Have you ever turned on a Tour de France stage and found yourself wondering what the heck is going on? Why are these riders off the front? Shouldn’t that team be chasing? In this special Fast Talk episode, we are joined by Cannondale-Drapac pro rider Toms Skujins to discuss the intricacies of racing strategy. Plus, we’ll give you a few ways you can translate Tour de France tactics into your local races.
Primary Guest Dr. John Hawley
Secondary Guests Toms Skujins & Joey Rosskopf
References
- Bartlett, J. D., Hawley, J. A., & Morton, J. P. (2015). Carbohydrate availability and exercise training adaptation: too much of a good thing? Eur J Sport Sci, 15(1), 3-12. doi: 10.1080/17461391.2014.920926
- Burke, L. M., Ross, M. L., Garvican-Lewis, L. A., Welvaert, M., Heikura, I. A., Forbes, S. G., et al. (2017). Low carbohydrate, high fat diet impairs exercise economy and negates the performance benefit from intensified training in elite race walkers. J Physiol, 595(9), 2785-2807. doi: 10.1113/JP273230
- Hawley, J. A., & Burke, L. M. (2010). Carbohydrate availability and training adaptation: effects on cell metabolism. Exerc Sport Sci Rev, 38(4), 152-160. doi: 10.1097/JES.0b013e3181f44dd9
- Hawley, J. A., & Leckey, J. J. (2015). Carbohydrate Dependence During Prolonged, Intense Endurance Exercise. Sports Med, 45 Suppl 1, S5-12. doi: 10.1007/s40279-015-0400-1
- Lane, S. C., Camera, D. M., Lassiter, D. G., Areta, J. L., Bird, S. R., Yeo, W. K., et al. (2015). Effects of sleeping with reduced carbohydrate availability on acute training responses. J Appl Physiol (1985), 119(6), 643-655. doi: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00857.2014
- Marquet, L. A., Brisswalter, J., Louis, J., Tiollier, E., Burke, L. M., Hawley, J. A., et al. (2016). Enhanced Endurance Performance by Periodization of Carbohydrate Intake: “Sleep Low” Strategy. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 48(4), 663-672. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000000823
- Marquet, L. A., Hausswirth, C., Molle, O., Hawley, J. A., Burke, L. M., Tiollier, E., et al. (2016). Periodization of Carbohydrate Intake: Short-Term Effect on Performance. Nutrients, 8(12). doi: 10.3390/nu8120755
- Perry, C. G. R., & Hawley, J. A. (2017). Molecular Basis of Exercise-Induced Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Biogenesis: Historical Advances, Current Knowledge, and Future Challenges. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a029686
- Pinckaers, P. J., Churchward-Venne, T. A., Bailey, D., & van Loon, L. J. (2017). Ketone Bodies and Exercise Performance: The Next Magic Bullet or Merely Hype? Sports Med, 47(3), 383-391. doi: 10.1007/s40279-016-0577-y
- Torrens, S. L., Areta, J. L., Parr, E. B., & Hawley, J. A. (2016). Carbohydrate dependence during prolonged simulated cycling time trials. Eur J Appl Physiol, 116(4), 781-790. doi: 10.1007/s00421-016-3333-y
- Yeo, W. K., Paton, C. D., Garnham, A. P., Burke, L. M., Carey, A. L., & Hawley, J. A. (2008). Skeletal muscle adaptation and performance responses to once a day versus twice every second day endurance training regimens. J Appl Physiol (1985), 105(5), 1462-1470. doi: 10.1152/japplphysiol.90882.2008
Episode Transcript
00:00
Welcome to Fast Talk developed news podcast and everything you need to know to compress.
00:11
Fast talk is sponsored by cork maker of cork power meters and other kick ass bicycle systems, core power meters, collector, and shockwaves help you ride faster, improve your performance, and share your passion. Find out more at cork calm. The major difference between Tour de France and amateur bike racing or even one day racing is essentially just the diversity of goals that everybody has and and sort of the diversity of reward as well. Because in one day race or an amateur race, it’s just winning the bike race, right? That’s it. Even in an amateur stage race, it’s still it’s pretty simple. Things are gonna stay relatively close. It’s just winning the bike race. When you go to a thing like the Tour de France, not only do you have winning the stage you have winning the various jerseys you have getting on TV getting in a doomed breakaway and an amateur race. Doesn’t do your sponsors any good. Cuz you’re not a television, you have all these other things that come into the Tour de France that really that changed the tactics because and then they altered the tactics because there are so many different ways for a team to quote win without winning. Welcome back, dear listeners to another episode of Fast Talk. I am Kaylee frets a senior editor here at velonews. sitting across the table as always, from my dear friend, Coach Trevor Connor. Trevor, you’re looking very introspective at the moment. How are you today?
Trevor Connor 01:36
I’m staring at that wonderful beer that
01:38
Tom brought us. Well, yeah, that’s so we have it. We have a third individual around the table today. None other than Tom switch. Who I still am not saying that anywhere near correctly. But I’m closer now than I have been ever in the past. Tom’s you may remember was on the podcast a couple months ago chatting team tactics and things like that. We brought him back. For a similar discussion. We’re hashtagging it tactics with Tom’s if you have Tom’s tactics, questions, you may tweet at us with hashtag tactical Tom’s that was that was a mouthful. What a tease in that sentence. Hashtag Tom tactics, tactics, Tom’s Tom’s tactics. I don’t know. Anyway, specifically the topic that we want to touch on today, because we did talk a lot about team tactics before his tour de france tactics. And Tom’s here has never raised the Tour de France. Unfortunately, he will at some point, you said you were on the long list last year. You’re probably on the shortlist this year and then whacked your noggin pretty good at tour California. So probably not going to Tour de France. Is
02:45
that correct? Probably not. Well, no, definitely.
02:49
So Tom’s will be watching on television, just like the rest of us. But World Tour rider definitely knows how the world works. And honestly, the Tour de France is really no different from any other world tour stage race in terms of the tactics that are playing out on the ground. So that is the that’s the topic today, we want to provide you with a bit of a primer from the inside, on how to tactics inside the Tour de France work, we are recording this particular episode a little bit before the Tour de France. So we’re not going to be talking specifics of the race that is unfolding in front of us, but rather, speaking in some generalities about the way that the tour generally unfolds, and the way that individual stages unfold, how teams work, the different types of teams that are in the Tour de France, the different types of stages that are in the Tour de France, and how all these things fit together to build the grand narrative storyline of the tour.
Trevor Connor 03:43
And if you’d like to hear about what’s going on with the tour, listen to our sister podcast, the velonews podcast hashtag shameless promotion.
