When riding up the big mountains, what benefit is it to have your teammate riding up with you? I’m guessing that you can draft off of him, but are there other benefits that I don’t know of? I see LA riding up with a single teammate and it doesn’t look like he’s tucked in behind him. Any help appreciated.
reasons: pace setting, drafting, sucking wheel
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Other reasons Lance has teammates up front keeping a high pace on the climbs:
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to make it harder for others to attack him - the faster the tempo the harder it is to attack
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to chase down attacks
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to expend their energy in attempts to drop rivals suspected of being in difficulty
I would also assume that it helps to have extra sets of eyes to survey the other riders’ form and intentions.
Thanks for the replies. Jaylew, i’m not questioning your reasons, just trying to understand them.
You said - “2) to chase down attacks”…is this just so LA can draft off of his guy to catch up to the attack? Actually for all the reasons you posted, are the reasons drafting?
Is there a website that explains these kinds of things so that someone new to the sport can understand a little better?
There’s another very good reason to have teammates on the big climbs. Jan Ullrich demonstrated today what happens when you’re all alone in the lead group when he had to drop back to the team car himself to get his drinks, and then work to get back into the lead pack with Lance. I question whether there’s really that much drafting benefit at the speeds they’re going on the big climbs, but the tempo setting and domestique support are the two biggest benefits I can think of.