Originally Posted by bbattle

The breakaways do often fail but every once in a while, they succeed. On a flat, sprinter stage, they are most likely to fail as the sprinter teams have a vested interest in reeling them in. On a hilly stage like today, the breakaway, especially a nine man one, has a good shot. Cervelo wasn't defending, the other gc guys were just watching each other, and the sprinters weren't going to get over the climbs in order to contest the win. So, good day to attack.

Another big reason, especially for the not so successful teams, is television exposure for their sponsors. They are moving billboards wearing valuable and free advertising for their sponsors and being in a breakaway gives them plenty of air time.

If your team sends somebody off on a breakaway, the team is not expected to help in the pace making up front. They aren't going to help reel in their own teammate(usually). A weak gc team holding the yellow jersey may send a rider up front so the other guys can take a break. Not going to win friends in the peleton doing this, though. Once, Hincapie won a stage on a big mountain stage while Armstrong held the yellow jersey. Armstrong and the rest of the team stayed up front and his competition just marked him, so George was free to fly.

Other times, a gc rider may send a rider up ahead in an attack so he has help up ahead in the mountains when he, the gc rider, makes his move.


The motorcycle drivers are very experienced and usually get out of the way. They are very good at what they do and this is the first time I've seen one cause a crash; although sometimes the riders are waving at them to get out of their way. The motorcycles can't usually handle the curves on a descent as well as the cyclists. The one that caused the crash has been kicked off the Tour, probably won't be allowed back. Fans that cause problems have also been dealt with severely. One guy jumped his mountain bike over some riders and the gendarmes were not too kind. I don't think they punished the dog that got run over a few years back but the owner probably was.

The team in yellow is the one that must set tempo up front. On flat stages, the sprint teams have a vested interest in controlling the pace so will often send a rider or two up front to help set tempo. The team in yellow may be doing a good job at first but if they don't care about the sprint finish, they won't necessarily set a fast enough pace to catch the breakaway. This is another reason to allow a breakaway to form; it encourages other teams to help catch them later on and in so doing, share the workload up front.

Today, Garmin-Cervelo was not interested in defending the yellow jersey and BMC had an interest in protecting Cadel Evan's standing. Later, Astana came forward to help launch Vinokurov. Garmin will not try to defend tomorrow; so whichever teams want to set tempo for their gc rider will be up front.

There have been stages where nobody is very interested in doing the work up front and big breakaways have formed while the peleton tooled along at 18-20mph. Alarm bells finally go off and the breakaway is either reeled in by the sprinter teams or their lead is kept manageable and there are no threats to the gc riders. Landis' Phonak team was weak and failed to control a breakaway in 2006. Since Landis had the yellow jersey, no other team was going to help them and Perreiro in the breakaway got the jersey, crossing the line 28 min(?) ahead of Landis that day.

The gc riders are usually near the front, with at least one other rider next to them in case of trouble or to keep them up near the front. You've also got a domestique or two whose job is to ferry water bottles to the team from the team car. Cadel Evans will have Hincapie or Burghardt near him at all times. Contador has Novarro or Noval to look after him. Staying up front usually means staying out of trouble; all of the crashes so far have affected people in the second half of the peloton; including Horner, Wiggins, Boonen, Leipheimer, Van de Velde, and Contador. Not everyone can ride up front all the time, though. When everyone tries to get up front at the same time, crashes happen.


Say Cadel Evans wins the yellow jersey tomorrow. You'll see his team out in front, setting tempo all day.