03:52
I’m actually recording this I’m in Boulder. However, Time Machine time, I’m actually in France. And we are producing all sorts of great podcast content from the ground in France right now slash in the future also in the past, and you should be listened to that all the time. We have the weekly show weekly bonus podcast and we’re also doing a lot of special episodes. During the tour. We find really interesting individuals chat with them. Pick specific topics sort of feature style podcasts. So we do recommend listening in all you have to do is if you subscribe to Fast Talk, you are also subscribed to the bonus podcast so it’s easy as that.
Trevor Connor 04:28
Now the Quick Time Machine moment since I’m adding this in at a much later date, and sorry, Kaylee, I don’t have your velonews podcast sound bites. We need to point out that we did not record this podcast to be a tour de france 101. We’re not going to go into the basics of the tour. We recommend if you’re new to the Tour de France, you brush up on the rules. But briefly, the Tour de France is a 21 stage race. Every day there is a winner of the particular stage and most pro cyclists Winning a single stage at the tour would be a highlight of their career. But in addition to the daily wins, there’s several other objectives at the tour. There’s an overall winner, which is the yellow jersey where and that’s the person with the lowest accumulated time. There’s also a points leader, which is the green jersey. And that’s the person who accumulates the most points both by how they place on the finish of each stage, and multiple sprint points every stage along the way. Finally, there is a best climbers Jersey, where there are points at the top of every major climate detour, and the race finishes on a climb. even larger points for placing highly on the stage. But that’s all we’re going to talk about in terms of the basics of the Tour de France. The key point that we want to get across is there’s many different objectives at the tour. This podcast is about understanding some of the subtleties you’ll see in the race strategy. Why it was one team on the front versus another, why our breakaway is allowed to get away what the sprinters do on climbing stages, and so on. We’ll start by talking about what’s going on on the flat stages, and then cover the Hillier stages where the GC riders come out to play, then we’ll bring it around to discussing anything that you can apply to your local races. And I’ll start it off with the first question. So here’s the way I think of the the Tour de France are the big pro races when I watch them, I used to play a fair amount of chess, it was never very good at it, but I did enjoy it.
06:35
And this does not surprise me at all about you trip.
Trevor Connor 06:37
We used to go out to the bars at my fraternity. And when the bars closed, we came home and played chess drunk. That made us cool or the ultimate dorks
06:47
does not making cool. Maybe, maybe maybe makes you cool. I don’t know that that might have you know everything circular that might go so far around uncool that you end up a cool again.
06:57
But boss probably doesn’t help. Chess tactics, though,
Trevor Connor 07:01
really didn’t. And there was a lot of wrestling involved, which I don’t think is in professional chess. But I remember seeing a match between two Grandmaster chess players. And one Grandmaster took the other grandmasters Queen, then so you think, okay, that guy’s in trouble. He just lost his queen, the other Grandmaster who just lost his queen makes a move. And then the guy who seemed to be a queen up, knocks his king over and gives up the game. And you watch it and somebody who wasn’t very good at chess, you just go, that’s the most baffling thing ever just I’ve ever seen that guy just took the other players Queen and then quit because he realized he had lost the game. And it was because you had these two guys that were seen so far ahead in the game, they could see how this was going to play out in a way that the rest of us couldn’t. And I think that’s the way a lot of people see the Tour de France when they watch it. They see these tactics that they just don’t get because these riders are the best in the world. They understand strategy. So well they see and know to do things that most of the rest of us don’t understand or wouldn’t know to do. Is that would you say that’s accurate? A good way to just Yeah, for sure. Sometimes
08:25
that’s very true. And riders can predict what’s going to happen. Who’s going to move next, then what what moves to look out for? Even when watching the race on television, sometimes you don’t see it because you just don’t feel it.
08:41
You can’t feel how fast the race is, in that moment. You can’t heal you can’t feel how tired everyone is getting. Exactly. Yeah. And that comes into a lot of tactics are predicated on that, you know, as armchair quarterbacks so to speak, we sit at home, we watch on television, and we feel like we can we can see, we feel like we maybe know know what is happening in the race in front of us. But we don’t really because you know, we have we can sort of infer as to how tired a rider is based on body language and things like that we can infer how tired a rider is just based on how far they are, they are into a stage. But until you’re inside the race, you can’t really tell how close people are to the limit. And I think that that is a major driver of of tactics in bike racing,
09:22
that that’s very true. And not just not just riders and their fatigue, but also the course that teams definitely know the courses better than we do while watching because we don’t know when the next turn is coming up. And who knows maybe after that turn, there’s a crosswind and it just splits the bits. And that’s why suddenly everyone’s accelerating so fast that we just don’t see it.
09:46
Tom, so let’s let’s lean on your expertise a little bit. Obviously, there are there are different types of teams that come to the Tour de France. Maybe you can help us just sort of the differences between a team like Quickstep and a team Like Team Sky and your own team Cannondale drapac, you come into this race with different goals. And the team has been built in a different way, maybe just run us through some of the different ways that that directors and managers are building teams with an eye on on a grand tour.
10:16
So for sure, you could pretty much split teams actually into two ones that are there with one huge sprinter, and ones that are there with one huge GC rider. But not all teams can afford, say, a huge sprinter or a huge GC rider. So there’s also a lot in between. But there’s definitely teams with specific sprinters like kiddle, he’ll have the team for him for sure. Dimension Data will have Cavendish. And those guys will do lead outs after lead outs, actual lead outs and they’ll focus on the flat days, they’ll focus on winning Sprint’s and then the other side of the spectrum is Team Sky, which has awful gt team, they will be up there in the springs, but only to keep riders safe. They will focus more on the climbing days more on the GC days. And then there’s a several teams in between, like tinkoff will have. I’m sorry, there’s also a team like for hansgrohe that’ll have a writer like Saigon that has that’s gonna go for the spring sign the green jersey for sure. But also have GC riders and guys that could go for stages like
11:39
mica, for example. Yeah,
11:40
exactly.
11:41
So I mean, one of the one of the results of this is that different teams essentially, the entire peloton leans on different teams on different days, it is a given team’s job to hold the peloton together or to hold the race together to make sure that the race goes to script on different days. So we can talk about that a little bit. So sprint teams, for example, Marcel kittel squad is going to be sort of in charge of holding the race together, essentially letting a break go yes. But making sure it doesn’t get too big of a lead, making sure that they can still bring it back and then pulling it together for a sprint that sort of script that we’ve built for flat stages. Talk a little bit about about the way that a sprint team will approach a stage like that.
