Paceline

[bosworth*]

When I am in a paceline of say, 4-6, How can I increase the pace, and make everyone work harder, without telling everyone what to do (giving away my intention), and without screwing over the paceline and slowing it down.


Kind Regards,

[Driver]

Seems like such a redundant question coming from the Bosworth.

it's in contradiction to Bossies rule 101 of cycling - never, ever put your nose into the wind.

[tor.lattimore]

Best way is to pull through just slightly faster than you normally would. You have to get the balance right though or it'll be obvious (and wreck the paceline). As far as I know it cannot be done if your gate-keeping on the back.

[bosworth*]

by "pull through faster" do you mean:

(1) Increasing the rotational speed of the group, by getting very close to the guy infront, shoulders almost touching as you pass each other, then pretty much cutting him off; or

(2) Increase your forward speed - as you ride past the guy infront, put a bit of a surge on, creating a small gap behind you, and forcing the next person to work harder/longer to get infront of you?

[tor.lattimore]

Number 2. When the guy in the fast lane in front of you moves over you should slowly up the tempo as you pass him so that when you move over the next guy in the fast lane has to up the speed a little to get in front of you.

The key is to do it slowly enough that they won't notice. This is the way a paceline should generally increase speed anyway ... slowly slowly.

[SimonD]

Yes, subtle. As you pull over just slow down slightly less and hopefully the guy coming through next will not notice and pedal that bit faster to get to over you to the front. The counter is obviously not to roll through faster, just hold the bunches pace. It means you have to spend a bit more time on the front though, and risk being accused of not rolling through by people who don't share your nuanced understanding on bunch dynamics!

[Driver]

This technique is flawed. Any action that causes a rider or riders to surge (or slow) is going to be to the detriment of the groups overall average speed, which, after all is the goal.

Smooth Smooth Smooth, Tight. If a rider is TOO strong he ideally should moderate his output to the be roughly the same as the bunch average. Bombing over will tire the guy in front and the guy behind quicker, and taking too long to get over will leave the guy in front pushing the wind too long and will also stall the accelerating line.

Generally, individual agendas are the beginnings of the demise of the bunch.

[Startrek]

This is a learned skill it took me ages to learn not to surge as i got on the front and be at pace ,good coaching eventually knocked it out of me .

[SimonD]

This technique is flawed. Any action that causes a rider or riders to surge (or slow) is going to be to the detriment of the groups overall average speed, which, after all is the goal.

Smooth Smooth Smooth, Tight. If a rider is TOO strong he ideally should moderate his output to the be roughly the same as the bunch average. Bombing over will tire the guy in front and the guy behind quicker, and taking too long to get over will leave the guy in front pushing the wind too long and will also stall the accelerating line.

Generally, individual agendas are the beginnings of the demise of the bunch.

The idea is not to make the bunch finish the race quicker or slower, but to make it go at the pace you want it to go. The "flawed technique" is advocated by national level coaches.

[SimonD]

While we're on pacelines actually. When the bunch singles out which is usually when everyone is tired and someone skips a turn or attacks or whatever someone often tries to get the line going again by riding over the bunch to the front. But when you do this you have to do it slowly or no one can get on your wheel and it'll stay single - just with you on the front. The idea is to collect riders on the way through which you won't do when everyone is hammered and you're bombing through at twice the speed of the other line. This was happening when A grade met B at the Lookout Hill handicap - I wanted to pull a turn but just didn't have the strength left to jump on to the guys wheel. So we stayed single and he sat on the front.

You can always just restart a paceline from the front. That's more energy efficient than someone riding up the side of 6 riders.

[SimonD]

This technique is flawed. Any action that causes a rider or riders to surge (or slow) is going to be to the detriment of the groups overall average speed, which, after all is the goal.

Smooth Smooth Smooth, Tight. If a rider is TOO strong he ideally should moderate his output to the be roughly the same as the bunch average. Bombing over will tire the guy in front and the guy behind quicker, and taking too long to get over will leave the guy in front pushing the wind too long and will also stall the accelerating line.

Generally, individual agendas are the beginnings of the demise of the bunch.

The other thing I don't get about your answer is that say someone does bomb through, or even subtly increase the pace (because there is a difference), and not slow up so much in the slow lane, you are destining the bunch to do what they want if by your rules you can't counter by maintaining the bunch pace. It which will take you longer to roll over because the difference in speed between the two lanes is now less. You either try to pull through with the same length turn making the overall bunch speed faster, or you maintain the pace and pull through slower keeping the bunch speed the same.

[Simonsky]

Scotty's kinda right I think. If the paceline is already at max speed, anything you do to change the rythm of it will start blowing it apart. I've tried a few of these tactics in the past and invariably it ends either in abuse or a slow bunch.

But! Sometimes if there's an uneven ability of the riders in the group you can make 'em hurt so that they drop off faster so that the bunch is actually faster.

So the answer is, there is now easy answer.

[bosworth*]

Thanks for the replies

[Driver]

Is it that you have trouble with words such as subtle, which contrast with your own "pull an effing turn" approach? The idea is not to make the bunch finish the race quicker or slower, but to make it go at the pace you want it to go. The "flawed technique" is advocated by national level coaches.

mmm, I'm trying to digest what it is you are actually trying to achieve - I thought the outcome was to finish the race/get to the end quicker.

