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Race Analysis
Race formatting for the Tour is built around long flat stages,
individual time trials, mountains, and the various sub titles. Since
the highest prize, individual general classification (GC), is based
on cumulative time it is important to understand gaining and losing
time in relation to Tour formatting.
First, it is important to understand a very important time rule for
the Tour de France. If a rider loses five minutes or more TO THE TOP
FIVE OR SIX GC CONTENDERS, it is almost certain that they will not
win the race. It is almost impossible to make up five minutes or
more against riders of this caliber in the Tour once the time is
lost. Note that I said almost.
In a stage race, you only have so much energy you can expend during
the period of the race. The amount of energy any one individual can
expend during any race is determined their fitness level. You must
therefore determine where to best expend that energy. Where can you
gain the most time with the same amount of energy? Also, in certain
types of stages, you will actually lose time if over extended from
earlier stages.
In the long, flat stages which dominate the first half of the Tour
de France, you can ride yourself senseless and end up with only a
gain of a few seconds. The same amount of energy expended in the
mountains or individual time trials will gain minutes instead of
seconds. Remember my earlier essays when I told that flat races are
more difficult to win with a break and require more team strategies
because many more of the riders can contribute to the race.
The extra contributions of those riders will decrease your potential
gain on the flat stages. You can also lose large amounts of time on
the flats for the same reason if you lose contact with the peleton
during a jam in the flats.
Several good examples of this are Tony Rominger and the Columbians
when they first started riding the Tour. One year, Tony was
considered the race favorite but lost over five minutes in the flats
and was never able to regain the full five minutes. What he did
regain was very admirable. When the Columbian riders first began
riding the Tour, most people thought they would dominate the Tour
because of their climbing abilities. But the Tour is more than just
climbing and I knew they would be lucky to finish the Tour for the
first few years. The Columbians were used to riding nothing but very
mountainous races and did no flat speed work or time trialing.
Remember that your body can only do what you train it to do.
If your body is not conditioned to high speeds in long, flat stages,
then your legs will break in the early stages of the Tour, you will
spit out the back, and lose large amounts of time as I stated above.
The Columbians lost massive amounts of time in the Tour for the
first few years they rode it for that very reason. Their best riders
still lose at least four to five minutes in each individual time
trial which eliminates them from a chance at winning the race.
Every second you lose in one part of the race must be made up in
another part just to break even. If you are one of the top five
climbers, top five time trialists, and don't lose contact with the
peleton in the flats, you cannot lose more than one minute per
individual time trial to the other top GC riders or two to three
minutes in the mountains to the other top GC riders or you are out
of the race for first place. If you want to win the Tour, you must
remain within two to three minutes of the other top GC riders until
you are ready to make your move. This means that you must know who
those riders are and when they are making a terminal mistake so you
don't waste energy covering a bad move.
I have noticed a very important rule in going hard in the flats
before the mountains. If you go hard in the flats, you will have at
least one to two bad days in the mountains where you will lose at
least five to ten minutes per bad day. That will put you out of the
race. Bernard Hinault knew this and won by it even when the French
people demanded that he race hard in the flats. Hinault stuck by his
guns and won the Tour five times.
Two people who always paid this price were Sean Kelly and Phil
Anderson. Sean's coaches always wanted him to race hard in the flats
to win stages and the Points Jersey because he was the world's
greatest road sprinter. He would always have one or two bad days in
the mountains and lose enough time to lose the race. Because of
this, most people believe that Sean could not climb in spite of the
fact that, in the other mountain stages, Sean was always in the
first pack on the steepest climbs. He had to be an amazing climber
to be in the first pack on any of those climbs. I personally believe
that, if Sean had had a coach who would have kissed off the Points
Jersey and let Sean rest in the flats, that Sean was a good enough
climber to win the Tour, especially since he was one of the best
time trialists in the world.
Phil was another rider who was believed to be a less than adequate
climber because he always had at least one or two bad days in the
mountains. This was in spite of the fact that, the first time Phil
lead the Tour, he took it by bridging up to and beating Hinault in
the mountains. Phil always made the same mistake. He raced hard in
the flats and always had one or two bad days in the mountains where
he would lose at least five to ten minutes per bad day. It is
amazing how many people judge you based on your worst performance
instead of your best performance. I believe that, with the right
coach, Phil could have also won the Tour.
Most people do not understand this phenomenon and, therefore, when
they see a rider get dropped on one day in the mountains, they
assume that he can't climb very well. The way this works is that a
rider has fatigued his body enough so that he cannot stay with the
other climbers when they hit the mountains. He is dropped, shifts to
a lower gear, travels slower, and permits his legs to rest and
recover some so that on following days he can stay with the best
climbers in the mountains.