12:26
So this year, it’s interesting because it starts with a time trial. So there will be a team that has the lead after they won. Which means that not only the sprinters teams will be interested in keeping it all together but also the team of say Tony Martin that wins they won or you guys will tell if any or Taylor Finney that wins they won and Canada drapac is on the front, trying to make the break come back. But one way or another during the stage during the tour, there will be a moment when the gct might not be interested in keeping the brake close and bring it back for sprint just because they’re all two hours down, or 20 hours down. So the sprint teams for sure they have two or three riders in the beginning that will watch for the moves float around, not led more riders than say six getaway depending on how long the day is if it’s longer than six, sometimes eight easy and fine. Because once the sprinters teams really commit, say 100 K’s out, they can bring back the gap down quake. And the calculation that everyone talks about is one minute per 10 kilometer which is fairly true in flat days where there’s very little chance of break surviving, but it’s definitely not not true in Hillier days and days that are not a straightforward
13:59
and you’ve kind of made your name taking advantage of those days. Yes to stage wins at the at the tour California both sort of in similar circumstances. You were making another move to that effect this year before your crash. We won’t talk too much about maybe talk to me about the ways that that those teams sometimes get it wrong. One of the ways in which a sprinters team might might get those stages wrong and then we saw it we saw it a lot at the tour California. Why might we see that more at the tour California that we see at Tour de France and
Trevor Connor 14:30
one of the questions I want to ask you said on a flat stage you want to let about six to eight riders go up the road. What’s happening on those days when you see a 30 man breakaway up the road? Is that just they messed up? It’s chaos.
14:42
All right, I’ll tackle this first Kaylee’s question. So for sure. When plays a big part. If there’s headwind, it’s very hard to stay away. However, if you know that. The second part of the course is more tailwind. That gives a bigger chance to the breakaway to succeed. And then that minutes per 10 kilometer detail one’s pretty good is really hard to bring back because the break is going to be going 50 miles an hour. And to bring that minute back, you have to go 65. I’m not, I don’t know the math
15:14
behind it. But that’s 60 Yeah,
15:16
yeah, fairly close to that. And that’s hard, harder than say when the break is going 40 and you have to go 46 because of a headwind or whatever. That is definitely one way that the the sprinters teams mess it up, for sure they could start chasing later. But that usually doesn’t happen. And the reason why it more happens in races like California than the tour, because the stakes are higher in the tour. And there’s more teams with sprinters, and they know that these 21 days need to be used. And that’s one time of the year whereas Tour of California, there’s several other week long World Tour stage races along the year. And if you mess it up, you can always sort of come back and redo
16:04
plus California in particular, I think that not everyone there is in peak form and not as focused right everyone at the Tour de France is a peak form. Very true. Yeah. So that I mean, you end up with a couple Quickstep guys coming back from a break after the classics trying to chase down really motivated breakaway. That gets a little bit tricky, where you end up with a bunch of Pete Quickstep classics riders it the Tour de France, pulling back brake waves. But the a little bit easier.
Trevor Connor 16:35
The idea here is hopefully from what I’m hearing from you is hopefully the whatever team is controlling the race, they want a situation they can control. And that’s that’s why you’re saying Zack smaller break. Yeah, so if you got that big breakaway, it sounds like they lost control,
16:48
it would probably not be a day for a sprint if there’s a big break up the road. Because the teams will also just sabotage the breakaways themselves. Yeah, they would just sit on and once there’s say there’s 15 riders off the front, but there’s two Quickstep guys, and they want kiddle to win that sprint, they’re just going to sit on, and those other 13 riders, there will be probably some one more guy that wants to sit on because he has a sprinter, and that can be kiddle. They all just start sitting on and the riders in the break just don’t work as even if they bring them to the line, they’re gonna get beat.
17:26
And does that make the break less efficient? Sort of in and of itself? Or is it just a is it demoralizing? What Why? Why does sitting on slow down a breakaway like that?
17:35
Just because you know, you’re not gonna win. So why race for second? Right?
17:38
Because the guys that have not pulled all day they’re gonna,
17:40
exactly they’re gonna be smoking.
Trevor Connor 17:48
question I have for you is who’s deciding which team is on the front? Does a team just move to the front? Say we’re taking control today? Or do people expect a certain team to get on the front? on these stages? How does it work?
18:01
So say, day two, which is going to be still in Germany, after the time trial, the whoever wins the time trial, he’s going to have his team riding the front fairly early on, because they want to keep the breakaway close enough. So that the sprinters teams are interested and capable of bringing it back for sprint, that gives them sort of the incentive that taste a little bit of success coming their way. And most motivates them a little bit more. So they’re going to be keeping an eye on but when they start writing, that’s a good question. And it always depends, even for say, Sprint stage later on when the gct might not be as motivated to ride early on. It will be the teams that have the most confidence in their sprinter of winning, that will start riding early, and then other teams will join in. But for sure, if one sprinter wins two stages already, and there’s another sprint stage coming up. His team will be the first one riding, say two riders, three riders, out of their teams will join in for sure. But that team just because they’re the favorites, they’ll be writing early and keeping the break close so that the other teams have that sense of success, so we’ll better taste the we can win today. throw throw up some guys out up there.
Trevor Connor 19:29
How often does it happen that you have a team on the front that the rest of the peloton says you have no business being here or situation where everybody says, well, that team should be on the front. Why aren’t they there? Or does everybody do all the teams pretty much know when they should be on the front and do their job?
19:47
There definitely is sort of an understanding between the teams who should ride and who should stay rest up. But definitely there can be misunderstandings and that’s one of the things That you could try and make the breakaway succeed when there’s a little bit of rivalry between two sprinter teams and no one wants to commit, and that stage is not a pure sprinter stage, then they might mess it up, for sure.
20:14
So like a lot of the stages that we’ve seen in recent years that are a little bit trickier. They’re not necessarily a pure sprint stage. They’re not necessarily a pure climber stage. I mean, it seems to me like there are very few teams that would have incentive to ride at that point. who ends up on the front of the peloton. I mean, you’ve known as incentive to ride but is it just at that point, whoever has the yellow jerseys, actually, they kind of have to ride the front, at least not let whatever the group is get like 45 minute lead,
20:43
yes. First, it first comes down to the yellow jersey and his team. However, depending on the how tricky the day is, say, I was saying six, eight riders get in the brake. But if the day is, like 95%, it’ll come down to a sprint, they will have only four guys in the brake, they will keep racing until there’s only four guys in the brake, because four guys are easier to control than eight. However, if it goes over that edge of being tricky, and not favorable for the sprinters, the break to get in the break will be really hard. Because people know the sprinter seams are not going to chase. So there’s more people trying to get in the break, here’s your chance to win a break. And here’s your chance to win from a breakaway.
