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How to unleash a fierce acceleration

The art of making a successful attack and break away from the group

While it doesn’t take much skill to accelerate on your bike—that can simply be done my stomping on the pedals a little harder—a successful attack involves a fierce turn of speed that makes a separation between you and your chasers. It is a hard maneuver to pull off successfully.

Adam de Vos on the attack at the 2016 Tour of California

Not only do you need the legs but in order to create a sizable gap between your back wheel and that of the group you are leaving, you need good timing and tactics. After you have hit the group you’ll hope to look back and see nobody in your slipstream. Then it’s up to your legs to hold them off or if you’ve drawn a rider or two out it’s time to cooperate to make the move stick.

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As bike races are either won in a bunch sprint or from an aggressive move, knowing how to breakaway is an important skill for those not inclined to mix it up with the sprinters. Here are five tips to making a devastating acceleration that’ll help you break away:

Timing

Perfect moments to attack come when the rest of the group is slowing down. This could happen when the rider at the front is not fully committing to the pull, when the group hits a slight rise in the road or after a hard effort when everyone is looking at each other to take up the next turn at the front. These moments offer aggressive riders the perfect opportunity to accelerate out of the group. Aggressive riders can also look for opportunities on climbs or when the wind changes. Worse case scenario, attacking in one of these moments will help reduce the size of the bunch as weaker riders are unable to keep pace when the speed ramps up.

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Stay in the draft until the last moment

Bruno Langlois attacks at 2016 road nationals

Sitting in a riders draft saves you significant energy. When you’ve decided to attack, the last thing you want to do is sit in the wind in the period leading up to it. If you hit the wind too early, chances are you will be expending valuable energy that could otherwise be used helping you stay away. Remain hidden in the wheels until the last moment before you attack. This can also help catch the riders at the front off guard decreasingly the likely hood they will be able to respond and chase you down.

Shift into the right gear

If you plan to unleash a devastating acceleration, it’s important to use the right gear. You will want to shift into a harder gear anticipating the increased power you are about to inject into the pedals. Don’t go into too big of a gear however or you won’t be able to keep your cadence up which is important to making a successful acceleration. Finding the right gear is essential to making a suucessful acceleration and it can take some practice to determine what your legs are capable of pushing.

Slingshot

Getting a run-up will help you gain enough speed that when you pass the first rider in the group you are traveling at a speed that makes it very difficult for them to respond. Unless you are overwhelmingly the strongest rider attacking from the front will be quite difficult. Some riders like to let a bit of a gap form in front of them in the moment before an attacking so they have a little bit more road on which to use to accelerate on.

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Commit

Davide Formolo

There is nothing worse that expending unnecessary energy to simply accelerate and pull the whole group along when your intention was to try and escape. If you’ve decided to go, don’t let up too soon or you may just find yourself at the front or even worse simply setting up another rider to come around and accelerate past you. Also remember, that if you are in the red so are the riders chasing and being relentless will increase the chances of the elastic breaking. However, if your timing is poor and nothing is coming of your acceleration get back in the wheels and do your best to recover so you can try again later.

There are times when it’s not appropriate to accelerate

Don’t attack the Sunday coffee ride. You might get a boost of confidence dropping everyone but there is a time and a place for aggressive riding. The easy group ride is not one of them. Also don’t accelerate when you are going to the front to take a pull. The rider who is just pulling off will have trouble responding if you blow by them with the rest of the group in your wheel. If you do plan to attack a group ride or make the riding aggressive, run it by someone whose been showing up for it longer than you have to make sure it’s that kind of ride.

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In race situations, attacking when there is a strong team ready and willing to pull you back may not result in you being able to form a successful break. If the peloton is riding into a stiff headwind, you also may want to save yourself for a better moment because if you escape solo you might just be dangling in front unable to gain a sizable gap.