The Explainer - Why not block?
Dear Explainer guy,
Why is blocking such a rarely used tactic? It seems that when there is a long breakaway that teams with riders in the break do not block or slow down the chase. Why is that? More typically, these riders do not take a turn at the front. I would think it would be better if those riders took their turn at the front and slowed the pace.
Cosmo Scrivanich
Hello Cosmo,
It does seem like there isn’t a lot of blocking going on in big races, but it does happen, albeit subtly.
First off, as I’m sure you know, the term “blocking” isn’t exactly precise. It sure as heck isn’t blocking in the sense that it is in American football. In cycling, blocking obviously doesn’t include physical contact. It’s more disrupting than it is blocking, but we’ll use the standard term, anyway.
Blocking is not really an overt tactic. It can’t be. If a team were simply to move to the front of the peloton en masse and slow the pace dramatically, it would serve only as a temporary disruption. In response, other teams would just move their riders to the front, punch it and fight to keep the blocking team from reaching the head of the peloton. The result would actually be a counterproductive increase in speed.
Successful blocking often takes a much more subtle approach. Teams intent on letting a break survive may move one or two riders up in the peloton. Those riders then “soft pedal” when riding in a pace line up front. They may also let a small gap develop as they ride through, forcing other riders to expend unnecessary energy closing that gap.
In fact, much of the most successful “blocking” doesn’t take place at the very front of the field, but near the front. Riders can tuck in behind the chasing team’s workhorses and let small gaps form, forcing other riders to close the gap, or to slow the riders in the front.
If the tactic is too overt, it won’t work, as the disruptive riders are either forced out of the paceline or simply ignored in the rotation.
That said, there are some really terrific examples of riders using the technique to great effect. Perhaps the best recent example comes from the seventh stage of this year’s Tour de Suisse. With 5km remaining, CSC’s Fabian Cancellara launched one of his trademark solo attacks, just as the sprinters’ teams were ramping up the pace and trying to form up their finishing trains.
As the reigning world time trial champion, Cancellara was a perfect candidate to make that move and he held off the hard-charging peloton all the way to the line. But there was a moment when it looked like he might be caught in the final kilometer. Just as the gap began to narrow, Cancellara’s teammate Bobby Julich moved to the front of the chase, prompting a “WTF?” reaction from many watching from the sidelines.
Was Julich taking up the chase? It sure looked like it. But the American then allowed a small gap to form behind the rider at the very front of the chase, leaving just one rider to chase Cancellara. It didn’t take long for riders to counter the move and swarm past Julich, but the chase had been temporarily disrupted — long enough, it turned out, to allow Cancellara to reach the line two seconds ahead of the main field.
Cancellara knew where at least part of the credit belonged.
“I was alone out there, but the team really did its part to help me hold the gap," he said.
It’s fun to watch a race at those key moments and see whether anyone is employing tactics to disrupt a chase. It’s often hard to detect, but it's part of what makes bicycle racing so cool.
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