Trevor Connor 21:32
One things I wish they would do more with the tour is show that first hour to the flat stages, because that’s when absolute mayhem is happening. And people are just attacking me and brought back attacking more. How do the teams decide that’s the breakaway and let it get up. And I’m especially asking this thinking about a lot of the athletes I work with were in their local races, it just the whole day is just attacks, attacks, attacks, and they’re instantly brought back and there’s never a point in those races where a strong enough team says that’s the right breakaway, we’re gonna let it go. And ultimately, a breakaway never does go in those weekend races. But it seems like there’s a huge intelligence at a race like the Tour de France of we know exactly what breakaway we went up there. And when that breakaway goes, we’re just going to let it go. How is that done? How does that happen?
22:23
Well, it already starts in the team buses, because there will be teams that will want to get in the break. Even though they know that break, the chance of break seceding is very little, those are going to be the smaller French teams, for sure. Because they want their sponsors to get there’s money worth on TV, and just even showing off the Jersey is good enough. And maybe there are some climbing points available all along the way, and they’ll go for those. But everyone knows that all come down to the sprint so the sprinter seems they won’t put any guy in the break. If they do is only because the brake is too dangerous and they want it to come back. There’s definitely days when the breakaway actually goes like flag drops, brake goes done. Three guys up the road. Because everyone knows it’s that flat headwind. No chance it’s as soon as zero.
23:17
Yeah, it’s just Alex house ended up in one of those exactly rode like for like 200 k into a headwind.
23:24
And no one wants to you know, but someone has to, because they need to put on a show anyways. And they know they’re gonna get some TV time when they’re at the front. Yeah, and then how do they control who gets and who doesn’t get when it’s not as simple as that. There’s gonna be a lot or others that don’t want to get in the break. A lot of GC riders, lotta Super domestiques they’re not gonna want to waste their energy. A lot of riders that are going for the breakaways along the way later on, they’re not going to want to waste their energy. So there’s actually probably say 30 to 40 riders that you only have to control. And that’s not as hard as controlling 200.
Trevor Connor 24:05
But still, how did they decide? Because there there are a lot of attacks, how do they ultimately decide that’s the one and then communicate that to the whole field? And I’m also thinking about he always amazed me when you watch Tour de France, you when you turn it on, and they’re just starting to say hey, let’s catch up with what’s happening as a brake wave eight riders up the road and they give you a list and you know, somewhere there’s Thomas voeckler.
24:27
If Tommy is there, then it might succeed. Be careful.
Trevor Connor 24:32
How does he know it’s the breakaway? Or is it do the teams actually control and say okay, Tom’s up there. We got the right mix up there. Goodbye.
24:40
Actually, sometimes, definitely. You can tell that oh, this rider is up there. We can let him go. But most of the times like a team will not if it’s a sprinters day. Our team will not want to put two riders up there because they’re, I wouldn’t say wasting two riders but two riders are using up energy which cuts down those 40, again to 20. Okay. And then as soon as there’s, say five riders, everyone knows that they’re not going to let a lot more get away. If you see five riders up the road, and there’s two sprinter sprinter teams close to the front, you know that as soon as you try and bridge across, they’re going to be on your wheel. And if you do bridge across, they’re going to be right there. So kind of the motivates you,
25:30
essentially. Sounds to me like there’s a role within a lot of teams that is essentially like moving billboard, like, your only job actually, is to go and get on television at some point. So it’s,
Trevor Connor 25:44
it’s almost a matter of that breakaway gets up the road, the other people want to get in the break, see that? Okay, that’s probably the one that’s gonna go away. They’re not gonna let me get up to it. So I missed my chance. And they just exactly,
25:57
yeah, or I have a teammate up there. And I don’t also track because I don’t want to my teammates can come back.
Trevor Connor 26:01
They do have one question. I just remembered that I have to ask every I get asked all the time, and all our listeners want to know, why is it the breakaway is almost always caught. Two, three kilometers before the finish.
26:15
Its timing. The reason why is because the later the break, it gets caught? Well, yeah, unless it’s in the last k, then it gets messy. But say you want to catch the break. perfect scenario between seven and two days ago. Because that means that no one else is going to attack. If you catch the break. 50 days out, there’s still 50 guests race, and someone will try and attack. Someone want to try and get in a move. That’s why sometimes you see the gap go down to one minute, but it’s still 30 days ago, and it’s only goes back out to two minutes or a minute 30 or stays at a minute. But if sometimes how it happened in top Romany this year, we got in a break in the field kit said two minutes the whole day, which is a little bit frustrating when you’re in the break, because you know you’re you have no chance. And then they start riding pretty hard gap can come down. Still 30 Kids race still one climb to race. And the team chasing us down really wanted their sprinter to win. So we just sat up in the breakway. No one does that. Well, we did because there was still one climb to go. And if they want to mess with us, we would mess with them. We set up, we get caught the fields all together, which means fresher legs can attack someone Clark goes a couple other guys go. And Alex dowsett just got brought back for the sprint. And what’s funny, the team that chase this down did one. Interesting. So that was kind of the rep range of the doomed breakaway.
27:56
So if they had just let you get some more time, if they if they’d given you four minutes, for example, at least and you had some hope, then maybe you don’t do that. And maybe that team wins.
28:07
And we would go over that one climb and they would have to just chase us and not chase the next guys that attack right
28:12
the fresher guys. Exactly. Sneaky sneaky.
Trevor Connor 28:16
If you feel like the strategy at the pro level when it comes to breaking away and controlling the race is all sounding very calculated. It is. Here’s a conversation we had with Michael creed, a very respected professional team manager and ex pro himself. creed talks about an almost Moneyball esque pragmatism to professional race strategy.
28:35
We’re here with Mike creed, who has built up a bit of a reputation as a
28:41
well, genius Jesus. Yeah,
28:43
I know.
28:45
I appreciate
28:46
I mean, I you know, Joking aside you, I think you you produce results, particularly smart stuff that nobody would have expected and have definitely sort of built a bit of reputation for yourself as someone who can take riders, we wouldn’t expect to be that good and pull amazing results out of them. So talk a little bit about the way that you work with those with with different team members and how you sort of structure a team at a race.
