This Skill Will Transform Your Cycling
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- Опубліковано 7 сер 2024
- Drafting is a very important skill when it comes to cycling. But being the one at the front creating the draft can get pretty boring and tire you out. We explain a skill that solves this issue and is a MUST-HAVE when riding in a group.
0:00 - Intro
0:38 - Drafting
1:24 - The paceline
2:51 - Mistakes to avoid
4:07 - Wind direction
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Share your chain gang tips in the comments 👇
(1) don't try and draft behind somebody the size of Manon (2) do try and sneak into the paceline behind Connor
It's also good for the person at the front of the recovery line to say "clear," so the rider at the front of the recovery line knows it's safe to move over. Communication is key.
@gcn in some countries (i.e. Austria) it is not allowed to ride in two rows on the open street, unless it is an official Team training, you could get fined for that. Maybe this is something worth mentioning;)
I ride solo and the Wahoo desk offers loads of shelter from the wind. A bit too much, I have to raise it above my handlebars and push it back to arms length so my aero helmet can do its job.
Always wait until you get to the back of the recovery line to blow your nose! Your companions will respect you even more.
This reminded me of the now-canceled Olympic 100km Team Time Trial. One of the coolest and fastest cycling events ever. Four members of a cycling team trying to ride 100 km as fast as possible. The world record average speed for this event was 51.79 km/h. I wonder whether modern bikes/riders could break this record. I personally want to see the GCN team try to break it. 🤟
My tip for smooth pacelining is that the only place you actually accelerate is moving into the back of the faster line. When you hit the front, just keep going the same speed and your watts will naturally go up from being in the wind.
Exactly - I’m surprised this wasn’t mentioned
Wouldn't you want your watts to remain steady, and shed some speed as you switch to being in the recovery line?
This is the way to do it, another thing that could be mentioned is that the speed difference between the two lines should not be too big, not good to have to sprint every time you get to the back :-)
@@pphaneuf Your watts will need to go up in order to maintain speed to pass the rider in the other line while pushing against the wind. When you're clear of their wheel, THEN you let the watts drop (brief freewheel or easier gear like the video says) as you move across into the slower line.
A well drilled pace line is a thing of beauty.
Mesmorising 😵💫
Like a ball of fish, chasing the food.
Been riding for 3 years now putting in a decent amount of miles. I’ve never ridden in a pace line before and it’s the one experience I’ve been craving more than anything
Do it do it do it!!! You won't regret it 🙌
First off, you'll love it. The biggest problem is convincing other riders of the advantage and that it's safe. The best way to approach it is to find several riders you trust and start SLOWLY at first and then speed up gradually. Start with a wheel width between riders. As riders gain confidence, the gap can be reduced. It also helps if riders don't weave on each pedal stroke. You might want to practice that first before starting the rotation.
Join a local Cycling club.
I love these videos when multiple presenters are featured all together. And I mean more than 2 because we do get videos of 2 presenters fairly often. But these videos (like this one) or videos of group rides or the 2,3,4 vs 1 series are my favorite. More large group of presenters videos please lol
What is missing in this video is the information that you have to be careful on open roads with this technique! You are not allowed to go in two lines on open roads everywhere in Europe and even if it's allowed in your territory it is not always wise to do so (depending on traffic, road width, course etc.).
Now you can argue that this is obvious for experienced road cyclists, but they would know about this technique ("Belgischer Kreisel" in German language) anyway. And for people new to the sport, I think you should absolutely provide this information.
A fun clip and something I really like to do. I find this works optimal with 7-12 riders.
If you are with 3-6 riders, you have almost no recovery / interval, you are back in the front before you know it, and you have to focus much harder as you're constantly going from slow to fast paceline and vice versa.
If you are with 7-12 more riders, you really have the max. gains of the slow paceline for recuperating a bit, and you have a smoother transition to the fast paceline.
