Tour de Romandie....

[HAKS]

go Mick!

He lost on the last day

[jules21]

i meant, in general.. yeah

[Chuck]

What is worrying for Rogers is that no team mates were able to really support him in the last two stages..

HTC are all about stage and race wins not GC unfortunately. They can pull back breaks on the flat/up and down stages but can't really defend the jersey on genuine mountain stages. If Mick is serious about a shot at a GT it won't be with HTC.

The other worrying thing is his TTing. He really should have put 30secs + on Valverde (and Menchov etc) in the ITT and put the overall beyond their reach. Mick's TTing in GT's and stage races has been only solid at best for years. ITT is HIS discipline, he should be putting big gaps into the non specialists but more often than not he's getting beaten by them.

He is a 3 time World ITT Champion

[toolonglegs]

What is worrying for Rogers is that no team mates were able to really support him in the last two stages..

HTC are all about stage and race wins not GC unfortunately. They can pull back breaks on the flat/up and down stages but can't really defend the jersey on genuine mountain stages. If Mick is serious about a shot at a GT it won't be with HTC.

The other worrying thing is his TTing. He really should have put 30secs + on Valverde (and Menchov etc) in the ITT and put the overall beyond their reach. Mick's TTing in GT's and stage races has been only solid at best for years. ITT is HIS discipline, he should be putting big gaps into the non specialists but more often than not he's getting beaten by them.

He is a 3 time World ITT Champion

Yeah they were all at Romandie for Cav...meaning a train!.

ITT is HIS discipline

You mean ITT was his discipline...he lost so much weight (and muscle) since those days.Maybe he should of stuck with it...but then again if he hadn't hit the barrier that year in the TDF he might have won it!.

[MichaelB]

I was hoping that Rogers would hold off Valverde, but the penultimate stage was a good indication that even if Mick stayed with valverde, he'd be on his own.

I don't think there were any other HTC guys that could help MR for the last 1/2 of the 4th (?) stage.

Was great to watch though. The weather was crap and a 1/2

[toolonglegs]

The weather was crap and a 1/2

They are lucky it finished when it did....the weather has gt a lot worse since then...4C yesterday at 3pm!...I reckon it would be snowing around the area of the Saturday stage this week.Hmmm....I am not complaining thou....it is my prefered weather after all!.

[Chuck]

ITT is HIS discipline

You mean ITT was his discipline...he lost so much weight (and muscle) since those days.Maybe he should of stuck with it...but then again if he hadn't hit the barrier that year in the TDF he might have won it!.

Was is right, it's been a while since he was a factor in an ITT on the world stage.

Not sure that the weight loss should have had as much of an effect as it seemingly has. LA lost alot of weight but his TTing improved, Contador is a wippet but his TTing is also on the improve (incredibly beating Fab in the final Tour TT last year ). Ullrich, Indurain, Lemond, they all must have experienced some degree of weight loss on the way to becoming GC riders, but they remained very good TTers. It just disappoints (and baffles) me how much Mick seems to have lost.

[toolonglegs]

you might have to pick some un-enhanced riders for your comparisons ...ok we will leave Lemond out.But yes you are right that losing weight didn't affect those guys.

[Chuck]

you might have to pick some un-enhanced riders for your comparisons

I see where you're coming from Mick did ride for T-Mobile though (I know, blasphemy for even suggesting such a thing )

[toolonglegs]