Tour de France Blog Series: Part 4

We're beginning to wrap up this blog series, and hopefully part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this blog series have been enjoyable reads.  Hopefully, you're also beginning to understand some of the things that make the Tour de France so awesome to follow.  Now that we've gone over some of the basic tactics applied in cycling, let's learn about all the different types of stages found in the Tour de France, and the strategies teams will employ in each type.

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Time Trials

Time trials are stages in which cyclists race against the clock to try to achieve as fast a time as possible.  Instead of a so-called "group start," competitors start riding the course one at a time, staggered a few minutes apart.  Drafting is not allowed, and thus equipment and special riding positions are used that will make the cyclist as aerodynamic as possible.  There is not much tactical racing in time trials, especially in a team sense; instead, riders are familiar with their abilities and will choose an optimal pace to ride the course.  Familiarity with the course is important for GC contenders, and so, domestiques riding the course at an earlier time will often provide reconnaissance.  Beyond the task of budgeting energy though, time trials don't have the strategies that we'll see in group stages.  Nevertheless, time trials are extremely important for GC contenders, since time gaps are always created, and riders do not have the luxury of merely coasting in a peloton and finishing with the same time as their rivals.

In cycling, there are two types of time trials: individual time trials (ITTs) and team time trials (TTTs).  The concept of the ITT is rather self-explanatory, and the Tour de France usually has 1-2 ITTs, in addition to a prologue, which is a very short ITT on the first day of the Tour.  In a TTT, an entire team will race together and are allowed to draft off each other (but not off other teams).  Riders will take turns doing the work, then peeling off to the back of the group, with the length of their shifts dependent on their individual time-trialling ability (stronger riders will spend more time at the front).  The team's time is determined by the finish time of the team's 5th rider.  Thus, a team will often make a push towards the end of the stage that would drop their weaker riders.  This year's Tour does not have a TTT, and the TTT is only found on the Tour once every few years.  This is probably because of the main argument against the TTT, which is that GC contenders with relatively weak teams are at a disadvantage.  But part of what makes the Tour exciting is that there is always something different every year, so adding a TTT once in a while is good in my book.

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Flat Stages

First, a word on mountain gradings.  The climbs on Tour are categorized, in order of increasing difficulty: category 4, 3, 2, 1, and HC (hors categorie - beyond category).  A flat stage will typically only have climbs of category 4 and 3, if any at all.  This makes it relatively easy for riders to avoid getting dropped by the peloton (i.e. falling behind).  Additionally, flat stages are worth the most points in the race for the green jersey, so it is the ideal time for sprinters to try to rack up some points.  However, flat stages can also be good opportunities for riders to make a successful breakaway.

Stage 4 of this year's Tour - a flat stage tailor made for the sprinters

A pure sprinter's heaven is a flat stage with no climbs near the finish.  At the beginning of the stage, riders looking for the stage win via breakaway will begin to attack the peloton.  The peloton will then continue to catch the attackers until it is satisfied with what riders are in the breakaway group.  Basically, the peloton will try to have the breakaway consist of cyclists who have a low chance of holding on for the win.  For example, a breakaway containing a GC contender will be gobbled up by the peloton almost immediately because the threat is too high.  Therefore, GC contenders will not even waste their energy being part of a breakaway in anything but a mountain stage.  Once "the breakaway" is established, teams with elite sprinters looking for the stage win will slow the peloton down to extend the breakaway's lead.  This is usually a good time for riders to "answer the call of nature" (yes, while riding their bike).

Why let the breakaway gain ground?  Creating a large gap between the peloton and the breakaway will discourage counterattacks, in which riders will attack the peloton and try to catch up with or pass the breakaway.  When the peloton is 10+ minutes behind the breakaway, a counterattack basically has zero chance of success.  As the competitors get closer to the end of the stage, the sprinters' teams will move back to the front of the peloton and start pushing the pace.  The increased speed of the peloton makes it much more difficult to attack, and the goal of the sprinters' teams is to catch the breakaway as late as possible (within the last 1-2 km) and while going as fast as possible.  The peloton's high speed approaching the finish will ensure a bunch sprint, where the sprinters will duke it out in the last couple hundred meters for green jersey points and the stage win.

Elite sprinting teams will sometimes use a leadout train, where domestiques will take turns at the front of the pack and use all their energy to push the pace as much as possible, then peel off.  This conserves the lead sprinter's energy and culminates in the sprinter having a very fast speed even before his burst of acceleration.  Alternatively, a sprinter may just wheel suck until the final stretch, but because the person in the lead is not able to draft, winning sprints is all about knowing when it's too early or too late to take the lead.  In any case, the conclusions of flat stages are always filled with tension and exciting to watch, in some cases because of the sprinters, and in others because the breakaway gets a second wind and manages to hold off the pack.

