in a road race...

sirdjango

since i am new in the road cycling world... i just like to know what does really happen in a cycling race? how does a team participate in Tours deploy their tactics etc... what are the tactics that are used by teams in races? what is an attack? what are each of the riders jobs? what do they do? what are the rules etc? i've watch a few big races since early this year and except for just admiring their high tech bikes and all, i cant figure out what are all the pro riders do actually... can anyone tell me so the next time i catch a race i can understand it more better...

rick_chasey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_bicycle_racing

s'a good start.

Keep on watching it. It eventually makes sense.

Pross

Rick Chasey wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_bicycle_racing

s'a good start.

Keep on watching it. It eventually makes sense.

Could you send that link to Mr Brailsford?

OK, teams will have a team leader who is the person designated as their main person to try to win the stage. In some races (flat, easily controlled) this is likely to be a spinter who basically sits in the bunch all day and goes flat out in the last few hundred metres. In a stage race the leader is usually a very good climber and decent time triallist as they need to gain time in hiily stages and protect that on the time trials. Some one day races will have a very strong rider or rouleur who will attempt to win as part of a small break or in a lone break. This is very hard to do as it takes far more effort to ride in small numbers due to the air resistance whilst the large group can share the effort at the front which is the hardest pace.

Other team riders are domestiques or helpers. They do tasks such as working to pull back breaks by other teams, getting in breaks themselves so that their team doesn't have to work or going back and picking up food and drink from the team cars or pacing their leader back if he has a fall or mechanical problem. In stage races you may have specialist domestiques in the mountains who will pace their leader or ride hard to stop the opposition attacking.

That's just some of the basics and it's far more complicated but it basically comes down to giving your team the easiest possible ride whilst making it hard for other teams to beat you!