In every race I’ve done, and just about every spirited group ride I’ve ever attended, there is always some guy, that guy, who makes the more experienced racers chuckle. From the opening gun or from before the ride even hits the open country roads, he (or she) is up at the front, taking Herculean pulls, charging up the hills, launching attack after attack after attack. Twenty minutes in he’s thinking, “man, I am really rocking their ride today. I bet they’re really impressed with how strong I’m riding.” And yeah, from my perspective, 20 riders back, almost totally shielded from the wind by the quartet of 6-footers I’ve surrounded myself-- I am the central Illinois
You see, cycling is an endurance sport. You gotta be stronger for longer, but strength saved now can be cashed out for strength later. You know who wins the race? First one across the line. It’s also a team sport. And teams also team up in the peloton. At a pro race, you’ll see 9 out of ten teams working together, while the 10th team has a lone guy off the front. Guess how many times that lone wolf is successful? To ride away, single-handedly, from an entire peloton, When drafting you save 30% of your energy. When tucked away in a group with people all around you, it can be as much as 50% less energy to go the same speed. Essentially, to ride away from a group, you have to be able to ride 30% stronger than everyone else. That’s how much drafting matters. What’s 30% like? Well, Lance Armstrong at his peak (*ahem*) was doing about 6.5-7 watts per kilogram (the best measure of a cyclist’s strength) at his threshold. So he’s about 30% stronger than me. He has won 7 Tours de France. I once finished 3rd in a 3-day, 56-person cat 4/5 stage race up in Jersey called the Giro del Cielo. In the battle between Lance and a peloton of me and my clones, he wins. That guy is usually not Lance.
And so back to that guy. You know what happens to that guy taking monster pulls and throwing down vicious attack after vicious attack? Well, unless he’s on a different level altogether than the rest of the riders, he starts with a flurry and ends with a whimper. More often than not, he’s gone really fast while things are just warming up, and by the time things really start to happen, he’s blown up catastrophically. I see that and I feel bad for that guy. I hope for his sake that isn’t also how he makes love.
But here’s the thing, folks. You’ve probably been that guy. I know have. Maybe not to the dramatic degree I just sketched, but certainly most inexperienced racers have ridden brilliantly at the start of the race. Maybe in your head as you ride, you imagine Phil and Paul talking about how you really animated the race. In the post race interview you’ve got your orange jersey on, and others are talking about how much of a workhorse you were, really powering the break today. But as the race drags on and the adrenaline stops and the fatigue creeps in. Your legs start to ache, heart rate rises, your breathing becomes more labored. Each pack surge or attack becomes harder to handle. Participating in the upcoming sprint is an impossibility. You just don’t want to suffer anymore. Just get me to the line! There’s always beer at the line (at least for my team there is). What’s happened is you did not ride within yourself.
‘Riding within oneself’ is a pretty vague term. What it means, in a nutshell, is that you rode only as hard as you need to go. A personal example: last year, at a race in Jersey , this guy, Dom Rollin of Cervelo Test Team (part of 2009 Tour Green Jersey winner Thor Hushovd’s and 2008 Tour champ Carlos Sastre’s team) shows up on something of a lark. As luck would have it, I found myself being pulled along in his slipstream (remember the 30% thing? Well, he’s about 29% stronger, so I was just barely able to stay on his wheel as he opened a gap between himself and most of the rest of the peloton). A break of 9 guys formed. For the first 3 laps we were away, everyone was just laying down the hammer, going all out, making everyone’s legs scream. But at a certain point, breaks become established. That’s when things settle down and the chance of being caught decreases dramatically. At that point, about 5 or 6 of us began a rotating paceline, while the teams with 2 guys in the move left one each at the back to sit on. I wasn’t the strongest guy there, obviously, or even close. But, foolishly, I wanted to “prove” myself to the other riders. Wanted to show I belonged with this pro tour guy and a couple of U-23 domestic neopros. Looking back, I think, what the hell was I thinking? In terms of strength, I don’t belong with those guys. But bike racing isn’t about raw strength. Remember? First one across the line. Therefore, I had no business trying to win the race through raw strength. What I should have done was rode as conservatively as possible, so I spent so much less strength during the first 59 minutes of the race than everyone else, that for that final minute, I could have enough strength to be just a bit faster. What’s silly is that even at one point, Dom touches me on the shoulder and says, “you don’t have to work so hard.” He’s right. I really, really didn’t. That break didn’t need me pulling through with all my mini-might. On a flat crit course and a 130 lb cat-3, Fabian Cancellara I am not. But I spent myself working so hard that late in the race, when attacks came and our group of 9 split, I didn’t have enough left to follow the lead group of four, settling for 5th.
So what’s the lesson? You need to know how to ride hard without going too hard to avoid being that guy. When you find yourself in the wind, relax. If it’s your turn to pull, don’t suddenly get excited or antsy accelerate like a newb. Don’t take 3 minutes pulls when everyone else is taking 30 second ones. Don’t start half-wheeling your two-line paceline partner. Just ride steady.
The best way to do this is to always ride with power. Or, if you lack the funds for a power meter, try a heart rate monitor, as it tracks physiological responses to power (unfortunately, HR also responds to several external factors, whereas power is absolute). By keeping track of the power files of every ride, you start to learn just what you can do. The numbers never lie. Ever. If you’ve never topped 300 watts for 20 minutes, then don’t start taking 350 watt pulls in your group of four for more than a handful of seconds, or two hours later you’re going to be spat out the back. By using power, you’ll also learn how many and what sort of “matches” you have in your matchbook. A match is any hard effort. Make a hard effort, burn a match. Some matches burn hot and fast, others longer and cooler. A 500 watt, 15 second effort probably burns a match. So too does a 5 minute, 280 watt effort. By charting your power, you’ll know about how many times you burn various matches, or how much recovery time you need before your matchbook is restocked.
And so, always remember: Bike racing is much more than a test to see who’s the strongest. It is a battle of wits and tactics, designed such that nothing matters but coming across the line first. Learning to understand yourself as a rider, either through power, heart rate, or even perceived effort, is the key to doing so. And even if it doesn’t get you to the line first every time, certainly it will keep you from being that guy.
