No team radios for two stages

Either depending who is in yellow and who is the break the main field won't let anybody get a good lead or the break will get a win. 

Wonder if one of the motorcycles will show time gaps if a break occurs on these stages.

I saw the motorcycle today, with that chalkboard displaying the gap. They were showing it to the breakaway.

This could be an oppotunity for a guy lower down on GC to get some time. Team strategy will fall squarely on the Captains. Should be interesting...

So easy days for the vets like Lance and Hincapie that have been around pre-radio?

Astana is screwed then because they have no idea who the captian on the road is...

I believe that the team's "Captain" and "Leader" can be different people.

For example, Hincapie isn't the "leader" of Columbia, but I'll bet he has a lot of input into decisions that are made on the road.

I don't know if Lance will emerge as the team's "leader" or not. But I do think he can still be a "captain" in terms of experience and understanding strategy.

Nope. And Neither Lance nor George was in a TDF pre-radio...Motorola started using them in 1991. Lance joined motorola in 1992. It'll have been years since they've ridden in a grand tour stage without radio...but...

I'd bet each team has practiced going radio-less at least once in a Dauphine, Giro, or TDC stage just to make sure they don't make a silly error...

In years past Lance was Le Patron of the peloton.  If someone started a break and LA didn't like it, the peloton would reel them in.  Any signs LA has as much clout this year, over the whole peloton, as in the past?

The latest from Velonews:
http://www.velonews.com/article/94980

The petition mentioned in the velonews article, IMHO, is just a smokescreen. The two factors cited were tactics and safety.
The tactics argument is moot...the non-French teams are just grumpy that it puts a wildcard into the race, potentially opening the door for a team that's not as good. Read: Astana doesn't want risk. That's why the top half of the teams signed the petition, the bottom half didn't.

The safety argument is valid....especially after the stage in Rome (I think) in the Giro where there were cars on the crit course. However, even with race radios, the peleton almost clipped that van on that was parked on the inside of the corner on a downhill in stage 6 of this tour. I agree, the riders have a right to be safe....I don't agree it equates to needing radios.

Safety can be achieved in several ways...more communication with team cars with riders dropping back, more vigilance in the peleton, rock-solid sweeping of the course prior to the peleton rolling through, the escort motorcycles sharing safety information if it comes to the attention of the race official (there's one with any break, and one with the peleton, and they talk constantly), pre-riding the course the night before, or additional spotters on-course. The radio excuse is bunk. 

Or, they could just all take their cell phones and use twitter.

ETA: I hope this doesn't end up in some trumped-up protest that either delays or cancels stages. That would be bad for racing, bad for Lance, bad for letour, and reinforce every negative stereotype that's out there. The risks are manageable; be creative, manage them.

Edited by rkreuser 2009-07-11 5:29 PM