To determine whether a rider is a
good climber, you must look at ALL of the mountain stages. It is
only common sense that, if you are good enough at climbing to stay
with the best climbers on just one day, then you are a good enough
climber to stay with the best climbers.
Next, you look for the reason why a rider who is a good enough
climber to stay with the best climbers has a bad day in the
mountains. Most of the time, this is caused by riding earlier stages
too hard which causes him to be too tired on that bad day. There can
be other reasons such as illness, general over training, or just
having an off day. IT SHOULD BE COMMON SENSE THAT, IF A RIDER IS
GOOD ENOUGH TO STAY WITH THE BEST ON ANY DAY, HE IS GOOD ENOUGH TO
STAY WITH THE BEST.
To win the Tour, you must be a top five climber, top five time
trialist, and be able to rest in the pack on those long, flat, fast
stages at the start of the race. If you don't fit this profile, you
can't win the Tour.
Interestingly, you don't even have to win one stage to win the Tour.
What you must do is to consistently finish ahead of the other top GC
riders in the time trials and mountains. You can finish minutes
behind climbers in the mountains who cannot time trial and minutes
behind time trialists in the time trials who cannot climb. As a
matter of fact, the race winner will often make deals with climbers
who cannot time trial to win the Tour. They often agree to not
contend for a stage win in the mountains or a KOM prime if the
climber will work with them in the mountains to gain time on the
other GC riders. You only have to beat a few very good riders
because the others have already beat themselves by the way they
train. Of those few good riders, many beat themselves by the way
they ride the Tour.
Your body can only do what you train it to
do!
In the above example, I showed how some riders who are racing for a
sub title such as King Of The Mountain or a stage win can have an
effect on the outcome of individual GC. One reason why most race
winners don't win more stages or sub titles is because it is common
practice for a GC rider in a break with one or more non GC riders to
make deals to not go for a certain prime or the stage win to get the
other riders in that break to work with the GC rider to gain ground
on the other GC riders. It is very common in stage races for half a
dozen different races to be taking place in one break at the same
time.
One thing you have to learn to do to win stage races or
sub titles and stages is to learn to understand and take advantage
of the other races to help you win your race, sub title, or stage.
It should be kind of obvious that you have to be constantly thinking
in this sport. This is not a sport for stupid people. In stage
racing, you have to learn how to play parallel games of chess and
how to use other games to win your game. I love it.
You also must remember that properly developed bicycle road racing
is a team sport and not an individual sport. This eliminates even
more potential winners or dark horses. If a domestic is using up his
energy to help his team leader win the race, then he cannot use that
same energy to win the race himself. Riding as a domestic
automatically eliminates a rider from having anything more than a
very remote chance at winning the race.
This plus the fact that, in order to win the Tour, teams must use a
vertical structure with only one or two riders designated as
potential team leaders. After the first stage which produces a
serious leader for GC, every team must go to a vertical structure to
focus all of the energy from the team into getting the team leader
into first place. Even the teams racing for subtitles must go
vertical in team structure to focus the energy of their domestics
behind the efforts of their team leader.
The only teams who
don't have to go vertical are the teams who are only riding for
stage wins. Therefore, if you have 20 teams, then you only have 20
riders who are being ridden for and no more than five or six of
those will be racing for or have a realistic chance of winning the
individual GC. Most of these coaches will know whether they have a
realistic chance at GC and will set their team strategy before the
race begins. This means that those riders who don't have a realistic
chance at GC wont even be trying to win the individual title. They
are after a different and more realistic pot of gold.
In this analysis, I have briefly covered the basics and, hopefully,
taught you how to analyze a bike race. I have mentioned race
formatting, coaching, training, fitness, tactics, and other aspects
of understanding bicycle racing. Enjoy the Tour. It is the most
beautiful sporting event in the world.
Tour Guessing
I used to play a little game with my racers every year just before
the Tour de France. This game is designed to make you study bicycle
racing and learn to understand it better. We would all see if we
could guess who the top five places would be in the Tour and they
had to be in order. Anyone can get lucky and guess first place. But
you have to study racing, know racing, and follow the racers to be
able to accurately guess even a few of the top five riders in order.
It is a lot of fun and a great opportunity for you find out just how
much or how little you really do know about bicycle racing. You can
have contests with your friends to see who knows cycling the best.
During the Tour, I will show you how to read the results to follow
the flow of the battle and the daily decisions that are being made.
It will be fun.
