I just finished watching the finish of the Tour of Spain and it never ceases to amaze me how badly guys work in breaks at the Grand Tours.  It is like they have never raced bikes and have no idea how to make a group go faster and ride efficiently.

When I’m in a break, a break that I want to succeed and work smoothly, I do everything in my power to make that happen.  I do that by trying to get the riders into the correct order where everyone is contributing their most for the break to ride smoothly and fast.

And when some guy is pulling through too hard, or we start rotating the wrong direction after turning, I will immediately say something to try to correct the mistakes.  Not directing or anything, just casual conversation saying we need to pull left or if a guy is pulling way too hard for the rest, I’d say something like, “maybe pull a little longer and slow it down a tad”.

This is imperative if you want a group to ride in an efficient manner.  But, watching the break in the “Pro Tour” events, it constantly bewilders me how it doesn’t seem like anyone in the break cares what the other riders are doing.

My first observation is that breaks tend to always want to ride double echelon when they should be riding single.  I’ve posted about this before.   You need more than 4 or 5 riders to do a rotating paceline.  I’d say 7 would be the minimum.  Guys always try to do it with 4.

With 4 guys, you end up being in the wind twice as much as if you were riding a single paceline. 50% of the time compared to 25%.  I don’t know what these guys are thinking?    I’ve been in many races where a small group tries to do a rotating paceline and I put an end to it immediately.  I do this by not participating.  Take one guy out of a 4 riders rotation and it is impossible to do a rotating paceline.  Then I join back in a continue pulling.  It is as easy as that.

Anyway, the break today should have made it to the line.  They did the normal attacking each other with a couple kilometers to go, but if they would have been rotating correctly, they would have been going a couple kilometers an hour faster and the break would have succeeded.

Too many guys train for power nowadays and don’t understand the fundamentals of bicycle racing.  Sometimes it seems like the sport has evolved into a bunch of unbelievably strong robots with no ability to adapt to ever changing conditions.  And that is what cycling is all about-Being able to adapt to your surroundings at all times.

This was with maybe 3 km to go in today’s stage of Tour of Spain.

Last night was the first of 4 National Racing Calendar criteriums in St. Louis this weekend.  It went pretty well, considering.

The considering is that I really haven’t been doing any speedwork all year.  And it was the 5th criterium I’ve done this season, the last one nearly a month ago in Colorado.  But, it wasn’t so bad.

The course is one that Mike has used for a long time, but they moved the finish line around the corner so it finishes on a little downhill.  I didn’t think I would like it, but it was fine.  The course is around Lafeyette Park and is pretty much a square, with just a tad of elevation change.  Super wide open, smooth course with left hand corners.

The race started at 9:30 at night, so it was pretty dark.  Like night dark.  The course is lite up most places, so it was just night time criterium racing.  It is always sort of sketchy the first few laps with everyone getting used to the shadows and the pace of the course.

I don’t really have much to say, other than we rode around for an hour and it was a huge field sprint.  I never participated at the front and was hanging out pretty far back in the field, at least for me.

The night was super muggy.  It was only 80 degrees, but it felt way hotter.  I’m a little worried about racing in the sun today.  It is supposed to be 95 today and is already close to 90.  I’m not use to this humidity.

Anyway, with about 9 laps to go, I got up to Bill, who had been riding nearly the whole race in front of me and he told me he didn’t think he was going to finish.  I thought that was nearly impossible, we were doing 2 minute laps, so it was just 18 minutes longer.  But, Bill was right and he stopped with 3 to go.  He said he could have finished, but he was riding at the back of the field and wanted to watch the sprint.

I started moving up with about 5 to go.  UHC had started they stupid riding the inside of the course leadout thing with 9 to go, so the field was on high alert.  But, it wasn’t going to work out well for them because the course was so wide open and there really was no advantage doing a leadout like that.  Those guys are smarter than that I’d hope.

I got into okay position with a couple laps to go and with a lap to go I as good, maybe 15 guys back, on Brad Huff’s (Optum) wheel.  But I got a little out of place and a blob of riders came by me on the 3rd side.  I probably , in retrospect, should have used one of my jumps and moved back into a better position, but I didn’t.

On the 2nd to last side, I passed a few guys and a few more threw the final corner, but was way too far back. I ended up 25th, which wasn’t in the money.    In reality, it is probably just about where I deserved to finish the race.  I didn’t do anything to finish any better, so that is really about right.

I am okay with the race.  Downloading my power to Strava, I was pretty good.  I had a max heartrate of 181, which is a ton higher than Colorado and the highest I’ve seen since I’ve been wearing a heart strap the last couple months.  Plus my max wattage was 1431, which is the highest I’ve had since I broke my hip last year.  The race averaged 30.1 mph and the last lap was 35 mph.  Pretty quick, especially considering it was dark.

Daniel Holloway won, with Brad Huff finishing 2nd.  Brad is here, racing solo, so it was a super result.  The best that UHC could muster was 5th.  Kind of unusual for them.

After the race, Bill, Catherine and I went to a local bar and split a burger and a chicken sandwich, then Catherine and I rode the 10 miles through town back to our hotel in Clayton.  It is my favorite part of racing in St. Louis.  I love exploring St. Louis by bicycle.  Especially at night.

I went down some streets I’d never been on and the houses were huge.  Here is St. Louis, they have blocked off a ton of streets to make whole neighborhoods isolated.  Lots of gates and barriers in the middle of intersections to make streets dead ends.  Some of the homes are unreal.  Like 15,000 sq. ft. limestone unreal.  We rode into a street, Washington, that was just a few blocks long and each and every house was magnificient.   Most of the older homes, nearly all, are either built of stone or brick in St. Louis.  Very interesting architecture.

Today we race at 5:30.  Another square, but this one has just a little more elevation change.  It has had breaks work before, so a field sprint isn’t guaranteed.   I’m going to go for a ride this morning, even though I didn’t get to sleep until after 2:30 am last night.  I’m always way jacked up when racing after 10 at night.  But I like it a lot.

The women’s race was pretty quick. I think there were 60 women there, so a pretty good sized field.

This photos at night don’t do the houses justice.

This was a smaller house, in a less affluent neighborhood. It was still incredible.

Breakfast of champions.