If you're with more than 12 riders and you get some sidewind, you are too many to sit out of the wind, and in a very fast ride, there is the very real risk of getting dropped at the back of the echelon. Another disadvantage of too many riders, is you almost never have enough riders of the same strength. Ideally, all of the riders are more-or-less the same level. One very strong guy and the whole system can get broken pretty quickly, if that guy isn't controlling his pacing. Because face it: riding like this always brings out the competition in many riders! :-) If you are the best, you can slowly destroy every single rider in the group.
Totally agree 👍🚴
Did Vätternrundan (flat 315 km grandfondo around lake Vättern in Sweden) in 2021. Most of the training with my club mates was focused on pace line technique (or Belgian chain as it’s called here 😊). Nice weather and not a lot of wind on the day. We made it around in 7 hours 51 minutes averaging 40 km/h; most of us being comfortably sat in zone 2 for the majority of the day. When you get tired it’s really nice if the person you are about to overtake gives you a signal that you are clear to “change lanes” …. like “ CLEAR! ” 😊
We call it Belgischer Kreisel in German as well.
Makes a big difference when drafting. First time I did a century on my own it took me 7 1/2 hours and I bonked too. Second time it took me 6 1/2 hours. Third time with more experience and rode with another rider and drafted off each other it took 5 1/2 hours. Drafting definitely saves energy. I remember cruising at 28 MPH while drafting and it felt effortless. Different story when it was time to be in front.
Drafting is like using an e-bike. Just keep solo pounding and it’ll get easier. Biking isn’t supposed to be easy.
It was called a rotation pace line back in my day,80s 90s.most commonly used during team time trials,break aways or right after a crash to catch up to the pack great fun with a group of experienced riders.
The off put question at the end is just great LOL, im glad GCN is getting back to content like this thats more mature
Great timing seeing this. Was riding locally and following a group that was doing exactly this. Looked like they were practising this technique. Very efficient.
Did this on a fast group ride some time ago. Found it very hard because the fast line actually needs to overtake the other line. On other group rides what we do is the reverse. The front rider goes to the right (or the left if you're in USA/Canada...) and slows down until he gets to the back. The only thing is that once you get to the back you need to accelerate to grab the wheel... Is this a good alternate method?
How do you maintain a pace line on hilly terrain?
We did a sportive recently and did a straight line pacing/drafting line which worked OK but I suspect that we individually spent too long at the front and should have tried the continuous change as in this video. Still we did overtake a lot of other groups and had a decent time so it helped but we could have maybe gone a bit faster! 🙂
With a continuous rotation, the lead rider is on the front for only a few seconds as he moves from the advancing line to the retreating line.
With a single line, the lead rider pulls for a set time and then rotates back. Limit the pull to about 10 revs of the crank. Counting seconds doesn't work.
There is always time for improvement 👀
Now I understand how the group rides that I randomly joined always did. I think most of the time when I went in their lines, I broke their systems. I am so so sorry 😞
haha i like how you spread chaos
Did they mind? 👀
Now you know. Always a good idea to ask first. Hang at the back for a while until you feel confident and then ask to join the rotation. Not every group uses the same signals or patterns.
@@gcn no, they didn't. I usually not stayed with them for too long, not more than 10 mins because I was weak lol
@@greggsenne1268 Thanks for the comment :)
what a beautiful execution by all of you!!! Kudos!
Our group ride has been implementing this for a while and it helps to share the load. Tip is to let the upcoming rider when it is clear for him or her to come in front of the front rider and the last rider will let the person infron of him or her that he or she will be the last rider.
Key is communication.
One of the best video i seen in gcn. Great.
Our favourite party trick for newbies in our group. It doesn’t take long before tongues are touching the ground 😄👍🏼
The group that I ride with is very dysfunctional. This would seriously improve our group riding. Thanks GCN
Great video guys!
The effort to make videos like these and alternate presenters while riding a bike .. great job!
Glad you enjoyed the video! Will you be heading to your local group ride? 👀
I'd love to try this technique while riding on Zwift but I don't think my basement is big enough to fit three extras riders down there with me.
