break

I begin to work out what I can do to whittle down the opposition to at least get a fighting chance. Ideally, by the time we get to the Aspin I’ll be a little bit ahead of this group, but can I ride off on the front by myself? I don’t think so. So I’ll have to wait for the others to start attacking, which they eventually do, and then be sure I get myself across to one of the smaller groups in exactly the right way. The best strategy is letting the moves go, not panicking, and then timing my bridging across to each group at the exact moment before they’re so far ahead that it’s become impossible to reach them.

That moment or distance between you and the group is more situational than physical. There are so many variables: how you’re feeling physically, the road, the wind, the number of riders… You have to feel it: you have a kind of intuition about how the race is panning out, about if the break ahead is collaborating or not, meaning the gap’s rising faster or more slowly, about what the combination of riders in the move could mean… It’s that moment where you feel in yourself ‘it’s just about bridgeable for me.’ That’s not something your director in the car can ever tell you or I can write or talk about, but getting that right is up to each rider. It’s your responsibility to do that,