Post Tour Tactical Analysis And Summary
Strategic Overview
This year's Tour started with everyone knowing Lance was off form,
Lance and Chris admitting he was off form, and him showing it in the
Prologue. Even though he was off form, he was still the strongest
rider in the Tour this year, it was just that he didn't have the
overwhelming strength of past years. This meant that they should
have at least considered using a different team strategy for this
year, especially with this Tour format.
Next followed the beginning races for the Yellow Jersey, Green
Jersey, and KOM Jersey along with stage wins. The team time trial
was more closely contested than in the past and some key teams like
Euskaltel performed better than in the past though still losing too
much time. At this time, USP assumed the Yellow Jersey but did not
begin to actively defend the jersey. They did manage to hold it
until the mountains do to the racing actions for the different
subtitles and stage wins.
Then USP began the use of what I refer to as the Eddy Merckx Team
Strategy as I had told you they probably would by towing the peloton
in the first mountain stage. But this was even earlier than I had
expected them to use this strategy. As I had told you, they began to
break from this strategy but, because they began using it sooner
than I had expected, they also began breaking sooner than I
expected. They first began to break and leave Lance alone on L'Alpe
d'Huez, only the second of seven mountain stages.
Mean while, ONCE had begun using the team leverage strategy I teach
and was effectively taking the battle to Lance and USP. They
effectively continued using this strategy until Beloki crashed out
of the race the day following L'Alpe d'Huez. If you remember from
last year, I had gotten down on ONCE for not using this strategy to
beat the Eddy Strategy that year because it would have been the most
effective strategy with their team strengths. They were now using it
very effectively even though their team was down in strength because
Galdeano was not in the race and Azevedo was off form. If they had
had the same team as last year, it would have been even more
effective. It works.
The attacking by ONCE and Hamilton caused the feeding frenzy of
attacking against Lance that I had predicted. But I did not notice
that the riders began attacking Lance, quickly forgot about him, and
began attacking and chasing each other in this feeding frenzy. It
was a feeding frenzy which had lost its focus and gone awry. This
permitted Lance to use his competition's own racing against them to
replace his struggling team. This permitting him to rest while his
competition hammered each other for four days in the mountains
setting themselves up to be destroyed on Luz Ardiden.
The day after L'Alpe d'Huez, USP changed from the single squad Eddy
Strategy to a modified form of the same strategy using a two squad
system like I teach. In my teachings, I give an example of Eddy B
using this two squad system for offensive racing but USP used the
two squad system for defensive racing for the next three road
stages.
There is a strong possibility that the riders went to the coaches
the night after L'Alpe d'Huez and said "we can't do this for the
rest of the Tour" forcing the coaches to modify their strategy. This
does happen when teams start to experience breaking up as they did
on L'Alpe d'Huez. The riders will say, "Hey, this is killing us,
coach. We have to do something else." Most good coaches will respond
to this.
I pointed out that this system would help a little but would only
prolong the eventual failure of the team with there being so many
mountain stages and so many stages left in the Tour. The day after
the first time trial, the USP coaches agreed with me and changed to
the team leverage strategy I teach and I had said they would have to
use to survive this Tour and lead for as long as they did. I figured
it was probably too little, too late for them to survive but
apparently it was just enough, just in time because they did
survive. They used this team strategy up to Luz Ardiden, or the next
three days in the mountains. It worked.
Mean while, the other teams were doing their feeding frenzy but not
controlling it right. They would start out by permitting USP to
destroy their own domestiques leaving Lance alone, would begin
attacking Lance, but, as soon as they had riders ahead of Lance,
they would turn on each other permitting Lance to rest on their
wheels while they attacked and chased each other.
Remember what I taught you about, anyone who can stay with you can
beat you? They permitted Lance to stay with them AND towed him while
chasing each other, tiring their own legs out while permitting
Lance's legs to rest. He beat them. It works.
Following Luz Ardiden, USP converted back to the Eddy Strategy using
the two squad system but they were using it in conjunction with
using the subtitle and stage win races to control the peloton the
way I told you they should. It worked for the rest of the Tour.
Some of the most brilliant racing in this Tour was when Riis
realized the tactical opportunity of Fassa only having three riders
left with Basso being just ahead of Hamilton on GC in the last
mountain stage. He brilliantly used a very large break up the road
by having Hamilton bridge to it, work with it against Fasso for a
long time, drop it, and solo to a stage win, moving ahead of Basso
on GC. Then Hamilton moved up to fourth on GC when the last time
trial stage was really wet causing a bunch of riders to crash and,
apparently, Zubeldia to back off in the time trail because he did
much better in the first time trial in good weather. This caused
Zubeldia to lose enough time in the time trial to Hamilton, who did
not back off in the rain, for Hamilton to move ahead of Zubeldia on
GC. Remember that I told you that, when the weather gets nasty, you
better also get nasty because others will back off providing you an
opportunity to win? It works.
