Silly Question!!

jerry3571

I've watched Cycling (plus raced some road and circuit races for some years) for donkeys years and never quite worked out why do breakaways seem to ride Double line? In a TTT they usually ride in a single line (like on the track) and then there'd be only one guy on the front. I know one line is returning to the back so easing off but they're still in the wind.
Never understood the double line. :roll:

bobmcstuff

I assume you have never ridden in a chaingang?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWEoBFkwsc0

The direction of rotation should be chosen so the line dropping back shields the faster line from the wind.

RichN95.

TTTs are a lot shorter and require riders to ride really hard for short turns, maximising speed. While a breakaway with a reasonable amount of riders is better of riding as a mini peloton and increasing the shelter. Breakaways aren't looking to go as fast as they can, they're trying to go as slow as they can while maintaining their lead.

jerry3571

Cheers for that. Yes, I used to mainly do circuit stuff with a 3 mile loop and the rotation wasn't worth bothering with as we were always changing direction.
It's a bit weird though as millions are spent to decrease drag and then they choose to double the frontal area. I guess going through towns etc then a single line may go across the road in an echelon and become difficult where it gets a bit technical. A more compact group would be less wide. But out on the open wider roads then a single line would be more efficient.

gsk82

You could view it as a single line, with changes on the front been so frequent that the riders peeling off effectively form a second line.

bobmcstuff

jerry3571 wrote:

Cheers for that. Yes, I used to mainly do circuit stuff with a 3 mile loop and the rotation wasn't worth bothering with as we were always changing direction.
It's a bit weird though as millions are spent to decrease drag and then they choose to double the frontal area. I guess going through towns etc then a single line may go across the road in an echelon and become difficult where it gets a bit technical. A more compact group would be less wide. But out on the open wider roads then a single line would be more efficient.

This:

gsk82 wrote:

You could view it as a single line, with changes on the front been so frequent that the riders peeling off effectively form a second line.

In a single file pace line one rider normally spends a lot longer on the front, in a chaingang you are only really on the front for a few seconds, which makes it easier to keep up for a long time.

ShutupJens

The way that a breakaway rotates also works differently to a TTT by the way that in a mutually beneficial break of the day, each rider doing 5 pedal revs on the front is not the most efficient but the most fair way of making sure everyone does their bit. Whereas stronger riders tend to do more in a TTT, in terms of longer pulls, to maximise the average speed of the team

jerry3571

Nice to see the big cheeses in the De Brabantse Pijl off the front who were in a single line.