A longer TTT may give a benefit to teams such as HTC-Highroad, Sky who have plenty of former track stars who took part in the team pursuit. For HTC a 23km TTT may well be a warm up for further stages where they hope to deliver Mark Cavendish to the front of the field just a few hundred metres out from the finish line.
But the TTT will see the teams working together, each taken a turn at the front; some teams will have each new leader injecting a little extra pace. Then they will peel off after doing their stint to return to the back at the last wheel waiting their turn again. The time for each member of the team will be taken on the fifth rider home. In a little under three hours all the teams will have travelled the course in formation. Hopefully getting that all important 5th man home together.
After yesterdays reinstatement of a number of riders under the 3 km rule the bigTTT teams will have an interesting time contesting for the Yellow Jersey, Garmin, Sky, HTC are all potnetially in the reckoning. However the man who pulls on Yellow today will be the man who placed highest at the line yesterday in their team, not the first to cross the line.
Here are some of the sights that happened on the last Tour TTT back in 2009. You can catch it live on ITV4 from 2PM.
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