Hahahah you could easily try it in Zwift 😉
I just did my second group ride with our local bike shop and learned how to do the pace line! :)
Awesome! It's always great to have a helpful club to show you the ropes 🙌
Thanks Ollie, for asking the real question we were all thinking
I usually have a pace line with my shadow 😂😂😂
Great guidelines! Now i just need friends!
We used to call that Bit & Bit back in the 80's ,great disipline for group riding!
Ollie dropping them at 3:14 is chef's kiss.
I learned how to pace line on a velodrome. 250 meter pull, signal when moving off the front with a flick of the elbow to the direction you are moving, look under your arm to make sure you are clear of other riders, don't use your brakes, and ride a straight line.
Brilliant interview. A personal hero. Always followed him and feel so sorry Mr Armstrong destroyed his bike business with lies. And He beat Laurent Fignon ....I am 4 days older than him! Probably the best TDF finish ever!
Pretty cool video, could have used it last week during RAGBRAI, we had a lot heat and head and cross winds. But it would have been hard to do with all the thousands of riders and the space needed to maintain two lines of riders. In that situation, you just drop in behind a large group of riders and draft until you reach the next beer stop.🤣
500x2 paceline sounds nice, probably only 1 or 2 pulls per person!
@gcn Clearly riding in head or crosswinds is easier when you have a peloton or your very own Finn MacCool to draft behind, but what advice do you have for those of us riding solo to gain confidence handling blustery days when cross winds knock us about?
Not remotely in this league, but amazing video to watch.
Well done Ollie wise words.
Love this but never enough people. When i raced we did echelons but not this. Also most roads (here) are not suitable for side by side. Love to meet with other riders willing to do this.
I have heard of this system decades ago on german TV as the „Belgischer Kreisel“ (Belgian tourniquet)
Hard part about this is it requires perfect roads. It takes up so much width that you can't avoid potholes.
Hahaha...last question very relevant for me....most of the time i ride solo. Being an old 55 guy....Not easy to gather my 50++ old friends for a group ride 😅
As a noob on my first pace line I didn't know I had to back off, assuming everyone would be okay because they were in the draft. Needless to say the group fractured and everyone was really happy with me. 😅
Learned something new today... thanks.
All this time, I thought we're riding just 2 lines and let the muscle do the grunt work
Glad we could help 🙌 Will you be joining your local chain gang?
@@gcn we have 2 every week
I have to try it
If only I had friends to draft off of. 😔
This has been the backbone of our clubrides since the beginning over 10 years ago. However the speed will not increase for the same effort by 10 km/h alone. Some additional fitness is needed in order to hold the wheel going full tilt at 60 km/h.
GCN Question: if youre riding at 43 in the pelaton. at that same pedal power, you go into the wind. how fast will you now be going?
This reminds me of Chris Boardman doing a team time trail in the Tour de France where his GAN team didn't master this skill and it didn't go well for Chris.
How long do you keep this pacegroup? is it a short burst thing?
Si always fasssst no matter where in the pact he is! 😁
I'm a new rider to my local Club so there is no complaints [at the moment] when I just stay at the back for an easy time 😃
Pace lines are great and all, but some of the most impressive things in this video are the mics. What are you guys using?
Well i'am able to hold 180w avg for 2h. So how many rider it take to stay a 40km/h at 180w??
I'am 47yo with a vo2 max at 51. For 71kg at 168cm. My FTP is at 203.
I want a video on how to get this kind of audio quality in the wind!
What's the best method of paceline if you're doing a 100-200 mile ride? How long should you best on the front? A few seconds, a minute or a mile?
