# Jan says im Ready



## QUiTSPiNiNArOuND (Mar 15, 2002)

He wins the TT in Suisse...hes good to go!


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## giovanni sartori (Feb 5, 2004)

I believe he won the ITT in last year's TDS too.


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## jbrumm (Aug 8, 2004)

*Yeah, he's good...*

to have his _ss handed to him in July be a certain Texan. Jan is obviously peaking too early.


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Ready because he won in a weak ITT field?*

The real cycling has been going on in the DL.


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## peterpen (May 5, 2004)

dagger said:


> The real cycling has been going on in the DL.


Yeah right, that's why he beat Rogers, the World TT Champ 2 yrs. running. And Cancellara, who has been known to win a TT or two himself. And Totschnig, who was 7th at last year's TdF. If you only follow Americans, then I guess you're right and the 'real cycling' was at the DL.  If you believe there's more to life than what CTS/Trek/OLN/Nike/Disco spoonfeeds you, you'd notice that the TdS and DL fields were fairly comparable.

That said, it's good for Ullrich to have something in the win column but I'd have a hard time betting against Armstrong IF things go the way they have for him the in the past years. He looks good, has a very strong team, and umm, has won a few of those TdF things before. However, maybe a bit of bad fish, or an obviously on-form Vino attacking and burning out some key lieuteneants before the final climb, or some of the B-list contenders like Leipheimer and Landis (hey - they're Americans! wave that flag!) getting together and going up the road - then we might get to see an exciting race. Personally, I'd love the schadenfreude of Ullrich kicking Armstrong in the @ss as he heads out the door to drink beer on the beach, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.


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## Bianchigirl (Sep 17, 2004)

Compare and contrast:
Tour de Suisse:
1 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile 44.06
2 Bradley McGee (Aus) Française des Jeux 0.15
3 Michael Rogers (Aus) Quickstep 0.18
4 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Fassa Bortolo 0.39
5 Serguei Gonchar (Ukr) Domina Vacanze 0.40
6 Vladimir Gussev (Rus) Team CSC 0.46
7 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC 0.58
8 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC 1.02
9 Dario Frigo (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 1.08
10 Patrik Sinkewitz (Ger) Quick.Step 1.09

D-L
Santiago Botero (COL) Phonak	1:00:06 
2	Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner +0:01 
3	Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel +0:26 
4	Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak +0:39 
5	Alexandre Vinokourov (KAZ) T-Mobile +1:00 
6	Oscar Pereiro (SPA) Phonak +1:09 
7	George Hincapie (USA) Discovery Channel +1:11 
8	Marzio Bruseghin (ITA) Fassa Bortolo +1:14 
9	Ivan Gutierrez (ESP) Illes Balears +1:16 
10	Sebastian Lang (GER)

Fairly comparable fields - both feature a world TT champ (wins at the D-L, one beats another at TdS) - but a weak ITT field? Rogers, Cancellara, Gonchar, Voigt, Julich? I know it's easy to go where Armstrong is, but good racing goes on without him - in fact most good racing goes on without him as he virtually never races...


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## cityeast (Sep 16, 2004)

*They're coming through my town today...*

At around the 50km mark. If the local weather radar is accurate, then its going to be a fairly wet race. Might go and snap a few shots as they swing past. 

And if it is wet it could get nasty, there are a few tricky angled railway crossings on the way, that are dangerous enough when its dry.


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## cityeast (Sep 16, 2004)

*Trains put on hold....*

A few pics I took. Damn digital camera isn't so good for sports shots. I throu


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*Comparable*



peterpen said:


> Yeah right, that's why he beat Rogers, the World TT Champ 2 yrs. running. And Cancellara, who has been known to win a TT or two himself. And Totschnig, who was 7th at last year's TdF. If you only follow Americans, then I guess you're right and the 'real cycling' was at the DL.  If you believe there's more to life than what CTS/Trek/OLN/Nike/Disco spoonfeeds you, you'd notice that the TdS and DL fields were fairly comparable.
> 
> That said, it's good for Ullrich to have something in the win column but I'd have a hard time betting against Armstrong IF things go the way they have for him the in the past years. He looks good, has a very strong team, and umm, has won a few of those TdF things before. However, maybe a bit of bad fish, or an obviously on-form Vino attacking and burning out some key lieuteneants before the final climb, or some of the B-list contenders like Leipheimer and Landis (hey - they're Americans! wave that flag!) getting together and going up the road - then we might get to see an exciting race. Personally, I'd love the schadenfreude of Ullrich kicking Armstrong in the @ss as he heads out the door to drink beer on the beach, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.


