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This is part of what makes road racing so much fun to watch. You need to be strong to win, but it's not just a pure contest of who can put out the most watts pe
by davidw 5y ago
This is part of what makes road racing so much fun to watch. You need to be strong to win, but it's not just a pure contest of who can put out the most watts per kilogram. Tactics - and some luck - play a factor too.
- LeifCarrotson 5y agoTactics are a measure of who knows at what time to put out how many watts per kilo. What happens in road racing is politics. Domestiques grouping up at a leisurely pace to finish a climb stage just under the time limit, celebrities holding the team car by a sticky water bottle to catch back up to the group that dropped them, taking it easy for the first part of the race until a race leader says "let's go", and not attacking while someone important stops to pee, when their extra-efficient, extra-fragile tires puncture, or they get tired and downshift at a bad time and drop a chain or something. I understand that being 1% faster in a sport where your opponent can save 33% of his energy by drafting doesn't make a win a sure thing. But cyclists have spent a century drafting ever more unusual unwritten rules and it's become more about the politics than the pedaling.
- TomVDB 5y agoIMO the politics and team tactics/antics are part of the fun. It’d be boring real quick if they’d make it 21 time trials…