Give Tinkoff Some Credit
nothing important May 15th, 2008
Oh the drama! Brutt plays possum, Millar breaks his chain, Brutt attacks the break with a K to go. You gotta love the underdog team, and I do. We saw Tinkoff last year the Tour de Georgia, where they did quite well by winning a stage and making its presence felt (despite Tyler’s non-contributions). You also have to like any team that rides Colnalgos and has Dimitri Konishev on staff.
Then you’ve got Oleg Tinkoff, the credit card king of Russia. He’s the real Michael Ball.
(Millar and his (chainless) bike after he does the over-the-barrier toss. Notice the bent in left lever)
Millar does the bike toss. Didn’t he do this a few years ago too? At the Tour? During a tt? So, a broken chain. As far as I can tell, there are two reasons for a broken chain: 1) Defective materials. Sideplate, pin, rollers, whatever. The chain fails. 2) Incorrect assemblage. The mechanic cuts, then reassembles the chain incorrectly, usually not pushing the pin far enough into the side plate, so when massive amounts of force are applied the pin misshapes the corresponding hole and the chain fails. It’s never happened to me, but my measly gams can’t apply massive amounts of power. *3) & 4) Long shot explanations - Sabotage! One of Millar’s former teams got to his bike prior to the stage and rigged it… or - Cross chain. Millar spent the day in the big/big or small/small. An unlikely scenario being the Pro that he is.
Anyway, bike toss!!? C’mon. Show the sled some Pee Wee love. He wouldn’t sell his bike for a million, jillion, trillion dollars.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Vaughters claimed the side plate broke in the middle and not at the pin hole as usual. Sounds like a factory defect or unnoticed damage to me. Tough break but that is not the correct sort of “bike throw”. Sponsors cringe!
Pee-Wee scares me.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:35 am
…and what about Zabriskie always crashing out of at least one race a season? I think he had chain issues in the Tour a few years back in a TT and hit the ground at mach one. Ever since then he always seems to stack it big time every season(ToC ‘07-head injury,Giro-L1).
DZ you need a stunt double.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Maybe Slipstream is using Trek’s new aluminum-pinned chain?
May 15th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
What’s wrong with a little raw emotion showing? It is a difficult sport: timing moves, driving breakaways, chasing down attacks. It’s not like he threw it at the mechanic, or a spectator. Had I been a nearby fan I would have called baseball rules and walked off with the bike! Is there such a thing as ‘bad press’ in this case?
May 16th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I was watching as that happened - that bike toss got my seal of approval for sure. I felt bad for Felt, as I’m a huge fan of theirs (I bought a B12 recently), but what a nightmare to have the chain just fail like that…
May 16th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I think the bike toss was perfectly appropriate.
I, however, am not impressed with Pavel’s win. Sitting in on the break is cowardly. I’m not saying he needed to do more work than the others, but it is BS that he told the others he was “too weak.” You can bet the next time he is in the break that he will get no sympathy from others and I bet he suffers from constant attacks from his breakaway compadres.
Some will say that this is the essence of bike racing…and maybe it is. I just think he may have burned alot of bridges to get that win.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I’m with you Desert Dog — Lance pulled that stunt, but was he as chastised for it as one might expect? Does he get special treatment as El Patron’?
May 17th, 2008 at 5:30 am
I don’t have such a huge problem with Pavel’s win- I did not see the stage in it’s entirety, nor know what were the windy parts etc… that’s part of bike racing- I am OK with it as long as Pavel is not touted as a future Tour winner after winning a stage of a grand tour.
JK in NC
May 18th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Have the Twojohns been influenced by the ways of the Rasta? If they were in the break attacked by Pavel Brutt, would they provide a congratulatory escort to the finish? Are the qualities that Brutt showed in winning stage 5, the same that brought him to our attention? Is there anything left of their podcast personas? Isn’t JG the man who went toe-to-toe with Vaughters over aerodynamic helmet covers in Georgia? A more likely response from our beloved enforcers of cycling etiquette would have been a Brutt toss.—I too only watched the finish, but the Millar scene provides too much fun.