Andy in Chains

[RicodJour]

OK, WTF is up with Schleck's chain issues? His TdSuisse prologue was
pitiful and sad. Is it an equipment issue or does he have a passive-
aggressive bike mechanic?

R

[atriage]

There have been insinuations in the English cycling press that he's
actually quite an inept bike handler.

[ilan]

Cancellara also a had chain problem at the very start of the prologue,
except it only cost him a fraction of a second to recover, and it
didn't seem to affect him too much. Or maybe it did and he would have
won by 20 seconds instead of 9 seconds.

-ilan

[RicodJour]

On Jun 12, 5:35 pm, ilan <ilan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 12, 3:33 pm, RicodJour <ricodj...@worldemail.com> wrote:
>
> > OK, WTF is up with Schleck's chain issues?  His TdSuisse prologue was
> > pitiful and sad.  Is it an equipment issue or does he have a passive-
> > aggressive bike mechanic?
>

> Cancellara also a had chain problem at the very start of the prologue,
> except it only cost him a fraction of a second to recover, and it
> didn't seem to affect him too much. Or maybe it did and he would have
> won by 20 seconds instead of 9 seconds.

That was a little bobble. He over-Grubered it at the start.
Schleck's thing is just fookin' weird. He's got a nasty case of the
chain gremlins. Is there a betting line on Andy having a chain
malfunction on a mountain stage in the Tour?

R

[ilan]

As the guy on Swiss TV said, Cancellara is very careful with his
equipement and actually tests it before the ride, which is why he was
surprised at the glitch. The point is that Andy Schleck has some gaps
in his understanding, and now that he's actually running the team,
there isn't anyone to force him to do things right, kind of like
Millar's chain problem in the 2003 Tour. He could end up like Zulle
whose fateful crashes were so numerous that they went beyond bad
luck.

-ilan

[ilan]

To add to this, my enduring image of Andy Schleck is his downhill
pursuit where he lost last year's tour in which he is on the drops in
the straightaways and goes on the brake hoods in the turns, the exact
opposite of what you should do (raising your center of gravity in the
turns). Now for all my years of riding, I have a pretty good
awareness of how terribly weak I am, even compared to amateurs, so
when I see the world's 2nd strongest stage racer riding worse than me,
it's pretty shocking.

This image is the exact opposite of Riis, where in the 1996 tour ITT,
he was taking similar turns in the aero bars by leaning the bike over
with countersteering. I know he admitted to EPO, but from what I can
tell, that drug doesn't improve your cycling skills. We should check
to see if any MotoGP guys have ever tested positive for it.

-ilan

[Scott]

I keep imagining a Python-esque skit: SRAM, SRAM, SRAM, SRAM...

[Victor Kan]

On Jun 12, 9:23 pm, Scott <hendricks_sc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
...

> I keep imagining a Python-esque skit:  SRAM, SRAM, SRAM, SRAM...

Except that Schleck and Leopard-Trek are on Shimano this year.
There's gotta be a Python sketch that'll work with Shimano or Schleck
though.

[Scott]

Hmmmm, maybe they should be on SRAM??? ;-)

[Frederick the Great]

In article
<3672dae2-e148-4462...@t9g2000vbv.googlegroups.com>,
Victor Kan <victo...@gmail.com> wrote:

It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.
_This_ is an ex-chain.

--
Old Fritz

[Simply Fred]

Scott wrote:

>> I keep imagining a Python-esque skit: SRAM, SRAM, SRAM, SRAM...

Victor Kan wrote:
> Except that Schleck and Leopard-Trek are on Shimano this year.
> There's gotta be a Python sketch that'll work with Shimano or Schleck
> though.

Perhaps involving an Al-Qaeda link.