Originally Posted by
Bacciagalupe
Plus, the big gap between them is TT skills. Last year, Andy lost 1' 45" in a 40km TT. I'm not entirely convinced that Andy would put a 2' gap on Contador with Frank's help.
It's probable though that he wouldn't have lost 40 seconds yesterday. And I would like Andy's chances of chipping away 20 seconds or so here and there, better if he had Frank available to attack.
One major difference with the 2 Schlecks, as oppossed to other support riders is that Frank had a decent chance to be highly enough placed that Contador could't let him go. So it wouldn't be just that Frank could provide support, but he could also help wear down Contador.
All this obviously is hypothetical, and it would be a different race with Frank still there making all this unanswerable specualtion, but I think losing Frank was a bigger blow than some people are considering.