Pro top: just don't ride that far
JK doing my first double century this month. I'm really curious to see how everyone rides it
A well performed pace line is a thing of beauty! It's also fast as phuk😈
Can this be done on a slightly hilly terrain? We don't have pan flat roads where we live ....😢😢
How do I do this riding solo?
well for me, I will need to checked with my riding partners, myself and I but they do not block to much wind. 🙂
Never heard it called a pace line before. Was always known as “through and off”. 4 is too few need 6-7 minimum. Once you have done turn at front move over and soft pedal until at back. For fewer riders works best in a single line doing something like 25-30 revs on the front,then a quick elbow flick and move over and drift to the back. That’s what cycling club chain gangs were for years ago and pretty much all club cyclists knew how to do this.
Way to keep them on the toes Ollie!!
How does a pace line work, on a long downhill?
Interesting.
Good question. Single-file on the steeper hills, up or down, I suppose. Though the serious chain-gangs keep pedaling through all corners and downhills.
Stop the rotation and increase the gap. When you get to the flats, close up the gap and then resume the rotation.
I never go in group - what to do?
Despite this being popular with local club riders to obtain the highest strava scores, I always find this a waste of time unless in a peloton for an event or some other timed event, or on a very long century (American) ride where the riding cant get tedious. It is fun, but not worth the repeat and training rides unless you’re with team mates.
Otherwise, I ride for fitness and drafting someone just makes the ride faster and easier, both of which make it difficult to gain the fitness to power thru the headwinds and solo spin for long pull in an event.
Lastly, faster on public crowded public roads loaded with dog walkers and e-scooters with a bunch of riders inches from each other wheels is a recipe for disaster.
I put ceramic coat on my gravel bike. Does that count?
Tasty tips. What about me who has no mates and cycles solo 24/7 365
TT bike
Another thing to know is that if you are riding always on the front, you will ride a little bit faster if you have a wheel sucker behind you than if you ride alone. That has been proved inside the tunnel wind and with computer fluid dynamics analysis.
"the speed will go up and up and you won't have a group left"
_Shots fired at the good doctor_
cool
If only some of my clubmates saw and learned from this video. You know the guys that sit on your wheel while you are pulling, and then accelerates fast past you to "help" on the front, creating an instant gap that you have to close after already sitting on the front ..
Question: So why do we not see this in the 8 team group of TDF? Or other competitions?
Jumbo Visma would be pretty tough to better...
In a race like that they are riding for a leader, so it doesn’t make sense for the leader to do turns on the front. Plus you have to factor all the other teams and positioning. Then there’s chasing attacks, falling back for water and food etc, too many different factors.
You will see them do a similar technique to this in a team time trial, as some of the factors above are removed. Although they typically do longer turns on the front and drop to the back, especially depending on the strength of the rider and how many watts they can pull.
@@benw9074 Thanks but for example Vinegaard could simply not take a turn! Just always stay behind. Effectively a wheel sucker at the rear and the 7 rotate in front of him. Good point about interference from other teams etc. They would need to be in a breakaway, very organised. Not that possible I guess. Then again, when they do have a random breakaway of a small mixed team group, if this method is so good, why not do, it? If they all understand the benefit? But they only ever do basic inline drafting.
All down to tactics again in a breakaway. Why even out the workload if you can try and tire your opponents by sitting on their wheel for long periods. It may mean the breakaway isn’t ultimately successful but may mean you have a better chance in the sprint or to drop them later. You see it all the time when Van Aert and Van Der Poel are in the break, no one wants to help them.
@@benw9074 Very good point! Thanks.
I try to learn pace line, but I realized I have no friends.
An approach that seems easier to coordinate is to have the front rider pull for a short period of time and then move to the side and fall back to the end of the paceline.
Did you not listen to what they said?
@@Chris-0703 The scheme they show in this video is the opposite of what I described. In this video, the rider at the back pulls to the side and accelerates to get to the front. If you watch the video in which Ollie gets dropped, they operated that paceline as I described in my previous comment.
All four boys together❤❤❤❤❤
My advice is join your local Cycling club. There will most likely be a chain gang session. If you have not done it before I'm sure help will be offered. You definately benefit from mixing with more experienced riders.
Bizzarly in Sweden the pace line is called Belgian chain, I don't know where it comes from.
