Why Don't They Just Keep Attacking Each Other Until Someone Cracks?
By Chris Carmichael
.....(edited)
People keep asking me why Andy Shleck and Alberto Contador don’t just continue to attack each other until someone cracks. In a way, they are, but it’s happening over a number of days. They can’t keep attacking each other all the up a single climb because they run out of power. A few days ago, after the stage that covered the Col de Madeleine, Schleck told reporters that if he’d attacked one more time he would have dropped himself, meaning he would have cracked and been unable to follow Contador to the summit. As a cyclist, you have to learn where your limits are. For sure, winning the Tour de France means pushing past those limits, but you may only have the power to dig that deep once in the whole race. Over a period of days, the cumulative impact of the attacks Schleck and Contador are throwing at each other will eventually tip the advantage to one rider or the other. And it’s at that instant, the moment when your rival can’t respond to an attack, that you need to pull out that once-in-a-bike-race or even once-in-a-lifetime effort to seize on the opportunity. whole article:
Carmichael Training Systems: Bicycling.com