The races and fields are roughly comparable certainly, however, it would sure be swell if we could all peep the parcours in the last 3 stages of Jans current "training effort". Very very interesting watching there as behold, there are actual climbs to be done there.


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## Dwayne Barry (Feb 16, 2003)

dagger said:


> The real cycling has been going on in the DL.


I was thinking just the opposite, that is a stacked TT field: Rogers, Cancellara, Gonchar, Julich, Voight. Other than Armstrong/Botero it's not missing too many of the top TTers in the world.


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*hehe..*



Bianchigirl said:


> Compare and contrast:
> Tour de Suisse:
> 1 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile 44.06
> 2 Bradley McGee (Aus) Française des Jeux 0.15
> ...


I was a little fired up after the DL final stage yesterday. Chalk it up to over zealnousness.


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## Bianchigirl (Sep 17, 2004)

thanks for those - will you make it to any other stages - stage 7 with the 3 hors cats looiks incredible...


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*Boy...if he says it one more time*



QUiTSPiNiNArOuND said:


> He wins the TT in Suisse...hes good to go!



In every interview..."I am ready", "I am on form"...My gosh...Is this what we are going to have to hear for the next 3 weeks or so? How often are the reporters going to do this to us? They are doing it with all the contenders and non contenders. I mean what rider is going to say " I am not ready...I am not in form"? If I owned a reporting agency and my reporters kept giving me the same drivel everyday, I would hold their paycheck till they brought me something new.


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## OJack (May 22, 2003)

So after 9 stages to watch Jan...what does everyone think his chances are now?


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## divve (May 3, 2002)

I'm disappointed in Jan's climbing....what else is new.....


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## Silver222 (Aug 5, 2004)

I used to think this was his year. Not anymore though....he just can't accelerate fast enough on the climbs. If he loses 30 seconds at the end of each climbing stage, I don't think he can get that back in the TTs.


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## Old_school_nik (May 21, 2002)

*Did you see Julich's comment on Jan's chances?*

He said he'll be "minutes behind Lance and Basso whern the Mtn attcks come.... he's been doing that Deisel thing for so long and it just [no i am paraphrasing here] leaves him unable to go with the accelerations..."

Although, someone pointed out that the in 2003 when Jan gave Lance trouble he finished TDS in 7th place or maybe that was the year he won in 97 not sure.

-Nik


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## PatM (Jan 28, 2004)

*Sunday's Coverage*

Did anyone else notice some of the TV shots of Jan during the final climb on Sunday ? He looked like he was suffering more than everyone else. Sweat was pouring off his face, everyone else they showed was in pain but they did not look like they were having that much trouble. I thought before that he was going to give Lance a hard time, but after watching on Sunday I think it will be more of the same, Lance(or someone else) looks back and rides away.


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## divve (May 3, 2002)

He was sweating over riding those $5000 dollar wheels and not being able to deliver


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*Jan oh Jan*

It was at best DISAPPOINTING to see his climbing. I await to update the Jan excuse thread.

Why cant he get the fact that hey, your style is not winning the TDF? 

Before we have a Jan hate, Lance love thread, I will state again, Jan has freakish natural talent and is a class act. WHY doesnt he clue in about his weight. He is no longer so young. Imagine the energy required to get into form after gaining that much weight. He could have used it more wisely training to win the TDF as opposed to getting lighter. A shame.


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## mgp (Feb 3, 2004)

Jan doesn't have the hunger. He needs a season or two with Bjarne and the "learn to tap your inner beast" preseason adventure camps if he wants to win it again.


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## Jesse D Smith (Jun 11, 2005)

Dwayne Barry said:


> I was thinking just the opposite, that is a stacked TT field: Rogers, Cancellara, Gonchar, Julich, Voight. Other than Armstrong/Botero it's not missing too many of the top TTers in the world.


Exactly. Nothing against Hincapie, but inspired or not, when you see his name that far up, it says something about the class of the competition. 
It will be interesting to see how the results of that TT compare to the prologue.


