Stage 18
July 24 Dax - Bordeaux 165 km
Today's stage was ridden purely for the stage win with there only
being three road stages left in the Tour. 10 riders broke away in
the first kilometer and stay for the entire stage to take the first
ten places.
Let's say you are riding in a stage race and you want to know how to
get into such a break. What you have to do is be able to read the
entire race knowing when the top teams will tend to let lower placed
riders get off. You need to be able to read at what point in the
stage will other riders most likely attack and be able to stay away.
Then you have to be in the right position when the attacks go or you
have to initiate the attack.
Initiating the attack is the best way to make the break because, if
you wait for some one else to initiate the attack, you could be
boxed in when the attack comes keeping you from making the break.
After you get in the break, you and the other riders must work to
very quickly open ground on the peloton. You should have noticed
that most attacking riders are caught before they can open 15 to 20
seconds. This is because it is too easy for one strong rider to do a
hard chase at the front and catch anyone less than 15 seconds up the
road. Once you get past the 15 to 20 second mark, the chasers will
automatically shift into a lower speed, sustained chase effort which
will take more time AND, THEREFORE, give you more time and
opportunity to open more ground better securing the break increasing
its potential to stay off.
Once the break is established so that it will probably stay off, you
need to have decided before the stage where would be the best places
to attack and be ready to either attack or watch for others to
attack for the final winning break. You also have to watch
constantly for attacks anywhere because good riders will not only
attack based on course opportunities but also for pack provided
opportunities like when the pack suddenly slows a little or relaxes
for a second to catch its breath after a hard effort.
The peloton permitted this break to go up the road as a pace control
so there wouldn't be attacking or sprinting for the two road primes.
This permitted the top GC riders to rest their legs for the coming
time trial. It isn't just Ullrich and Lance who will be doing battle
in the time trial. Their's will be the most important battle but
other riders will lose time and drop on GC. Everyone knows this and
they will all be riding very hard to either keep their current spot
of keep from losing ground.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow will be another extremely flat stage in which they will
probably let an early break of riders low on GC and who don't care
about their performance in the time trail for the following day go
up the road for the stage win and as a control. Again, at the end of
the stage, there will be a sprinters battle for more points. Today,
McEwen gained a few points on Cooke and made the fight closer at
only six points difference. One road prime can make it tie for the
Green Jersey.
The top GC riders and their teams will want to protect those riders
for the coming fight in the time trail. I will talk more about this
tomorrow.
