Team Leader Question

Basically the Team Leader would be the guy that everyone else works for.  If you notice on Astana, Popovich and a few others are the ones that will drag, Lance, Contador etc over the mountains, do alot if not all of the pulling when the pace needs to be picked up, heading back to team cars for bottles, etc.

If say Lance loses a ton of time on the first mountain stage, he goes from being a guy that people "work" for, to a guy that should "work" for contador or whomever is leading and has the best chance to win.

When a team has one leader who is in GC contention you have 8 folks who are pretty much doing nothing but working for that one guy vs. Astana who have a few guys in contention, who is going to do all the work?

got it... thanks

that's what I thought they were saying,,,,   I guess I'm still in that mindset when I hear the team leader,, that it's the person giving directions to everyone.. seeing the big picture,, but not always the person that gets the glory..

thanks

Whilst the 'team leader' is usually the person on the team who has the best chance of winning it can also be refering to somone who has a lot of experiance.  This type of person could also be refered to as the 'road captain'.

In 1999 Lance was not the team leader.  Frankie Andrue was because he had the experiance even though Lance was the rider they would all be working for.

But, usually 'team leader' is the best placed rider on the team.

FYI:

The first 5 stages are usually flat, and favours the sprinters. So the true time leader at stage 5 is misrepresentative of who is the best overall rider.

Lance being 2nd place right now... well that's just amazing