29:13
I think it is always really important to not go off of hope. And I think a lot of times with races there’s like this hope factor that people rely on tremendously. And I think like a lot of things in my riders would always hear me say is like, frankly, like I’m we’re going best practices like so I don’t care if we lose because just shooting your sheer numbers, we’re gonna lose a like way more than we ever win. I just want to win. Or I want to lose if we lose, I want to lose in a way that we can actually say that we gave it the best shot. So a lot of that is even if situations aren’t great for us, or it’s we’re not in the power position, that we’re not panicking, and just Maybe like flipping the card table over, and thereby losing the whole race. So one of the things I would do was it worked mainly for one day races, but you can take the star sheet and you score each team and you go through the riders and you give them a number, based on whether or not their favorite likely to win need a lot of luck to win, can’t win. And you go through and you score each team. And through scoring, that you suddenly kind of see the race tactics totally unfold in front of you, just at your table, and you you can see who’s actually the pressure is gonna lie on who’s gonna panic first. And you go to the mat with that, because you can’t change on the fly. A lot of times, you’ll see like a break of 13 guys will go and this one team has two guys in it. And because they have two guys in it, the natural inclination is, well, that team doesn’t have to work, they have two guys in it. But then you look at those two guys, and you say, versus those other 11. The only way those two guys have a chance of winning is if the other 11 get LED, of course. So actually, while that team director comes to me and tries to force me to maybe do a little more work, if they have a stronger team than me, if their scores higher, no, we’re not working, you find that by putting those two losers in the break, you’re going to lose. So if you want to lose this race, let’s do it. But I know if I put my guys in the front right now, and your higher score than me, I lose the race. Now, believe me wrong. I’m super mad at my team for missing that brick. Because now I have to play this bluff game, but we’re playing the bluff game. And I’m not gonna I’m not gonna bail you out. So if you guys don’t catch the break, that’s something that I have to go back to my owner and explain. And I have to go and yell at the riders about fine, fair enough. But we’re giving best chances to win the race. And me going and panicking and killing my team, while stronger team sit behind me and capitalize on that. That’s not the way to win the race.
32:00
Do you think Pro Cycling is off in a little bit to be run by the heart? I mean, what you’re describing? Yeah, it’s a kind of hyper pragmatism.
32:08
Yeah, it’s very, I love that it is because then I could take advantage of it. But I wouldn’t want to change. So I Cycling is about passion, there’s movements, there are those, there is the fun of the team attack. And a sneak spot, there is a thing but like, what people don’t realize is that you have to be strong enough to pull it off. And that four team attack and the crosswind those are really strong guys, you know, like, you can’t have one guy who’s a top 15 guy, and then a bunch of top 60 guys and do that kind of damage to the field. It’s not gonna work. So all those things, while very beautiful, and fun and exciting for racing. There’s very few times that that actually even a conversation.
32:50
So like, what is what is Team Sky doing? For you know, much of the first week in the tour? We don’t know who’s winning, because we recorded it beforehand. But we do know that after that time trial, it’s a couple of stages. And then there’s a big day on plus to belfie. What happens in the four stages in between there what it was, was Team Sky doing, you know, what are the rest of the GC squads doing in that time?
33:18
So I think for sky, the perfect scenario is Froome gets second. Because, yeah, because if he wins in the time trial, they’re gonna have to use up energy already, right. But if he’s second, he’s close enough, ahead of all the other guys, so they don’t have to worry about them too much. And they just sort of stay out of trouble, which means they look for cross ones, they look for small towns with tricky sections where there could be crashes, they make sure that inside the final three k Froome is with the main group, which means even if he doesn’t make it does have a mechanical or crashes, he still has the same time. However, maybe in the Tour de France, who knows, they put it out to five k? Because there’s been talk about that. And it might happen,
34:16
right? Because there’s been a lot of chatter about GC teams riding near the front on sprint stages, the end of sprint stages, and essentially, sprinters team saying get these guys out of here, that making it more dangerous for us. Exactly, etc, etc. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, I mean, if you’re trying to protect GC writer, it’s, it’s what you got to do is you have to keep that router up front. Right, but at the same time you are you’re kind of in the sprinter space at that point.
34:41
Yeah, I don’t see why would not get extended to say five K, it would make it a little bit safer. Will that change that the GG teams right the front to Kaizen? Probably not. Because there’s gaps and stuff. There’s still sometimes A slight little gap. And as soon as there’s a slight little gap, you get a second, two seconds, three seconds. And usually the grand tours don’t come down to just seconds. But you don’t want to take that chance. Two
35:11
seconds add up. Yeah, zero was 31. So exactly, it can always be close. But so
Trevor Connor 35:17
ultimately the GC teams are just trying to protect their GC writer and make sure that that he is near the front at any dangerous point in the race Exactly. And using as little energy as possible. Exactly.
35:30
keeping them safe keeping them hydrated, fueled out of trouble. Say that be that crosswind be that dogs on the road. tackled the dogs on travel.
Trevor Connor 35:42
So what would happen in the peloton, if let’s say Chris Froome wins the time trial on the first day so they have the leaders jersey. And second day the race starts up everybody looks for teams guy to get on the front and team discuss now we’re good. Somebody else can do it. What would be the response to that in the peloton.
35:59
Sooner or later the sprinter seems would take it over.
Trevor Connor 36:02
But would there be a reaction to Team Sky? Would there be a penalty within the peloton for them?
36:08
People you definitely would make a little bit enemies along the way, and people would definitely not help you out later on in the race when they could, but they don’t have to. But for sure, it would come down to sprint 99%. Anyways, because because they are on there, because it’s the tour and no one’s gonna take any chances. Yeah, but there would certainly be some there would not there will not be happy faces. Not all happy faces.
Trevor Connor 36:40
Let’s take a quick break. Fast doc is sponsored by cork maker the next generation D zero power meter platform. D zero is packed with 10 years of technical innovations. It also offers a choice of Bluetooth Low Energy, or AMT plus data transmission and broader compatibility. Get the power meter cesis or the D zero power meter spider for power ready OEM bikes, Find out more at cork comm slash D zero.
37:10
Let’s move on to climbing the climbing stages of the Tour de France starting with blanche to belfie. And then across France into the Pyrenees and back up into the Alps, there’s a whole lot of climbing, packed into the second two weeks of this Tour de France, climbing stages are going to be treated very, very differently from spread stages. And part of that is just the fact that after the first climbing stages, after plus to belfie, the GC picture has been figured out a little bit, right. And at the very least there are now at least half the field or more most of the field that is essentially out of GC contention enough so that they’re not going to steal your jersey for a day, they’re not going to all that stuff is very, very unlikely. Let’s start with the sprint teams again. What are these teams doing as the as the race heads into the mountains? I mean, they just essentially give up and hang out the gruppetto and try to survive, what are they? What are they doing at this point,
38:06
the biggest part of that team would probably just hang out and try and survive each day. There’s definitely a rider or two that are there for the Sprint’s, but also they’re good enough climbers that they can go for stages. And if there’s a stage where the GC riders have battled it out, but it’s too hard for the sprinters, they might give a crack, they might try and get in the break. Or maybe they have a guy that’s going for the climate jersey, who knows that it’s all It all depends on how sprint specific that team is say quicks that they I’m not sure who heard this ending. Exactly. But they might end up not having anyone in the break and just focusing on the repetto and make calculating the time cuts.