When there is a climb near the end of the stage, sprinters will often fall to the back of the peloton and be out of contention for the stage win.  These stages are conducive to breakaway victories and follow a dynamic similar to intermediate stages (explained in the next section), though sometimes a sprinter with decent climbing legs like last year's green jersey winner Thor Hushovd can avoid losing too much ground and grab some points by placing in the top 25 at the finish.  In fact, this is basically how Hushovd stole the green jersey over a much, much better pure sprinter in Mark Cavendish.

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Intermediate Stages

Stage 7 of this year's Tour - an "intermediate" stage

Intermediate stages typically are littered with mountains up to category 2 (with the occasional category 1) and are almost always won by a breakaway rider.  Sprinters will be dropped by the main peloton, and GC contenders will merely aim to stay in the peloton and hold ground against their rivals.  Depending on the stage's profile, you might see some early attacks by riders looking to win the polka-dot jersey or just wear it for a couple of days as they try to get points off the reasonably valuable category 2 climbs.  Eventually, a breakaway group tends to form, even if there are polka-dot jersey competitors ahead, as these riders will typically fall back to the peloton anyway after claiming their points.

In intermediate stages, the peloton's decision on whether or not to let the breakaway go will tend to be made by the teams looking to win the team classification.  The breakaway will either consist only of riders from non-competitive teams, or will have equal representation from all the interested teams (for example, one rider each), so as to not lose time on the team standings.  Any team unhappy with the makeup of the breakaway will either try to push the peloton and catch the attackers, or alternatively will try send one or more riders to the lead group in a counterattack.

In essentially all cases, all of the riders allowed on the breakaway are considered non-threats to the GC, and those uninterested in the stage win will conserve energy and ride it out with the peloton.  The excitement in the intermediate stages tends to lie in the front pack, where riders will work hard to avoid getting dropped by the breakaway, and will eventually sprint against each other for the stage win.  The breakaway group will often have such a large lead over the peloton that on the final sprint, they will employ so-called "cat and mouse" tactics, which is a strategy ubiquitous in sprint cycling on a track, but not usable in the context of a bunch sprint on a flat stage.  Because the leaders will not want to be the one in front at the start of the sprint, they will often slow down tremendously (and sometimes even come to a near standstill!).  Once a cyclist feels like he's at the ideal distance from the finish, he will make a quick burst of acceleration and make his sprint.  The other cyclists will then try to ride his slipstream and make the pass before the finish.

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Mountain Stages

Stage 9 of this year's Tour - just looking at this diagram is scary

Mountain stages contain climbs of all categories, and are the primary battlefields for those vying for the yellow jersey and king of the mountains competitions, as well as those riders with good climbing legs looking for a stage win.  As is the case with intermediate stages, riders looking to win the polka-dot jersey will attack early to try to accumulate mountain points.  If they think they can get the stage win, they'll keep going ahead, getting more mountain points along the way, but more often they will lose energy and drop back to the peloton or even farther behind.

This year's beastly Stage 17 - guaranteed action on the final climb

About half of the mountain stages in the tour have mountaintop finishes, which are where the GC contenders will make their biggest moves.  (Recall that mountaintop finishes result in the largest time gaps because rivals can't use the descent following the climb to gain back precious seconds.)  On stages without mountaintop finishes, the GC contenders still do make attacks - especially on the more difficult stages - to try to get rivals to crack, but it must be kept in mind that the returns in the form of time gaps will be diminished.  As far as stage victories go, many mountain stage wins will still go to breakaway riders.  Only on the most difficult of mountain stages and on mountaintop finishes do you really see GC contenders getting the stage win.  This happens because the breakaway moves much slower than the GC contenders, who are no longer conserving their energy.

While it's exciting to see a breakaway succeed on the mountain stages, the excitement is not always at the front of the pack, but at the GC contenders.  The traditional strategy is for all the top riders to race in the same peloton, then make attacks on climbs to try to drop their rivals (make them fall behind the peloton).  Sometimes, the whole group will be able to react and stay together, but sometimes one or more riders will not have the energy to respond, and will find himself riding alone, or with a smaller group.  This makes life very difficult for them should they still find themselves behind the leaders' group at the bottom of the descent, as they no longer have the larger peloton to draft off.

Some of the teams with multiple elite climbers will start using some more aggressive strategies that are beyond the scope of this blog series, and in some cases even beyond the scope of my understanding.  But basically, teams will use their double (or triple) threats to their advantage, as other teams' #1 riders will start having to react to moves by deeper teams' #2 riders.  This year, we can expect some of these moves from teams like Astana (with two top riders in Contador and Vinokourov), Saxo Bank (with the Schleck brothers), and RadioShack (with the trifecta of Armstrong, Leipheimer, and Kloden).

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Wow, this was a long post.  Anyway, we have just one more post left (a much shorter one), and then you'll know pretty much everything I know about the Tour de France.  After this primer, I'll be making a couple posts with a preview of this year's Tour.  In particular, I'll be commenting on this year's route and top contenders.  I may even make some predictions!  Finally, once the Tour gets under way on July 3, I'll periodically update with some commentary of finished stages and previews of upcoming stages.  Until next time!