Watching the Tour of Flanders last weekend and then some highlights since, I’m fascinated by how some riders can take off alone after gaining what looks to be a relatively small bit of distance over a climb. Two examples would be Pogacar dropping van der Poel this weekend and Cancellara dropping Sagan in 2013. It’s not like they have anyone in front of them to catch their slipstream. Once they gain a few metres on a climb, these guys look unstoppable. What’s happening here?
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If you’re the 2nd rider in even a group of 2, the drafting effect of the rider in front reduces your workload by about 10-15%.
If you’re keeping up and resting and recovering, great, but the rider ahead thinks you’re barely hanging on at that reduced effort, then they sprint away enough to break the tow. Just 5 or 10 metres will do it… and now your same amount of effort is not enough to keep going at the speed you were at as you’ve lost the aerodynamic tow. So you either have to put in the additional 10-15% to maintain the speed you were doing, and then add another 10% to sprint on top of that to get back on their wheel, or you get left behind.
As soon as the lead rider sees you catch them up again, they ease off… they’ve tested you and see you have the capacity to spare right now (but maybe not later), but if they think you can’t catch them immediately, then they keep up that sustained speed for another 30 seconds or so to ensure the gap is large enough that the you can’t slipstream them.
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