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Hello and welcome on my blog about cycling tactics and strategies.
Today I will tell you a story about drafting and paceline.
Several years ago, I was racing a Cat 1 race in France and after several laps, we broke
away with five riders. To maintain our gap on the field, we had to
use drafting. Drafting allows a racer to stay behind another
racer and to be protected from the wind drag to conserve his energy.
So we built a paceline: the first racer was, racer was, in the wind drag and the four other
racers stayed behind the first one and were protected from the wind.
The fact was that the first racer did not want to stay alone in the wind drag. So we
had to relay.
Let's see how relays work in a paceline breakaway.
We can see five racers here. These racers are forming a paceline and sharing the work
to ride faster together. Right now this is the yellow racer who is
leading this group. As the front racer he is protecting the other
ones from the wind who are drafting behind him.
After 10, 20 or 30 seconds of relaying, the yellow racer wants some rest.
So he has to pull aside, like this, to pull off and to let the other ones passing him
like this.
When the yellow racer sees the last racer of the group, the red one here, he accelerates
to get back into the draft. Now the yellow racer is able to rest about
1 minute or 1 minute and a half.
You know now how to relay in a paceline breakaway. You can try it in races.
About my race, our breakaway got caught after one hour and a half by fifteen racers.
In the final sprint I performed eight.
See you soon in an other video about cycling tactics and strategies.