38:52
How much how much time you spent, Nick repetto in your career?
38:56
Not a lot?
38:58
Well, I think the repetto is mostly formed in the grand tours, and I’ve never done one yet. So I wouldn’t say I’ve spent a lot of time I have, however, finished 15 minutes down in the group pedo and tour of Portugal. And that was very hard.
39:18
I guess semi that was a leading question toward how exactly the group pedo is policed, how it functions. And obviously, if you’ve spent a ton of time there, maybe you can maybe not the best guy to answer that. But I would imagine that even even sometime in the gruppetto would give you a pretty good idea of how that works and who’s doing time calculations and who’s setting the pace and things like that.
Trevor Connor 39:41
So before you answer that a really important distinction to make. I remember doing an interview with Carter Jones who went over and raced in Europe for a couple of years, and he’s a climber. And I said what was the biggest surprise when you went over to the pro tour races and he said, I couldn’t believe how fast the sprinters could climb. They’re not back there, because that’s the fastest they can go. There, they’re choosing to go that pace, they could go faster, they just don’t have an interest in wasting that energy.
40:09
That’s true, because they’re saving energy for the sprint days. And the fresher you have the legs, the better chance you can win the sprint, you definitely try and hang on as long as you can. Because you don’t want to be in the meadow. Like you don’t want to be chasing Tomcat, you want to be in front of the tanker. And you don’t want to be riding the wind. So you try and stay with the group as long as you can. But once you’re done, you look around with the guys that are around you, and form a little group, start writing, see if there’s a group in front of you or behind you. There might be a team card coming up. The team card gives you some info, there’s a group of 20 guys up there, just 30 seconds, come on, push it get there there, or 50 guys are coming from the back, you’re just wasting your energy here in the wind just wait up, it won’t matter. That’s how the gruppetto forums. But once it’s formed, depending on how close or far from the finish line you are, the race is on for you as well, possibly, to chase the chase the timecard. And as we know, the sprinter seems, won’t have that many riders up the road. So they’ll have the definitely at least one team car with them. That’ll give them time checks, maybe tell them who’s winning, maybe give them a pizza.
Trevor Connor 41:34
It’s a little easier for them. But my understanding and please correct me on this, it can be really tough for domestiques on the more GC focused teams, when they get popped if they get popped early, because they might get a bottle from the cars that are getting popped. But then they have another three hours to race and they’re not getting anything, whatever those do water bottles they have when they’re pop that that’s got to get them through the next three hours.
41:59
Yes, you would, they wouldn’t get any assistance from their own team car. But on miserable days, I’ve seen riders take jackets from other teams and put them on and everyone shares shares the burden, so to say, and teams help out no one’s we’re all in the same game. And we’re all here to just put on a good show.
Trevor Connor 42:21
Fair enough.
42:22
All right. sprinters teams and climbing stages, probably not the most interesting thing.
42:28
And not a thing you would probably see much on. Right?
42:31
That’s kind of why I asked you know, I’m just interested in hell. I’m always interested in how the things that don’t happen on television, go down. Let’s talk about climate teams. Let’s like what GC teams in particular coming into climbing stages. I’m sure you’ve sat in team meetings before climbing stages when you have a good climber and the team. What are what are you usually talking about? I mean, is it which climbs are hardest? What the climbs look like? What teams to pay attention to what what goes down in those team meetings before the climbing stage when you got paralon in your team?
43:04
You talk about everything. You talk about everything about starting from the race course, who are the teams to watch out for? Which teams will probably just ride the front till everyone gets dropped? And then let Chris Froome win. I don’t know who that team would be. But every team has their own characteristics a little bit even. And you definitely have to know the climbs how hard they are, where are they? Which ones are the important ones. How are the descents because they might be even more important. Sometimes if the climb is easy, but the descent is hard. That means there’s going to be a lot of riders at the top of the climb. But if someone pushes it on the descent, it may split. So sometimes a climb will be the hardest. In the last 500 meters, we’re number one just sprinting further down.
44:00
That’s very true. Do they ever take notes or you just sort of assuming that you’re going to get all this information in your radio again later,
44:07
you do get the information in the radio. But it’s always nice to have information on your stem, which the directors prepare usually, which have sprint points. Start up the climbs finish up the climbs. And not always but most of the times also percentage. And that’s another thing you definitely discuss in the team meeting is where the feed zone is going to be. Are there going to be some extra Swan years along the way on top of the climbs? So if you know there’s a swan year on top of the climb, you can always throw your bottle and just get one on the top right. say well wait, yeah, but at the end of the day, once you know the race course, then it does actually come down to what the tactics are going to be. And it’s very hard to predict even for World Tour teams with you Years and years of experience. So you sometimes have to do it on the fly dude in the race. Definitely though, there’s a set plan going into the race
45:10
that brings up road captains. So from what I know, and I’ve obviously never raced in the world tour, but from what I hear, and what I’ve, you know, I’ve discussed this with a couple of different writers and directors and things. When the proverbial shit hits the fan. Those road captains become very, very important. And in terms of sort of resetting tactics and keeping everyone together and things like that, how exactly does that role play out? And then who tends to take those roles and the teams that you’ve been on?
45:40
So for us, a lot of times, it’s Simon Clark, pretty much every race he does, he’s the team captain road captain. It’s because of the years of experience he has. And the races he does, he’s done. And also because what type of rider he is, because you wouldn’t put a sprinter, a team captain, road, Captain, sorry, because he’s not going to be there after the second time. And it’s not going to be worth it. Not so useful in the group. Not so useful in the group. But you definitely have a very versatile writer, that’s a road captain, one that’s good on his feet. And the reason why you have him is because the information sometimes because of we’re in the mountains, there’s not that much connection, the TV might be down. radios might not be working, the team car might be too far. And it shits hitting the fan. And it’s everywhere. So you need to make those quick decisions. And that’s exactly when the team captain road Captain comes in.
46:43
I mean, he does he literally just like right up and yell at people,
46:47
hey, he usually doesn’t yell. That’s not a good indication that things are going. But he definitely has even even if the radio is not working back to the car, it usually still is between the riders because we’re still close by right. And whoever needs to hear it hears it. He might say, look out for the next two K’s because there’s a kicker coming up. And if there’s two more guys up the road, then we’re in big trouble. And then you really keep your eyes open. And if anyone goes you just straight away fall, you don’t hesitate. You don’t question the road captain.