The Tour pretty much ended with Ullrich crashing in the last time
trial, backing off a lot after the crash, and losing any opportunity
to beat Lance. It was an interesting Tour.
Basic Strategies
One of the things I want to discuss here is the attitude that most
people and even a lot of coaches use in selecting strategies. A
really great example of this is the Eddy Merckx Strategy used by
Bruyneel. I regularly see people chose a strategy because a pro like
Eddy used it to win races. When I confront people who blindly use
the Eddy Strategy because Eddy used it, they always say, "Eddy used
it to win five Tours," as if that means it will always win for
anyone on any team in any race or that it is THE perfect and
infallible strategy. To this, I respond, "Yes, Eddy used it to win
five Tours but, if you check, Eddy did not win five consecutive
Tours, therefore, Eddy also used it to lose a Tour." If the greatest
rider on the greatest team used a strategy and lost a race,
shouldn't you at least think twice about using that strategy? Of
course you should.
The best way to chose a strategy is the way I teach you to chose
your strategies. You MUST select a strategy based on your riders,
team, the course, race format, your competition, and the weather.
You have to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your riders to
set the team structure based on the races you will ride. Then you
analyze the race course, event format, and your competition in
relation to your team strengths and structure to develop the desired
team strategy for that race. I teach all of this and more.
If you learn to do this right, you will learn that you will change
your team structure and strategies for different races and
competition. If you don't do this, you are going to become very
predictable and easy to beat. One of the most important rules in
coaching is to keep your competition guessing. This is bike chess,
don't forget that. If I know where you are going to move, I will
learn to beat you.
In using the Eddy Merckx Strategy and focusing just on the Yellow
Jersey, USP developed some racing strengths but also developed some
racing weaknesses. The strength of their strategy was that all their
focus and energy went towards obtaining and defending the Yellow
Jersey using the Eddy Merckx Strategy. This was a good strategy and
worked as long as USP was significantly strong enough to decimate
most teams and Lance was significantly stronger than his
competition. Even with this, Lance broke once in his first four Tour
wins and his team also broke once during those wins showing that
this strategy had its limitations. ALL strategies have their
strengths and weaknesses which is why you MUST learn to analyze them
before you chose a team strategy.
Some of the weaknesses this strategy had include the team not being
able to take advantage of the subtitles and stage wins to help
defend the Yellow Jersey. So, how would you use team leverage and
the subtitles and stage wins to help defend the Yellow Jersey?
You will eventually learn that strategies and tactics use a lot of
sports psychology and depend heavily on PERCEIVED threats and
actually threats. You learn to use threats and perceived threats to
control your competition. For example, instead of using the Eddy
Strategy by having your team tow everyone for two days of flat
racing between the two sets of mountains with everyone else doing at
least 30% less work than your team, take control of the peloton at
the start of a flat stage, send a break up the road with one of your
riders like Hincapie in it for either the Points Title or a stage
win, let the break get at least 30 to 40 seconds up the road, and
then slide your team back in the peloton while the other teams
racing for the subtitle or for a stage win work to bring the break
back in and control the peloton for you. towards the end of that
stage the sprinter teams will take control bringing the break back
in for the sprint eliminating any potential threat to you. Don't do
all the work yourself unless you have to.
The end result is that you have one rider up the road working hard
in a break with riders from other teams and the rest of your team
rests while other teams do your work for you because you are using a
threat against them to force them to work for you. Remember that no
team is expected to work against any break in which they have one or
more riders.
You can do the same thing in the mountains for the KOM Title in the
KOM mountain stages or even at the start of the GC mountain stages.
You leverage your competition against your riders so most of your
riders can rest more so they will be fresher and can do more damage
when it counts most. This is tactical energy efficiency.
Future Racing
I have taught you that there are at most five or six riders in any
race who have a strong chance of winning that race. There is a
slightly larger group who have a fair to good chance and the rest
have little if any chance of winning that race. This is especially
true because of team tactics.
I have noticed that the competition is getting closer at the top so
that this will probably change over the next 10 to 20 years. For
example, if you look at the old pictures of the Tour, the pack broke
up into small groups and individuals for most of the race. But now,
the peloton stays mostly together with time only being gained on a
few very tactical stages. This year, I noticed that this phenomenon
has continued to develop. This year, things were much closer in part
because Lance was off form but also in part because the other
coaches are learning to physically develop their riders better.
For example, prior to this year, Lance won all of his Tours by from
over 4 minutes to over 6 minutes. Following just one significant GC
mountain stage, he would have at least two to four minutes on just
second place and the eventual race winner normally gains from 2 to
over 5 minutes on L'Alpe d'Huez. This year, Lance won a sprint for
third against six other riders in the first pack on L'Alpe d'Huez
and following L'Alpe d'Huez, there were 15 riders within 4'03" of
first place including Lance. There were a total of 8 riders within
the first 2'10". This was probably the tightest pack ever following
L'Alpe d'Huez.
