2004 Tour de France - Stage 4 - Team Time Trial

Today's stage is the team time trial. More akin to a time trial stage, each team leaves together... all nine members together. They then take advantage of drafting to haul ass.

The team time trial tests the depth of your team. Some teams, like Mayo's, are phenomenol at one aspect of the tour but weak in others. The team time trial attempts to guage the whole team.

The clock stops when the fifth member of your team crosses the line.

Last year USPS won the team time trial.

One big change this year is a rule that limits a team's potential loss on the team time trial. In the past, if you lost by 8 minutes, each team member fell back in the general classification by 8 minutes... a massive blow. But the new rule creates a maximum potential loss of three minutes. This helps weaker teams and may potentially take some drive out of the lesser teams.

We'll see. I have the computer hooked up in front of the TV now. It's starting in 30 minutes.

Update: The race has started. It's a mess. Rain and slippery roads combined with time trial bikes equals lots of crashes. Phonak has had two incidents. CSC had two. Ullrish had an issue. USPS's Noval has fallen off the back.

It's ugly out there.

Update: USPS is 5th at the first time split. But not to worry, they're probably better at pacing than the competition. Ullrich's T-Mobile was 7th at the first split and 2nd at the second split. Better teams will accelerate near the end... or at least maintain pace while the competition slows.

Update: T-mobile crosses the line in second. Phonak is down to only five riders. Tyler waits on one of his down riders. Phonak crosses line with best time so far. USPS not across line yet. They're tracking with the best time at the second time split.

Update: USPS crosses the third split with a 1:08 advantage. They're rocking! Barring an accident they'll take the stage!

Update: USPS wins the stage! Lance takes the yellow jersey! 1:12:03 vs. 1:13:10 for Phonak in second. Strong win! Go Lance!

Now, because of the new rules, Phonak will only lose 20 seconds off of USPS. 40 seconds off for the third place team. 60 seconds for the fourth place team. And on until 3 minutes.

But the psychological win is even bigger than the 20 seconds.

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