47:23
I mean, we talked about this actually, last time you were on podcast, sort of the creation of roles, not like a distinct plan, right. And so is that essentially what he’s doing is he’s maybe changing the roles of riders out of out on the road.
47:38
Definitely, to some point, for sure. flumes not going to go for the spring of the spring. But to some extent, if he sees that another writer suffering Where’s someone’s on a great day, he might switches switch those roles up. Or we usually try and talk communicate in between each other and communicate back to the car if suddenly, we’re feeling that were not up to the task that we were assigned on the team meeting on the bus. So that also if it’s a good day, and it’s not too crazy, then it might even come from the team car. It’s not always only the road Captain decides different tactics along the way.
48:18
So this brings up a topic of radios, which was a point of contention a couple years ago, and no one seems to really care anymore. It was like this big spat between riders and UCI and UCI said that if you took radios away, the racing would get more exciting. It would get less predictable. And the router said, Hey, we kind of need those, like know when there’s a car in the road or whatever. Where do you fall on the radio debate? If you had to pull yourself out as a fan of Pro Cycling? Do you think? Do you honestly think that radios make the racing better or worse,
48:55
as a fan, I am a fan.
48:58
You are fed.
49:00
To the point, I definitely think that radios have their place, and they should be used. However, I think even if they took away the radios, that definitely would be a couple less crashes because the directors wouldn’t be on the radios. This is the time to get to the front. This is the time you need to be at the front because there’s only room at the front for like 20 guys. So if you tell 180 guys, that you need to be at the front, then someone’s gonna squeeze in there and he’s gonna go down right or take someone down.
Trevor Connor 49:35
I kind of like her all in the top hundred and 80 riders
49:44
in front of you I have in front of you.
Trevor Connor 49:47
On the flip side, when you watch the tour now they have so much live data. They have a bunch of people’s power data, a bunch of people’s heart rate data where they’re all located because they all have the GPS or any of the team managers actually watching those live feeds. And does that show the race?
50:03
That should be?
50:04
Yeah,
50:05
I don’t know, probably not.
50:06
That data is usually pretty, pretty bad.
50:09
It’s not really super accurate either, because sometimes they forget to calibrate the power meters, which happens because there’s so much stuff going on. And totally makes sense. But for sure speed heart My heart rate. Yeah. Speed, heart rate, and your location is Yeah, you could go by that and see Oh, someone stopped
Trevor Connor 50:32
taking off his shirt.
50:35
Yes, yeah, actually, I was watching the JIRA broadcast. For a little while. I think it was, I think it was nibblies numbers that were that popped up. And it was like, they’re going up one of the final climbs and he’s chasing Marika, Donna. It was like he’s doing 212. That was i don’t think i don’t think he’s doing he’s not that late.
50:51
I don’t think he’s two.
50:54
And 35 kilos
50:56
is individualized. We know. So right.
50:58
Everyone should have to give give a broadcast their their threshold.
Trevor Connor 51:03
Make it interesting. Like,
51:05
Oh, damn, Tom says sounds go real hard right now.
51:09
He’s going backwards. How’s that possible?
51:12
We’ve kind of gotten off topic here. Trevor, I think you had a question to bring us back on topic.
Trevor Connor 51:17
Along those lines with the radios, they talked about the glory days, or whatever you want to call it of the Tour de France when you would have GC riders breaking away on the first of five coals and stay away the whole day and put 10 minutes into his arrival. And now it seems that the GC guys tend to sit in and it really comes down to the final climb. What has brought about that change, or is that just the UCI and some older people like me just being reminiscing about days that really didn’t ever exist?
51:48
It’s definitely not the radios that have changed that. However, I do think that just the field is a lot stronger. So there’s more guys that can follow if someone goes fairly hard on a climb and gets a gap, which means that he’s never alone. He’s never alone for five calls. They might get in a group which we’ve seen, not five, say to three clubs from the from the finish where they try and split it up and try and get away. Say Contador always does some crazy moves, which are so exciting. It’s definitely a different era. That’s it’s just different tactics. Because there’s more writers that can follow, there’s just the field is stronger, there’s not that big of a difference between the best guys and the guys that are in the top 10. Still, people are more attentive, people have seen what those attacks have brought. And it’s very hard to keep going as hard on the first of five, as on the fifth of five.
52:55
I think that one of the things he said there is probably a major point, which is that the level is higher across the peloton than it used to be where Where’s Eddie mercs and and some of his compatriots maybe stood head and shoulders above much the peloton. The reality is that Chris Froome. And some of those top guys, yes, they are faster. But they’re not that much faster. They’re not faster to the point where they could go and do something crazy and have it actually work. And that’s probably the major difference, I think, in my uninformed opinion.
Trevor Connor 53:26
So let’s start taking this to how can our listeners take some of these, the strategy that you’re seeing and apply it to racism aren’t the Tour de France, so the weekend race? And I’ll actually start with the reverse of that? What are some of the aspects of strategy that you see in the Tour de France that could only exist in the Tour de France, because of either the the length of the race or the nature of the teams or technology or whatever, that you wouldn’t see and wouldn’t want to apply at the three hour race, local race on the weekend? Well, for sure, the
54:01
biggest difference is that the Tour de France after day two is longer than your weekend. So there’s bigger time gaps in between riders. And there’s definitely guys that are 20 minutes down, and that no one cares if they get going when the stage Well, not no one cares, but less people care. So they might get to go in the break. And the break might succeed just because every single rider in there is two hours now. And that’s something that definitely doesn’t happen in one day races or even weekend races. And those are actually the most exciting days to watch when the breakaway might succeed but might not succeed, depending on who’s there depending on how strong it is. And those are the days that getting the break is really hard. And I think that this year as well. They’re going to show a lot more stages from start to beginning and I’d suggest everyone listening to tune in to those days or the days that start with an uphill, that’s gonna be, you’ll be watching with a smile
55:08
on your face isn’t always the days that I wander around the paddock in the morning and see all the all the riders warming up on trainers and just looking totally miserable. Because they know, they know how much that first hour is gonna hurt. They know it’s gonna be real bad. I think that you know, the major difference. And this is essentially what you were alluding to the major difference between Tour de France, and amateur bike racing or even one day racing is essentially just the diversity of goals that everybody has and and sort of the diversity of reward as well. Because in one day race or an amateur race, it’s just winning the bike race, right? That’s it. Even in an amateur stage race, it’s still it’s pretty simple, things are gonna stay relatively close. It’s just winning the bike race. When you go to a thing like the Tour de France, not only do you have winning the stage, you have winning the various jerseys you have getting on TV, getting an A doomed breakaway and an amateur race, doesn’t do your sponsors any good. Cuz you’re not a television, you have all these other things that come into the storefronts that really, that changed the tactics because and then they altered the tactics, because there are so many different ways for a team to quote win without winning,
Trevor Connor 56:21
you also, frankly, have a survival aspect to it. Everybody’s looking at we have to race every day pretty much for three weeks. And a team like Team Sky is actually gonna be happy to say, let the breakaway go, it’s gonna make the day easier for us. We don’t want to have to be chasing everything down and driving a huge pace every single day.