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

Silver222 said:


> I used to think this was his year. Not anymore though....he just can't accelerate fast enough on the climbs. If he loses 30 seconds at the end of each climbing stage, I don't think he can get that back in the TTs.


I agree with that. I know the TDS is not the time for him to be peaking but the close up shots of his face during the last climb of stage 9 didn't portray a man on the verge of having the sort of climbing form that wins the TDF. He has about three weeks of training time left but I doubt he'll find the necessary explosive acceleration he's lacked for all these years. The Diesel technique won't win in this current class of competitors. If he could jump like Vinokourov he would be great.


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## 97 Teran (Feb 17, 2004)

*That's the great paradox, innit?*



mgp said:


> Jan doesn't have the hunger. He needs a season or two with Bjarne and the "learn to tap your inner beast" preseason adventure camps if he wants to win it again.


He's got too much of the run-of-the-mill hunger, and not enough of the one that wins major races. He's not had sufficient desire (with the possible exception of '03) since '97, plain and simple.


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*not exactly*



97 Teran said:


> He's got too much of the run-of-the-mill hunger, and not enough of the one that wins major races. He's not had sufficient desire (with the possible exception of '03) since '97, plain and simple.


Jan has plain and simpled a Vuelta overall in 99 and an Olympic Gold. Yeah, a real meat and tator palmares set there.

Bottom line though, he is lacking in forced accelerations in climbs.......


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## dagger (Jul 22, 2004)

*I think he's got the hunger this year*



mgp said:


> Jan doesn't have the hunger. He needs a season or two with Bjarne and the "learn to tap your inner beast" preseason adventure camps if he wants to win it again.


He axed his teamate Erik Zabel to avoid any distractions from the main purpose of defeating Armstrong.


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

ttug said:


> Jan has plain and simpled a Vuelta overall in 99 and an Olympic Gold. Yeah, a real meat and tator palmares set there.
> 
> Bottom line though, he is lacking in forced accelerations in climbs.......


That is the bottom line. He has failed to adapt his climbing technique and specific training to facitlitate forceful accelerations on the climbs.


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## ttug (May 14, 2004)

*a good question here*



rocco said:


> That is the bottom line. He has failed to adapt his climbing technique and specific training to facitlitate forceful accelerations on the climbs.


There was at one point alot of speculation as to HOW oh HOW woud one get this done?

Anybody here recall Hincapies website and the workouts he provided there? George is also NOT a small guy by any stretch and yet, we do see him in the climbs setting the pace for Lance.

I wonder what it would take for Jan to be able to put in forced attckas on HC climbs. There was a glimmer in 2003 on the Tourmalet, however, that was one climb before the last of that stage (I believe it was 15 and Lance gained a minute on that last climb). It would have been fun to see Jan attacking on that last climb. JUST a thought


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## rocco (Apr 30, 2005)

ttug said:


> There was at one point alot of speculation as to HOW oh HOW woud one get this done?
> 
> Anybody here recall Hincapies website and the workouts he provided there? George is also NOT a small guy by any stretch and yet, we do see him in the climbs setting the pace for Lance.
> 
> I wonder what it would take for Jan to be able to put in forced attckas on HC climbs. There was a glimmer in 2003 on the Tourmalet, however, that was one climb before the last of that stage (I believe it was 15 and Lance gained a minute on that last climb). It would have been fun to see Jan attacking on that last climb. JUST a thought


I need to find and check out those Hincapie climbing workouts. I'm trying to convert from a Midwestern flat lander to reasonably good climber here in SoCal. I went up 2000' in an hour last night. Not so great but I'm getting better. I want to try to slay some flat landers at the hilly Milwaukee lake front race during Stupor Week.


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## Fogdweller (Mar 26, 2004)

ttug said:


> There was a glimmer in 2003 on the Tourmalet, however, that was one climb before the last of that stage (I believe it was 15 and Lance gained a minute on that last climb). It would have been fun to see Jan attacking on that last climb. JUST a thought


Ya, it was a weak attack at best and Mayo followed. Armstrong and the others didn't even react since it was over half way up the climb and Ullrich can't decend worth a spit. Perhaps he just needed a photo for Bianchi's annual calander, one with an out of focus yellow jersey in the distant background as he powered up with his climbing face on. I really hope Jan can produce something amazing this year but Sunday was hard to watch for a fan of his.


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