Would like to understand bike racing tactics

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by dgauthier

To confirm: no one is "bringing the attacker back." The chasers are "bringing themselves forward" by chasing the attacker down using drafting and cooperation.

So the phrase "bringing him back" is a quaint figure of speech. Do I have that correct?

Largely and often, this is correct. Although sometimes a rider who has launched a failed attack actually will drop back into the group. Which brings up another point - the descriptions of the movements of riders are usually relative to the other riders. For example, in Football, if a quarterback "drops back" before a pass, they are moving backward with respect to the scrimmage line; but when a cyclist is said to be "dropping" back, they aren't movement backward with respect to the road, they simply aren't moving forward as fast as the rest of riders. So just like forward and backward motion in football is relative to the line of scrimmage, forward and backward motion in cycling is relative to the "center of mass" of a group of riders. If riders all accelerate in response to an attacker and catch up to the attacker, then effectively the attacker was "brought back" with respect to the mass of the group.

[OtayBW]

^
It's all relativ(ity).

[NHAero]

Lots of helpful posts, thanks!

[edgerat]

Originally Posted by nooneline

If you and I are chasing someone else and you start to ease off, then I am suddenly aware that you are punking me - I will use all my energy to bring you up to the front of the race, only for you to be saving energy the whole time - you will sprint past me and win easily. So I ease off, too - I don't want you to punk me. And you, seeing me ease off, well, you ease off, too. And then the person up the road suddenly has another 10 seconds.

Or, let's say we're in a small group of 5 or 6. Most of us are cooperating - but also in the group is the person who's been winning every sprint all year long. **** this - I'm not going to ride myself into the ground chasing a breakaway just to set up another team's sprinter. I ease off. You, seeing me ease off, ease off yourself. And the person up the road suddenly ahs another 10 seconds.

Cooperating is hard, especially deep into a race. Everybody needs to have the same level of commitment, the same motivation, AND the same ability to keep riding hard. This is unlikely. Smallish groups fall apart, especially late in the race, because the tactical situation doesn't benefit everyone equally.

appreciate the explanation!

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by prototoast

-The more riders working together, the faster they all can go
-The more riders in a group, the more likely some won't contribute to the work of the group

These two points also explain why a breakaway can fail if it is too large. The goal of any rider is to get the most benefit from other riders, while given them the least benefit in return. In a small breakaway group, everyone knows that it won't stay away unless everyone contributes at least as much as their share. But in a large group with many riders, riders are more apt to think that working for the group is not to their benefit, and so the larger the group, the smaller the percentage of people willing to work, and the more people just trying to get a free ride. As the workers realize that others aren't working, then the workers also become unwilling to work, until the group fails.

[GregL]

And there's some other subtleties that you pick up by watching/participating in races...

- Taking racers off the back: you may find a racer or racers who aren't contributing to the work of the pack. They're just hanging on to the back, never pulling through. They may be sprinters, opportunists, or have teammates up the road. A tactic to get rid of them is to ride in front of them and let a gap grow to the rest of the group. This is especially effective on a climb. Once you feel the gap is sufficient, you accelerate hard and jump across to the group. With a little luck, the riders who were on your wheel are gapped and now have to cross the gap on their own. Often, they can't and are dropped for the remainder of the race.

- Use downhills and corners to recover AND to weaken riders with lesser bike handling skills. A mentor once said to me that it's not how often you're cranking out 400 watts, it's how often you're at zero watts that counts. If you can consistently go downhill and corner using less energy than your competitors, you will force them to expend more energy catching back on. On the right course, this can mean a significant difference in energy reserves at the end of a race.

Greg

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by dgauthier

To confirm: no one is "bringing the attacker back." The chasers are "bringing themselves forward" by chasing the attacker down using drafting and cooperation.

So the phrase "bringing him back" is a quaint figure of speech. Do I have that correct?

Edit: I just read Mark McM's post below. So it's more accurate to say the phrase "bringing him back" refers to making the attacker give up by making the attack futile. Is that about right?

Yes to all of this.

1. Attacker(s) is off the front, in a break.

2. Chaser(s) bridge the gap.

Either...
3a. the whole peloton gets brought forward (ending the break).
3b. the break is now larger than the initial attacker likes (ending the break).

Very roughly. The dynamics change based on type of course, length of race, teams/riders present, etc. Most of what's been discussed applies to the big one-day races, or flat/rolling GC stages.

Mountain stages tend to get different team and break-away dynamics... Ineos could give Pidock free rein to attack and go for a stage win without impacting Thomas' GC standing. Stuff like that.

[November Dave]

Tons of great info in here as usual. Stage races really confound things once we get more into stage racing season - only a handful of teams are racing for GC, where other teams are racing for stage wins, some are going for the other jerseys, and some may be racing to protect a rider's top 10 on GC.

It's not often I'll contradict Mark McM, but I'll politely suggest that "drafting" in sailing (which we call "bad air") is at least as big a thing as in cycling. If you're in bad air, you're getting dropped.