Not sure that up to 8 riders constantly swapping positions would please many motorists queuing behind especially if you have the usual elderly ones frightened to overtake just one cyclist.
The other thing you have to consider is... THE LAW. Riding next to each other is illegal on public roads where I live. You can pass another cyclist, so you could try to argue with the police that this is technically just passing each other over and over again. But the meaning of the law is to force groups into one file, so you would likely just piss the police off and get a bigger fine.
Legend has it that Dutch kids already learn this on their tricycle because of the never-ending wind
Good now just need 3 more rider with me ... :D
Anyone else gets joy from seeing Ollie kill it in every video now?
I've been trying this solo and it just doesn't work 😢😅
Never noticed before that Alex and Ollie have Pinarellos which are the negative image of the other
Not any group jaunts I slow down--- not close to 30kph
=== will oli get dropped doing this
Lol at the end. Guess I have to buy ANOTHER bike. Lol poor me
In German this is called „Belgischer Kreisel“ so „Belgian Circle“.
These shoes work with the Peloton bike+ (April 2022), ua-cam.com/users/postUgkxGPkov2mNjgZfG33r6Bwvies8jKE4AKZB and are of good enough quality. I have completed 10 rides so far and there are no issues. The first time trying to fit them on the Peloton bike took 10 minutes (even with the help of an experienced cyclist friend who wears the same type of cleats). It took a couple of rides to break in. After the first two rides there were no issues at all.
My question is, how does this work during a race?? Usually, I see 1 person on the front pulling the whole group for a long time
From my experiences, it all depends on the race! In a breakaway, if everyone wants to keep it away, this can sometimes happen. Often times during races, people want to minimize the amount of work they want to do, so they try to avoid pace lines like this. Sometimes an unlucky soul gets stuck at the front, or maybe they’re working for a teammate
I've always wondered this - why do the team at the front burn through one rider at a time? Wouldn't it be more efficient to swap the rider at the front a lot more frequently? Unless you've got Ian Stannard of course
In races there is lots of mind games floating about, they are not always working as a team 😉
I wish the local Freds would watch this.
I can totally relate to SI screaming EASYYYY EASYYYYY!!!! During the group rides.
At my age now I ride on my own. I just need to go out on my schedule, ride at my pace and pee when I have to.
Aint got enough friends for this:( but looks good
i think i skipped the prerequisite video “this one skill will make you cycling friends”
Looks like an amazing thing that I never want to do!!! I'll take the pain of 100% effort any day over this delusional synchronised cheat biking (If I want to go faster for less effort I'll take the e-mtb out, seriously)....looks like there's so much that could go wrong..... I only draft on RGT cos the scenery ain't worth watching and there's no danger of potholes, cars, deer, wet leaves etc etc....Seriously though, except on immaculate surfaced straight roads what happens at bends? Does the pack spread out so you can all see the road surface with enough time to react in case someone comes off? It all looks so stressful and a great way to ruin a few hours on the bike.... ( and I've got no "bike mates", thankfully)
The Giant Leprechaun is the sneakiest drafter of the lot.
The real challenge here is having 3 friends that ride bikes
Not me calling Pace! Pace! Pace! Within the 1st 10km of the ride 😅
My discussion below about the law and two cyclists abreast, led me to wonder how are you finding dealing with motorists in your state or country? I believe that people are stupider and more aggressive than ever and constantly on their damn cell phones... the worst possible danger. What is your experience?
Really, just join a good cycling club and u will soon learn this 😊
The strategy looks really good but my concern is safety. In a regular paceline, you only have to worry about keeping tight on the wheel ahead of you, lateral movement is only needed when you are the leader and drop to the back. In this strategy, there is so much more movement, especially lateral movement which creates a higher likelihood of having issues. Of course, if everyone knows what they are doing it should not be an issue but when you have to deal with potholes, road cracks, obstructions or even deal with passing cars, the risk of having to do a lateral avoidance at the same time as a transition increases drastically.