Instinct

What is it that tells a rider when to make that attack to finish off the group and ride in solo? How did he or she know that NOW was the time to go?

Answer: Instinct.

How do you get "instinct"? By racing a lot. By making a lot of attacks that went absolutely nowhere. By making attacks that caused counter attacks that got you dropped! Kind of embarrassing! And even by occasionally making the perfect attack at the perfect time and riding off to a glorious victory seen only by a couple of officials standing on the side of the road. Ah, it's a glamorous sport. :-)

My point here is that instinct is something that you get by RACING A LOT.

Over time you may start hearing a voice in your head that screams "GO NOW!". Listen to that voice. I have won races by listening to that voice. I have lost races by ignoring that voice and "being smart". In fact one time I ignored that voice because well, "I was smart". Not two seconds later another rider who obviously heard the same voice made "my move" and won the race. 1986. 23 years ago and I still remember it. Listen to that voice. Don't listen to the voice that says "my legs hurt". Or the one that says "They will just chase me down". Because the others are hearing those voices too. Those voices will make them hesitate. "Maybe Mike will go after him and I can follow." The first step to losing... Next thing you know the gap is 10 seconds and growing. Game over, here's a nice parting gift for being a good sport.

I even remember watching a Tour stage in 1986. Four guys away at the end of a transitional stage between the mountains. The attacks started, and after a few counter attacks there was a lull. You could see that they were ALL gassed, but I heard the voice. "For the love of God, somebody needs to attack right now and win this race!" About two seconds later, Niki Rüttimann, one of Lemond's La Vie Claire team mates countered and won solo. He was hurting, but he listened to his voice. The good voice. The others listened to the other voices... I still remember that stage 23 years later. I remember that it was Niki Rüttimann who listened to his voice. I have no idea who the other three guys were.

Beautiful, I found it on YouTube. Listen closely at about 1:25 into the clip. Do you hear the voice?



"Being smart" is a good thing. But sometimes over analyzing will get you into trouble. It was certainly not "smart" when Chris Phipps attacked on the downhill at the UCSC RR in 2006 on the last lap. I even remember thinking "that's not very smart". Attacking on downhills never works! Well, Chris was listening to his voice that day and as we all tried to get the other guy to chase, Chris was on his way to a nice solo win. Instinct.

In summary:

Race a lot. Then race some more. If you are either young enough or old enough to do multiple groups at criteriums, do it.

It's good to be smart and tactical and plan tactics in races. But sometimes you need to just listen to that voice. It may say some things that sound insane. But it knows things that you don't know. It knows when it's time to go.

Bye.