Even following the first time trail and three days in the mountains,
there were 7 riders within 5'01" first place. On final GC, there
were three riders within the first 4'29" and Hamilton, in fourth,
was only 6'32" down. And remember that this is with a number of
strong GC riders like Simoni, Botero, Galdeano, and Rumsas off form
or not even in the race. You have to also realize that this was
after SEVEN days in the mountains when most Tours only have four to
five days in the mountains.
It appears that, as more coaches learn to coach in a more balanced
manner to account for all aspects of the Tour and racing in general,
the riders will keep getting closer on GC and more riders will be
able to contend for GC. This is because more coaches are learning to
get more riders closer to their maximum physiological potential in a
balanced manner. It is not irrational to expect to see five to ten
riders finishing the Tour within one to two minutes of first place
in just the next 10 to 20 years.
The point of this is that, as more riders become more competitive so
that one rider no longer just crushes his competition, the
efficiency of the team tactics become more critical. This is
because, if a rider wins by seconds, he can just as easily lose by
seconds due to wasted energy from bad or failed tactics. As the Tour
becomes closer and more competitive, the coaches must become better
at selecting and implementing their team strategies. In the future,
they will be racing for seconds instead of the minutes we have been
used to them racing for.
For example, look at your racing. How many races have you ridden
this year which were won by one bike length or less? It should only
be common sense that better team tactics that would have tired that
rider who beat your team in the sprint out a little more would have
denied him the energy to gain just one bike length much less the one
inch which often wins your races.
This is where, even as cat 3's and cat 4's, you have to ask
yourself, "If our team had used better team tactics to eliminate
that rider's domestiques and tire that rider out just a little more,
how much slower would he have been in the sprint permitting our
rider to win the race?" That is what team tactics are all about.
Foot Note
Some of my readers have been asking whether I think at least some of
the pro riders and coaches in Europe have read my site or are
reading my Tour analysis. Well, let's analyze it, of course. :-)
I keep getting emails from you telling me that my site is the only
web site, book, magazine, or other medium which teaches the team
tactics and other information I teach. All the others sites that I
know about either teach one of a billion methods for training or
talk about the bike and equipment. My site is the only site I know
of, and, apparently many of you know of, which teaches every subject
about bike racing and even training for recreational cycling.
I also regularly get emails telling me that my site is the only site
which teaches training for the beginner to professional level in
cycling much less also for women, juniors, and masters along with
road, track, MTB, and other sports. I have done several googles and
found that there are links to my site from all over the net with a
number of sites saying things like my site is one of the top ten
cycling sites on the Internet or their favorite cycling site.
Add to these things that I have been contacted by members of US
based pro teams and the USAC national coaching staff telling me that
they and their colleagues regularly read my site and even tell
others to read it. I have no idea how many of you from all over the
world have emailed me telling me that your coaches and team mates
told you to read my site. Also, if you understand how the cycling
grape vine works and how well all of the European based US pro's and
coaches are connected with the US pro teams and USAC staff along
with many of the European coaches and riders, I would be surprised
if any of them have not at least heard of my site. It is very likely
that they have read my site and that, at least, some of them read it
regularly, especially during the Tour.
Do they read it? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Ask them, most of
them will tell you the truth as to whether they read it. The most
important thing is that you read it, learn from it, improve your
cycling, and help improve cycling overall. That is what really
counts.
At this time, a little something I want to share with you is how I
read the Tour and how I used to have to read races as a coach in the
US. You have to understand that, in most US road races and stage
races, the coach gets very little tactical information back and must
make the most of what information he does get.
For example, if I were coaching a road race or road stage of 50 to
100 miles, I might see my team before the stage, at a few feed zones
for usually about 20 to 60 seconds, and after the race or stage.
From those tiny snap shots, I had to accurately evaluate the team
tactics being used by my competition, adjust my team strategies and
tactics, and try to win against my competition. I became very good
at this and even became one of the best in the nation at it.
That would be like a football or basketball coach getting to see
only one or two minutes of a game and having to make strategic and
tactical decisions based on that little information.
The most information I got from any race was at criteriums. Even
then, most of the time, I only saw the racing action for about 20 to
40 seconds for 50 times during the race. From that, I had to
extrapolate out the tactics of other teams and call up information
and strategic changes during the race. A rare criterium where I
could see 90% to 100% of the course was pure Heaven and was so easy
to read it was mind boggling.
Keeping this in mind, the only information I have used in my Tour
analyses for the first four of the last five Tours was to read the
race results on 2 to 4 stage races the month before the Tour and
read the news flashes on the TDF site during the Tour. I don't have
access to OLN or any other timely source of information about the
Tour. The only additional information I get is the meager
information provided by the CBS, NBC, or ABC Tour coverage which is
little better than nothing and some times worse. That's right, most
of you get more information about the Tour than I do yet I tell you
what will happen and you regularly email me asking how I knew this
or that would happen. With that little information (much more
information than I have had at almost any US race) I was able to
accurately describe the racing action and team strategies regularly
making accurate strategic and tactical predictions.
See you next year :)
