If you already think road cycling is boring then no one will convince you otherwise but... Road cycling is a beautiful thing if you understand some of what's g

If you already think road cycling is boring then no one will convince you otherwise but... Road cycling is a beautiful thing if you understand some of what's going on in a multi-stage race. Cycling is a team sport because you can save between 16% to 50% of the energy required for movement by drafting other riders. Other forms of bike racing lack that aspect, they're effectively individual day efforts. It gives a huge number of tactical permutations and competitions within competitions going on all the time. The multiple stories unfold and resolve over the 3 weeks of the race. Take yesterday's mountain stage. Ignore the main GC (Yellow jersey) competition. Ignore the race to actually win the stage. Instead just look at the battle for the Green jersey (aka the points or sprinters' competition). Cavendish is in the lead right now but he's not a climber. To win the jersey he still needs to complete the race and not be eliminated by arbitrary daily time window. Other teams like Team BikeExchange are maybe less strong in flat stage sprints but they can do other things to attack his position. Like compete for intermediate sprint points during the day. The race organisers can grow or shrink the rolling time window. That's usually done to keep the bulk of non-climbers, the "autobus", in the race. BikeExchange could have their riders work hard on the front of the autobus to move it faster. Then Cavendish would have to not only keep up with the climbers contesting the stage and the climbers contesting the overall GC but also the autobus itself. If he trails that and is outside the elimination window then he'll be out and the next place rider in the Green jersey completion becomes the leader. That's just one thing we're watching for. There's loads of other stories going on like the battle between breakaway riders and the Peloton on the flatter days. They could be all be from different teams but on a day where they don't have to work for their team leader. Will they work together to escape the faster main group knowing that one in the breakaway will be stronger than the others? There's so much more going on each day if look into it and that's why we love it.