Echelon - crazy wind!
 

Gent Wevelgem 2015

Check out how crazy this wind is around 1:10 or so, when Sagan is literally leaning into it to keep from getting blown over!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRuE...=LanterneRouge

Echelons arent hard to learn or ride on, the problem is that is a must technique that not many riders know.

counterpoint:if echelons weren't hard, then echelon racing wouldn't blow apart races. but it does.

echelons are hard, because crosswinds are hard. you're being blown sideways; your only hope of drafting is overlapping wheels with the rider in front of you, but they're being blown sideways, which means it's awfully hard to protect your front wheel. Everybody's going all over the place looking for shelter. If one jerk in front of you doesn't get the memo about the rotation you can get shunted into the gutter and watch the group slowly ride away from you.

2016 Doha Worlds. IIRC it was with over 100km left to race - the pack turned right, got a cross-tail wind, in less than a minute and the race was shattered. If you weren't in the front echelon your race was over.

Did you watch the video? Are you making a general point about riding in crosswinds or a specific comment about professionals not knowing how to ride in crosswinds?

Pretty much this

And also, riding to the side limits the number of people that could fit in an echelon, so depending on road width, maybe 20-30 riders can fit into the echelon, and anyone who couldn't will have to work a lot harder just to stay attached to the rear of the echelon.

In such situations, not so bad to start a second echelon, as there will be some strong riders who get caught out of the first echelon. If the second echelon works well together, it actually won't lose time. In fact, at that particular race, Paolini was initially caught out of the first echelon, and instead of trying to muscle his way in, he wisely started a second one, and the two front echelons eventually merged when the wind direction changed.

I think overall it's pretty tricky. Nobody wants to make the decision to form the second echelon, it's hard to predict when you are going to have to get into an echelon, and when it's your turn to rotate off it's possible to be punted out of your echelon.

Also, the gusts on that video were crazy, it's amazing that when the guy at the front gets pushed over 8 feet that it doesn't cause a big pileup. And that happened over and over.

Even the pros sometimes end up in a single echelon with 80 guys in a line behind doing just as much work as the guy in front. It's really difficult to decide you are going to be in the next echelon back, or the 5th, depending on your position. And who knows if people are going to follow you?

It was a general comment... not a professionals riders comment, not the same to ride echelons with 200 guys in a drag race than with small 10 guys groups in your sunday ride. Comment was focused in sunday warriors, that's all.

This photo from the 1974 Giro shows how hard the riders in an echelon are working.

https://twitter.com/davidguenel/stat...57587865649152

What an awesome pic!

Makes today's riders look like anorexic models.

Wonder if the speeds are that much faster today vs. back then. Anyone know? An apples to apples comparison would be telling on a 1 day classic with exact same route.

Merckx won Paris Roubaix 3 times, twice at 36km/h, once at 41. GVA won it in 2017 above 45kmh. So yeah, definitely a bit faster. World tours aren't that much faster because the race directors make them harder every year, but still a few km/h faster.

Perhaps that means the skinny jeans set are putting out very impressive power for their size, plus aero benefit of modern gear (however incremental, depending on conditions).

Quick search turned up this very informative time chart on Paris Roubaix:

http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/classics...aix-index.html

Some examples:
Marcel Kint 41.5 km/hr. in '43
Peter Post 45.1 km/hr avg in '64
Fabian Cancellara 42.2 km/hr in '06
Phillipe Gilbert 43.2km/hr in '19

That's with each race +/- ~10k distance, depending on route that year.

And if you want to call "peak doping years" late 90's and thereafter, the speeds weren't meaningfully different either.

Or the weather conditions we're talking about we're just more favorable.

Those numbers should really be viewed in context of the rest of the pack.

True. All kinds of asterisks needed.

Remember how bad '02 was?

Museeuw did it at 39.2 avg.

This is a phenomenal photo. Everyone who thinks racing in a crosswind is easy need look no further.

^^^^ This. I've done a multiple iterations of races on the same course, and the average speeds can vary quite bit from one race to the next, depending on many factors, including weather, pack dynamics, team strategies, etc. Mass start racing isn't so much about how hard you can go for the entire distance, its about being able to go extra hard at just the right times and places.