purely conjecture. I really have no idea what T-Mobile was thinking.

I've said it before... Lance really has changed how the tour is ridden. You not only need to prepare a certain way and bring a particular type of team to the tour, you also have to be of a very specific body type and riding style to compete. Lance is a relatively compact cyclist that is extremely lean with a HUGE motor. He climbs extremely well at a high cadence and races the time trials with the best of them. (Y'all already know that). He also has an unbelievable level of devotion to and from his team. To compete with Lance, you need to be that kind of rider.

T-Mobile's big problem is that they have no riders like that at the top level.

Vinokourov is compact and climbs well, but the mass that allows him to pull away from the sprint field with 2k left in the final stage of the tour keeps him from going that extra step to climbing like Lance, Rasmussen or Valverde do (or Pantani did).

Ullrich is a big, powerful rider a-la Riis and Indurain. You've all heard the comparison about pushing a big gear in the mountains VS spinning.

Kloden is somewhere in between and doesn’t really have a reputation of being a team player.

Because each of them doesn’t match up head to head against Lance, why not race all three of them against him?

I think we all expected the White and Blue train (the Discovery version of the Postal Blue Train) to be setting the pace in the mountains. They always have great climbers around Lance to set the pace and protect him. They're great in shelling people off the back by lifting the pace.

Would T-Mobile have benefited by having its own group of super climbers to protect and set pace for Ullrich? Would it have been possible to have had a “Pink Train” to try and "out-Postal" the Discovery channel? Personally, I don't think that would have been possible or even productive.

T-Mobile needed a different tactic. They'd proven that Ullrich, if in good form, could more or less stay close to Lance on his own. Having team-mates around wouldn't help him stay on when the pace gets lifted high in the mountains. He's limited in how fast and hard he can turn over that "big gear" that Phil and Paul talk about all the time. He knows his body and can lift the pace when he's able. He's still going to lose some time, but he showed that he could pull back and keep them fairly close.

T-Mobile needed a different tactic. They needed to find a way to isolate Lance and wear down the Discovery team. It is the only way that they would be able to have a chance at beating him.

I wish there was a way of knowing what T-Mobile's team orders were. My guess was that their hopes were to have 3 guys high in the ranking (Vinokourov, Kloden and Ullirch). By doing that, each time one of them attacked, Discovery and CSC would be forced to respond. Since they'd have to respond and chase down 3 attackers, they'd wear out quicker and be more vulnerable.

With that in mind, Ullrich could still be their main guy... he just had a few backups close by in case he faltered. They could step up and be the threat. I think they knew Ullrich would always be high in the GC. His worst placing in the tour is 4th. The other guys were just an addition to put pressure on Disco and CSC.

That is the way T-Mobile seemed to ride at least. The problem was that Vinokourov and later Kloden fell back too far to be a threat. Discovery and CSC didn't have to chase either of them down on every attack. When Vinokourov fell back in the GC, they never really changed their tactics. Vinokourov was still out attacking even though Disco and CSC weren't chasing. That left it to Ullrich and Kloden to bring him back and try attacks of their own. That was their mistake. Once Vinokourov fell back in the standings, they should have changed tactics. Send Vinokourov out now and then to try and get time back, but also keep him back to help Ullrich in his times of need.

In many ways the tactic worked. Lance was more exposed on this tour than he has been in any previous year. He spent more time riding without teammates on CAT 1 and HC climbs than in most of the other tours. There were plenty of times that aggression by T-Mobile lower on the slopes paid off higher up in isolating Lance. Had T-Mobile really had the tripple threat going, maybe they could have beaten him down a bit more.

It is an interesting tactic and, if it is really what they were trying to do, I give them credit for trying something new and different to beat Lance.

Pete