Ricky Gervais tells the story of Carl Pilkington asking why people bother riding the Tour de France. When told it was because of the huge prize money on offer for the winner, Pilkington replied, “Yeah, but why do all the others do it?”
Laughs at Carl Pilkington aside, it’s a good question – why did 189 men ride out of Utrecht, when most people consider the event to be a four-horse race (if not The Roar’s Felix Lowe)?
The 21 teams entered the Tour with nine riders beginning the race – each team containing one leader and eight domestiques.
The word domestique literally means ‘servant’ in French, and that’s what a domestique’s role is – to serve his team leader. Or, rather, make it as easy as possible for his team leader to claim victory.
Perhaps the most obvious way a domestique takes the heat for his leader is simply by riding ahead of him. By positioning yourself in another rider’s slipstream, you can avoid the oncoming headwind and preserve as much as 40 per cent of your energy.
Ideally, any team’s leader will ride at the head of the pack for only one part of the stage – at the conclusion, as they surge to the front and on to victory. The ability to do so is predicated on having spent the day behind other riders, preserving your energy.
Truly fulfilling the role of the servant, domestiques are also the guys who drop back to the team car to pick up food, water and energy supplements, then have to catch back up to the peloton to distribute the supplies.
Richie Porte famously and illegally did as much for Chris Froome during the 2013 Tour, when Froome was flagging badly on Stage 18’s final climb up Alpe d’Huez.
Froome was suffering from hypoglycaemia – in layman’s terms, he forgot to eat – but it is against race rules to drop back to the team car for supplies in the final 20 kilometres of a stage. So Porte went to the team car and picked up an energy gel for his leader.
The Tasmanian’s act served two purposes – keep Froome from wasting energy or risk allowing a rival to get the jump on him by slowing down, but also to be the one who broke the rules and thus was slapped with a time penalty.
In the end Froome and Porte both received 20-second penalties for an act William Fotheringham described as “Baldrickian in its transparency”, but it illustrated how willing Porte was to sacrifice himself for his leader.
Porte once again enters this year’s race as Froome’s main lieutenant. Porte’s role is to stay with his leader as long as possible in the high mountains, shielding him from headwinds and covering the attacks that will inevitably come from the likes of Nairo Quintana, Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali.
In the event Froome ‘blows up’, or one of his rivals gets a serious jump on him, it will be Porte’s role to stick by his leader, find a rhythm Froome is comfortable with, and pace him to the top in an effort to minimise time losses.
But while a Tour de France is won on the mountain passes of the Pyrenees and Alps, simply selecting a team of nine climbers is no way to win. A Tour may be won in the mountains but it can be lost on literally any other stage, so a team needs a mixture of riders with different skills and strengths.
Heading into this year’s race, arguably the most specified strength – having been crucial in last year’s – was riding on cobblestones.
The gaps between cobbles makes riding them a jarring, rattling experience, and if it rains – which it seemingly always does – they become slippery and even more treacherous. The peloton breaks up, and having someone ride ahead is crucial.
Stage 5 of last year’s Tour featured similar pavé aspects, and the day played a large part in Nibali’s eventual victory in Paris, as he finished the day third overall and took a good two minutes out of his GC rivals.
But good as he was that day, he was shepherded by his teammate Jakob Fuglsang and both were bested by former cyclo-cross world champion Lars Boom.
This year, Nibali’s Astana team recruited Boom, with the idea he would set aside his ambitions of a stage victory and instead help his leader put in a potentially race-winning ride.
And while the day ended up without any of the favourites losing or gaining time on one another, Boom came to the fore for his leader, at one point creating a gap on the pavé that Froome himself clawed back, expending precious energy.
This ability was a big reason Astana were willing to risk the ire of the cycling community by racing Boom at all, after issues with his cortisol levels were discoverd on the race’s eve.
And Astana would surely have been happy with their decision to keep Boom on the team following Stage 2, after Nibali lost over a minute to Froome and Contador as the wind wreaked havoc.
Windy days create echelons in the peloton, and can lead to big time gaps. As such, it’s important to have a member of the team who can anticipate the oncoming winds, and use them to their advantage.
Aussie Michael Rogers is one of the best in the business at echelon riding, and as the peloton rolled toward Zelande, his leader Alberto Contador was glued to Mick’s wheel, waiting for the winds to shift and for Rogers to use them to break the race apart.
While Stage 2 was a day Contador and others with strong echelon riders in their team – such as Tejay van Garderen’s BMC – targeted, the reality is wind can dramatically change conditions on virtually any day. Having a man on your team who can read the conditions and use them to your advantage is crucial.
But while winds, cobbles and mountains will all play a large part in the Tour, ultimately the vast majority of the Tour is spent riding on flat roads, and while it may seem relatively easy to keep the peloton’s pace, riding in a pack of almost 200 cyclists bombing along at upwards of 50 kilometres an hour is treacherous and exhausting.
As such, teams tend to pick two or three riders whose job is to ensure things are as smooth as possible on the flat. These guys have the ability to ride on the front of the peloton at a punishing speed for hours at a time, dishing out pain to the rest of the pack in an effort to ware them out for the mountains to come.
If one of their leader’s rivals manages to get away from the pack, their role changes to chasing, however if the day’s breakaway features their leader or a teammate, they may take turns at the head of the peloton riding slowly as possible.
After winning his first Tour de France, Lance Armstrong compared his own contribution to the result with the zip on his yellow jersey. The rest of the jersey was achieved by his team (alright, and drugs, but mostly his team).
As such the winner divides his €450,000 prize money among his teammates. Do your job and there’s a serious carrot if your leader manages to do his.
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