I've never been prive to a paceline thats goal was to go at 'my' pace and I'm certainly not a national level coach, but I do know what doesn't work.

Anyway, ni ni. I'm off to get 3 x 2.5 hrs sleep.... hopefully.

[Driver]

Whilst I was putting on my jim jams I thought of another way to think of it;

Scenario: If I was in a bunch in a handicap race, and I had SD and the Bos in my bunch and my goal (for tactical reasons) was to subtly tire these guys out, I would position myself in between the two of them (if possible) and then as my turn approached, slightly increase my speed, in turn making SD, who just rolled off, work a little harder to get my wheel and then the Bos, who's coming through after me, do a little extra to come around.

What this would do is tire all three of us out just a tad quicker than the others, probably make us blow and get out of the paceline sooner, and in turn, slow the overall pace down, with less fresh riders at the end.

The end.

[SimonD]

mmm, I'm trying to digest what it is you are actually trying to achieve - I thought the outcome was to finish the race/get to the end quicker.

I've never been prive to a paceline thats goal was to go at 'my' pace and I'm certainly not a national level coach, but I do know what doesn't work.

Anyway, ni ni. I'm off to get 3 x 2.5 hrs sleep.... hopefully.

The outcome is to get to the end first!

If you're riding in a handicap, perhaps, but Boz's question is more general than that. It is simply about how does one control the speed in a paceline without simply telling people to go faster or slower. And there are ways to do it and half the people won't even realise you're doing it.

I fully understand that in a handicap you want to keep a strong bunch together, but that's not what's at issue. The reason I have trouble understanding your explanation is because, the way I read it, it leads to the conclusion that there is no speed for the bunch other than the current speed, even if we are talking about a handicap race.

Say Bosworth listens to me and pulls over to the slow lane and slows to 32 instead of 31km/hr. What would you do? You're saying nothing?

[SimonD]

Whilst I was putting on my jim jams I thought of another way to think of it;

Scenario: If I was in a bunch in a handicap race, and I had SD and the Bos in my bunch and my goal (for tactical reasons) was to subtly tire these guys out, I would position myself in between the two of them (if possible) and then as my turn approached, slightly increase my speed, in turn making SD, who just rolled off, work a little harder to get my wheel and then the Bos, who's coming through after me, do a little extra to come around.

What this would do is tire all three of us out just a tad quicker than the others, probably make us blow and get out of the paceline sooner, and in turn, slow the overall pace down, with less fresh riders at the end.

The end.

Fair enough for your handicap scenario. If Boz followed you through then I think the bunch speed would usually increase as a result because other riders would start doing the same - for good or for bad, doesn't matter.

[Driver]

Here's a great addition to this conversation, courtesy of cyclingtips.blog
http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com/2009/10/when-the-paceline-stalls/
I had an interesting experience on Saturday while racing the Warny. After Feedzone #2 when the peloton split and the hard chase commenced I was rolling turns with all the big hitters of the race. Everyone was driving hard and doing their share of the work nice and smoothly. Then, all of a sudden I found myself in an unfamiliar situation that I’ve seen many times but never been directly a part of.
As I rolled through the paceline of riders I pulled off in front of the lead rider. Another rider did the same and pulled off in front of me. Then nothing. There was no one else coming through and the whole chase effort had stalled. The guy on the front was stuck there driving the pace while everyone else was sitting on. I looked behind us to see what was going on and started to wave my arm so to initiate someone to come rolling through to get it going again. Then I found myself being yelled at with everyone telling me to pull another turn. What…Me? I just did a turn!
I’m sure many you have been in the same situation where you’re rolling along smoothly with everyone sharing the work up front and then no one pulls through.
There are a couple things here:
1. Why does the paceline stall?
Sometimes the paceline stalls simply because someone at the back skipped their turn and left the guy in front with no one on his wheel.
However, quite often it’s not the rider who skipped his turn fault (the guy who decided to stay in the slower lane in illustration below). It’s often the fault of rider who just pulled into the Faster Lane who isn’t pulling through smoothly and is dropping wheels. This is the worst type of rider to be behind and often people will skip their turn in order to find a better wheel to follow.
101
Therefore, if you keep finding yourself at the front of the paceline and it keeps stalling with no one pulling through, it’s likely your fault that this is happening. You may not pulling out of the slower lane into the faster lane smoothly and predictably.
However, many times the paceline stalls simply because riders are being lazy (or shifty) and/or someone got into the wrong position and disrupted the flow.
2. Whose responsibility is it to get the paceline moving again?
There is no easy answer to this one. I had a good chat with Kristian House about the situation I found myself in and we both agreed that it would have been good if I had come out of my second position in the long line and pulled another turn (yes, I make mistakes too!). It would have also been good if the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc rider did, but they clearly weren’t up for it. Therefore I should have taken the initiative to pull through one or two more turns to get the momentum going again. After a few attempts if nothing got moving again I would have done all I could do. Of course there were 20 other guys in the line behind me who could have done something, but my second position in the pack was by far the easiest out of everyone to roll another turn since I only had one rider ahead of me to pass ahead of.
I hope this makes sense. It’s a tough thing to explain but if you’ve been in this situation I think you’ll understand what I’m talking about.