Anyone care to discuss/explain the advantages of “attacking” etc?
Doesn’t seem to make sense to me. Isn’t the fastest time from point A to B the most consistant power output over the distance? Why follow someone that takes off when you know they can’t hold that effort to the end of the road?
Why are mountain stages any different than your typical flat stage where the break aways almost always get caught? What exactly is considered an “Attack”
~Matt
There is little aero advantage to staying in the pack while climbing.
In regards to the Tour: Marketing. Advertising. Keeping the sponsors happy.
While you are right that the most efficient way to ride would be a steady effort, you’re thinking like a time-trialist (and triathlete), not a roadie. There is the mental aspect of the gap, getting out of sight (you’d be amazed how the peleton backs off once they can’t see you any more), putting pressure on a rival by sending a team mate up the road… It’s a team effort. And it’s a mind game. More like rolling chess. You cant think like a triathlete and understand it.
“Isn’t the fastest time from point A to B the most consistant power output over the distance?”
Nope. Consistent power output does not mean fast.
Why follow someone that takes off when you know they can’t hold that effort to the end of the road?
Who says they have to hold that effort? All they have to do is put some time into you then chill off the front and ride the same effort as you (if they are in a group). How do you KNOW what effort others can hold anyway?
Why are mountain stages any different than your typical flat stage where the break aways almost always get caught?
In the mountains, the advantages of the peloton are greatly diminished. There is basically no efficiency advantage to having 100 riders climbing a hill in a bunch.
An attack is basically any acceleration ahead of the group.
Try a group ride with some buddies where you often push the pace. You accelerate whenever you want, but you also try to keep up whenever a buddy accelerates. You’ll very quickly see some of the guys dropping out or hanging on for dear life. Attacking is all about getting somebody else to ride on your terms and hopefully tiring them out. The riders who win are not the ones that can hold a nice consistent pace, it’s the ones who can repeatedly accelerate and quickly recover.
That’s kinda my point, isn’t it just a mind game? If a persons team mate takes off…so what? Assuming that the pack is not “lolly gaging” won’t the team mate eventually end up back in the pack.
Isn’t responding to every attack, or any attack, be a waste of energy
OTOH if you truely are concerned that a competitor has the power to pull away and stay away you’d better step up to the plate or you’ll be left behind.
Certainly there are other things going on, aero advantages of the pack etc, but it would again seem to me that the team that has the best combination of power and weight is gonna end up on top.
To simplify things, and make for a really boring tour, why doesn’t every team simply go at a pace they know they can hold thru the entire tour? Seems to me they’d be the winners if no one responded. I guess IOW always “attack”?
~Matt
Matt…for instance, you can pretty much suck my wheel on a flat…but on the hills - I will flame you…then even if we are on another flat going the same speed, I am ahead of you and you have to work harder to catch me. Hills take away much of the draft benifit…and will test strength more than sucking wheels on a flat…cornering is another great place to make time…some will take a risk or ten on a decent, others will ride careful.
If they all went at a pace they could sustain, every stage would come down to a sprint at the end. It’s part of the game of road racing.
And if you send a team mate up the road, it then becomes the responsibilty of the next person on GC to chase (or limit the time gap) such that they don’t lose their placing. And no other team is going help with that chase.
Say you’re Lance, and you want to tire out Jan. You send Hincapie up the road in an attack (he’s got the legs to get the gap and keep it). Now it’s Jan’s (or more rightly T-mobiles) responsibility to chase down George or else George will take over 2nd. And when T-mobile chases, they tire themselves out while you get to draft. When the climb comes, Jan has no team mates to help him because they’re all tired, and possible Jan himself as well. You take off on the climb and make time on him.
That’s how the game works. You can think it’s stupid all you want. But it’s a tradition that far precedes triathlon.
“hat’s how the game works. You can think it’s stupid all you want.”
Oh I certainly don’t think it’s stupid. It’s very interesting to watch, like a cat and mouse game.
However if the goal is to win, I’m wondering if a team that bucked the tradition and simply went for it would win?
On the flats certainly the larger group has an aero advantage so I’m not sure how much time, if any, could be made up. But in the hills…freakin’ mountains…wouldn’t going harder be advantageous?
~Matt
Also…this again (as usual) is the fastest tour ever (till next year)…they are all going like mad…some are just freaking animals who can pull off the front.
No single team could go their own pace and beat the peloton. The aerodynamic advantages to the peloton is simply too much to overcome.
And if you did go your own pace, they would just suck your wheel until near the finish then blow by you at the end.
I understand there is a larger “group” advantage on the flats due to speeds. However in either case isn’t it a matter of power?
For instance it’s difficult for a breakaway to be sustained on the flat because you have to work “10X”, plus whatever it took to get away, harder to maintain the same speed as the “Group”. Typically the “10X” effort can’t be maintained and eventually the breakaway fries and dies.
On the hills maybe the breakaway only has to do “1.25X” plus whatever it took to “get away” but it’s still an extra effort. Wouldn’t the hill break away eventually fry and die as well?
If not why doesn’t the entire team break away?
~Matt
“However if the goal is to win, I’m wondering if a team that bucked the tradition and simply went for it would win?”
Instead of assuming all the pro teams have it wrong, and you figured out the true way, why not figure 100 years of experience has led to fairly successful and sophisticated strategies and try to understand what is going on and why. I’m not saying every move is a stroke of genius or that some teams aren’t better than others, but given the large number of riders and races, maybe these guys really know a little more than you and you should try to learn from them. What you call tradition could also be called race proven tactics.
Good God… I don’t even know where to start in responding to this one…
The other thing being looked past is some of the guys who have the ability to win a stage can kill themselves to do it. One stage in France means more than almost any other one day classic there is…then they can sit in and recover (if you will) for the next couple days as the GC is fought out. No way any one could ever win every stage, and the overall…this is about patients, skill, gambling, and knowing what others are going to do…
Not every breakaway ‘fries and dies.’ Just ask Rasmussen.
Wasn’t meant to be a question of competance as much as a question of would it work?
“maybe these guys really know a little more than you and you should try to learn from them.”
Uhhhh isn’t it blatantly obvious I have no clue what’s going on? Thus the reason for my questions.
“What you call tradition could also be called race proven tactics.”
Things also change. Proven tactics could be called “old school” if what I proposed worked. Again not saying it would, but asking why it would not. I’m sure hoping greater minds than mine have at least pondered the idea.
~Matt
I once won a Crit…I made like a TT and had at it…took off, went off the front…lapped the pack…took the win. Change in tactics, sure…I raced a TT that happened to be at the same time all the others raced a crit (and thankfully they thought I would blow up, then forgot I was out there). Would this ever happen in any pro race…no way in hell.
No team is strong enough just to attack and be able to get away. There is fierce competition amongst the teams to sign the best riders. There are only a few riders in the world capable of riding in the front in the high mountains. Even fewer that are good at time trialing and mountain climbing.
It’s easy to say just attack, but you have to have elite riders that are capable of the effort and they don’t grow on trees.
At the same time, please explain the scoring system.