Sweet Jesus, here is a DS you can’t bluff. Having Raas, Tchmil or Sean Yates as a director must make you a better rider; you will be getting little sympathy from the team car with one of these guys behind the wheel. Some ex-racers really let go when they retire but only Sean Yates looks meaner and leaner after he quits the pro peloton. This photo is quite a contrast to an old photo from his early years in the professional ranks.
We have always held Sean in very high esteem. He has always appeared unstoppable, indestructible, a cyclist who actually might end up winning a bar fight. I bet he can put some of the present climbers on the Sky team in a spot of bother on the flats any time he rides with them. He even looks bandaged up here like he went down in a corner. And that black wrist band, I reckon it is a HTFU, Rule V special. No need to speak to a rider when he drops back to the team car to moan about the work being done on the front for Cav, just a quick look towards his black wrist band is all it takes.
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@The Oracle
The new face of Chanel #5. Brad, spritz on a little Rule 5 instead, huh?
@RedRanger
Back in the 80s/90s Yates was the coolest of the cool. I used to love watching him in the Tour - once he was on the front of the peloton setting out to reel in a break you just knew that they'd be strung out behind him within minutes, riders being shelled out the back with no mercy.
@frank
That's the one. What a badass.
He's a damn cool looking guy. Makes me hate him just a little bit. Bastard.
And he definitely still rides.
Joe Parkin had a few things to say about LeMan in his book _Dog in a Hat_. Later in LeMan's career, Joe was with him in a race. LeMan apparently looked just shelled, and in an exasperated moment, asked Joe, "Isn't this really fast? Aren't these guys going really fast?" Vestiges of the quantum leap in speed of the peloton LeMan has commented on many times since.
As I've learned more about the history of our sport, I've come to understand his bitterness. It really turned me off at first, but I begin now to understand.
\\ 1994 Tour de France: Sean Yates (blood-pipes image) w/ Lance Armstrong
@frank
It's only in that last photo that I can see any resemblance between the man now and the who ate all the pies in the off season version.
From Wikipedia
"For a rouleur Yates climbed very well for his weight."
OK so which joker is going to fess up to that.
Mind you I bet he did/does.
The Telegraph: Team Sky sports director Sean Yates plots downfall of RadioShack's Lance Armstrong
(great read and info)
Most importantly, he showed Armstrong how to corner the hitherto unique Yates way. The classic style, and still the most common technique, going into a sharp bend is to open out your inside leg from the knee, almost to 90 degrees which shifts your body's weight to that side.
Partly because Yates was so big and tall for a Tour rider he found this uncomfortable so chose instead to do the complete opposite - press his inside leg hard against the top tube of the bike frame.
That in turn enabled him in turn to press hard down on the opposite pedal and gave the bike greater stability and therefore speed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/lancearmstrong/6989480/Team-Sky-sports-director-Sean-Yates-plots-downfall-of-RadioShacks-Lance-Armstrong.html