Hincrapie

Only Big George could manage to piss me off twice in one day. He finished third in the prologue-his best performance in ages! But, can he just say he's stoked not to have crashed and ridden well? NO. He manages to get a Velonews headline saying he's "disappointed". WTF? As if the headline isn't annoying enough, he drops this pearl of wisdom, "Man, Kloden must have really gone for it," No shit you tactical genius. If you want to win you have to "really" go for it. Is this an insight into why he fails to deliver the goods?
Second George item. This photo from cyclingnews.com.(who's prologue tech photo shoot should earn them some journalistic bike porn award!!). Only George would add an extra lever for a 9K TT. The idea is to go fast. Real fast. Not to worry about slowing down.
Hincapie might be out of his mind, he has failed to hit any of the major objectives he as set for himself for the past two year. This was a red letter total success of a day for him. Third Place. No crash. etc. But can he just be thankful? No. He got beat by a guy who has won Paris Roubaix and the World TT championship and by another guy who has poduim'd at the TDF. Only getting beat by them is a huge achievement for him.
Rumors abound that he will go to T-Mobile, but that move doesn't seem to benefit T-Mobile very much. To transition from a "classics leader" to a road captain or "super domestique" a la Van Petegam requires that you have some tactical sense and abilities which George seems to be lacking big time. I would guess that if T-Mobile picks him up he will be back retired or back in the US by the end of the 08 Spring Classics. Hincapie makes more sense on a US team or as a domestique on one of the Belguim classics super squads.