56:40
Exactly. How do we apply this to amateur racing? I mean, we’re talking we everything we’ve been saying is essentially that sort of Francis, almost nothing like amateurism.
Trevor Connor 56:51
I think the one commonality you have is teams with different goals, you are still going to have teams that show up to the the one day race on the weekend that have a big sprinter and want to finish in the sprint, we’re gonna have other teams that want to finish in the breakaway,
57:05
exactly all riders, even individual riders, if you know there’s a couple of riders in your race that always went from the break, or really good time triallists, they’re not gonna wait for the sprint. And that’s what that’s who you look for. And you sort of try and read the race. That’s also what you do. Watching the tour, you try and see, maybe you see the flags wave, and maybe you see where the turn is coming up, and you can predict what’s going to happen. You do the same in your race, you check out the course beforehand, definitely check out if there’s any climbs or something tricky parts, the more you know, the better. That’s the first thing we find out before a race. And that’s the first thing you should look for.
Trevor Connor 57:49
What do you do if you are the sprinter team at the local one day race? How do you work as a team to try to set up for that sprint,
57:59
that’s a pretty hard one. Because in a local race, everyone attacks and even if you, you think oh, we’ll just let these two guys roll off and bring them back. That’s never gonna happen, unless you really put your authority on it. And for sure, the first 20 minutes, you you can’t really do anything about it, everyone’s gonna attack because everyone’s still lungs are full of oxygen, and everyone still wants to go. But if you have enough riders at the front of the race, and other teams, or other riders see you chase down every single move. As soon as there’s more than three riders, you chase them down, if they see that, and that it keeps happening and keeps happening. And no matter what you do, it does happen, they will have less incentive to attack and the attacks will be weaker. And that’s how you let that breakaway go. That’s how you make those three guys just hang there in 20 seconds and bring them back in the last two laps and win this print.
Trevor Connor 59:02
But you have to have an awfully strong team to do that. So it sounds like at the local race, if you’re a big sprinter, you have a team of the big sprinter, there’s a little bit of hoping that the field is going to be together at the end, you can’t control it quite the same,
59:15
it’s definitely a lot harder, just because the race is also a lot shorter.
Trevor Connor 59:19
So what do you do if you are a team that wants to try to win in a breakaway at the local one day race,
59:26
no stopping you just you have to put your riders in the breakaway. And you have to anticipate other people trying to bridge and if there’s three guys with one of your guys is good for guys with one of your guys is also good but less. So you try and just follow the guys attacking you don’t attack yourself. If you have a team and in the breakaway, you just keep falling and that’s what the sprinter teams would do. They would not necessarily chase the four guys down they would just follow the fourth guy across And in return, bring it all back together. That just means that they wouldn’t have to spend as much time in a win. But for sure, it’s still not easy.
1:00:10
I mean, I think maybe the best comparison to amateur racing within actual Pro Cycling is maybe that first hour when everyone’s trying to make the break, right? Yeah, it’s just it’s just break after break after break. And so you can use some of the same tactics to kill breaks, as you would just in the pro field. I mean, if you’re if you’re a sprinter team, yeah, you just keep sending guys up the road to not work, right. That’s a good way to kill break, regardless of
1:00:35
the level and perfect scenario. They’re not verging themselves. They’re following someone.
Trevor Connor 1:00:41
And I will tell you, I get asked that question by riders on my team all the time. I got into the breakaway, we had one guy who wouldn’t work. So we all sat up, what do we do? And you do see that a lot at races where it’s the lowest common denominator that sets the breakaway and I’m always telling my team, the guys on my team, look, ignore that guy, put your heads down. If you have enough other guys that will work, get your gap and then you can figure out what to do with that guy later. But if you always sit up and wait for the field, every time you have somebody that’s not going to work, you’re always going to set up
1:01:14
very true.
1:01:16
Well as question yeah,
Trevor Connor 1:01:18
so what are you doing that one day local race when your GC team
1:01:23
when your GC team you just look for the GC like the other riders that are on close the GC and you follow them, you look for the guys that are close enough to pass you and focus on them mostly focus on not letting them get away. But if your team is strong enough, and you’re a sprinter and would come down to sprint, you just ride for a sprint. Okay, I
Trevor Connor 1:01:48
was impressed by that answer but I am gonna say if you’re a GC team at the one day local race
1:01:55
also true
1:01:57
I was wondering about that question. I was gonna question is kind of odd but I think Tom’s is just assuming that you misspoke
Trevor Connor 1:02:06
I always been
1:02:07
there’s always there’s GC races.
Trevor Connor 1:02:10
Since I can’t sprint at all It doesn’t matter what race I am I’m writing as a GC right there you go.
1:02:16
I think that is about it for today. We Tom’s thanks for coming in. Well, thank you hashtag tactics with Tom’s was was excellent. Once again, we will definitely have you in again. Because you’re in Boulder pretty frequently, which is very handy for us to we can just call you right in here.
Trevor Connor 1:02:33
Thanks again, everybody. for listening. This has been another episode of Fast Talk. As always, we love your feedback. Email us at Webb letters at competitor group comm subscribe to Fast Talk and iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play. Be sure to leave us a rating and a comment when you’re there. While you’re there, check out our sister podcast, the velonews podcast particularly over the next few weeks because they are going to be giving you all sorts of great analysis of the Tour de France
1:03:00
Tour de France, so awesome. I’m currently in France and boulder at the same time. It’s amazing. Kelly’s quite talented.
Trevor Connor 1:03:07
That podcast covers news about the week of cycling which will be all Tour de France for the next few weeks. Become a fan of Fast Talk on facebook@facebook.com slash velonews and on twitter@twitter.com slash velonews. Fast talk is a joint production of Connor coaching and Bella news which is owned by competitive group. The thoughts and opinions expressed in Fast Talk are those of the individual in the case of Tom’s it was actually quite intelligent. For Kelly fretts Oh no, no, I gotta say Tom sketch sketch sketch.
1:03:41
Could you please say squinch
1:03:43
squinch. screech
Trevor Connor 1:03:45
Thank you,
1:03:45
Tom squidge Tom squidge.
1:03:50
All right,
Trevor Connor 1:03:51
I’m Trevor Connor. Thanks for listening.
