In
bicycle racing
Cycle sport is competitive physical activity using bicycles. There are several categories of bicycle racing including road bicycle racing, cyclo-cross, mountain bike racing, track cycling, BMX, and cycle speedway. Non-racing cycling s ...
, a breakaway specialist is a rider who is specialized in attacking the race from the start in order to show off their sponsor and to try their luck in winning the stage without having to fight with the whole
peloton
In a road bicycle race, the peloton (from French, originally meaning 'platoon') is the main group or pack of riders. Riders in a group save energy by riding close ( drafting or slipstreaming) to (particularly behind) other riders. The reductio ...
at the finish line.
The French term for a breakaway specialist is baroudeur or adventurer, which comes from the Arabic, where its meaning is “dynamite”
Details
Examples of such racers include
Thomas De Gendt
Thomas De Gendt (born 6 November 1986) is a Belgian professional road racing cyclist, who rides for UCI WorldTeam . He previously rode for rivals , , and .
Career
Born in Sint-Niklaas, De Gendt won the opening stage of the 2011 Paris–Nice ...
,
Jens Voigt
Jens Voigt (; born 17 September 1971) is a German former professional road bicycle racer and, upon retirement, became a cycling sports broadcast commentator. During his cycling career, Voigt raced for several teams, the last one being UCI ProTe ...
,
Thomas Voeckler
Thomas Voeckler (; born 22 June 1979) is a French former road racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2001 and 2017, for the team and its previous iterations.
One of the most prominent French riders of his generation, Voeckler has b ...
,
Alessandro De Marchi,
Tony Martin,
Sylvain Chavanel
Sylvain Chavanel''Procycling'', UK, November 2008 (born 30 June 1979) is a French former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2000 and 2018 for the , , and two spells with the / team. His brother Sébastien Chavanel ...
,
Sandy Casar
Sandy Casar (born 2 February 1979) is a French former professional racing cyclist, who competed as a professional between 2000 and 2013, all for the team. His greatest results have been winning three stages of the Tour de France, as well the over ...
,
Pierrick Fédrigo
Pierrick Fédrigo (born 30 November 1978) is a French former racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2002 and 2016 for the , , and teams. He was the winner of the French National Road Race Championships in 2005, and won four stages at t ...
,
Luis León Sánchez
Luis León Sánchez Gil (born 24 November 1983) is a Spanish road bicycle racer, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam . Sánchez's major achievements include winning the overall classifications of the 2009 Paris–Nice and the 2005 Tour Down ...
,
Jérémy Roy,
Steve Cummings
Stephen Philip Cummings (born 19 March 1981) is an English former racing cyclist
Cycle sport is Competition, competitive physical activity using bicycles. There are several categories of bicycle racing including road bicycle racing, ...
,
Lilian Calmejane
Lilian Calmejane (born 6 December 1992) is a French cyclist, who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam . He is best known for winning stages at the Tour de France in 2017 and the Vuelta a España in 2016.
Career
Born in Albi, Calmejane turned profes ...
,
Jacky Durand
Jacky Durand (born 10 February 1967 in Laval, Mayenne) is a French former professional road bicycle racer. Durand had an attacking style, winning the Tour of Flanders in 1992 after a breakaway, and three stages in the Tour de France.
Durand tu ...
, and
Franck Bonnamour
Franck Bonnamour (born 20 June 1995) is a French cyclist, who currently rides for UCI World Tour team AG2R Citroën Team. His father, Yves Bonnamour, was also a professional cyclist. He rode and completed his first grand tour in the 2021 Tour ...
.
Cyclists who regularly participate in breaks are typically neither particularly fast
climbers nor
sprinters, and getting in a break offers their best chance of winning the stage or race.
While many riders will occasionally take part in breaks, the most prominent breakaway specialists are known for the frequency of their attempts, the long distances they cover in small groups or even alone, and for the (relatively rare) wins which can gain them great prestige in the peloton and with fans. Voigt, however, claims that nine times out of ten breakaways fail.
Robert Chapatte
Robert Chapatte (14 October 1921 – 19 January 1997) was a French people, French cycle sport, cyclist and sports journalism, sports journalist, voice of the Tour de France on television and radio and the inventor of Chapatte's Law.
Racing ...
, a French ex-professional cyclist turned TV commentator, calculated that a speeding peloton takes 10 km to gain back one minute on a breakaway, though with advances in bike technology and rider fitness it’s now more like 90 seconds. This has since become known as
Chapatte's Law.
Chapatte held that the minute was precise. Anything less and the break would fail, as when
Rolf Sørensen
Rolf Sørensen (born 20 April 1965) is a former Danish professional road bicycle racer. He is currently working as a cycling commentator and agent. Born in Helsinge in Denmark, Sørensen moved to Italy at the age of 17, where he has lived since ...
was caught a few hundred metres before the line when he held 56 seconds rather than a minute on the
Gap stage of the Tour de France in 1996. Chapatte insisted too that a lone rider with a minute's lead had more chance than a group with a larger lead. While a lone rider would ride hard to the end, a group will ease up to gather breath for the sprint and to watch each other for surprise attacks. The law has suffered in modern times by committed chases organised by teams to get their sprinters to the front.
Gaining time in breakaways can also result in riders making unexpected challenges in the
General classification
The general classification (or the GC) in road bicycle racing is the category that tracks overall times for riders in multi-stage races. Each stage will have a stage winner, but the overall winner in the GC is the rider who has the fastest cumulati ...
. At the
2004 Tour de France
The 2004 Tour de France was a multiple stage bicycle race held from 3 to 25 July, and the 91st edition of the Tour de France. It has no overall winner—although American cyclist Lance Armstrong originally won the event, the United States Anti ...
, after escaping with five other riders during the fifth stage,
Thomas Voeckler
Thomas Voeckler (; born 22 June 1979) is a French former road racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2001 and 2017, for the team and its previous iterations.
One of the most prominent French riders of his generation, Voeckler has b ...
gained significant time against the
peloton
In a road bicycle race, the peloton (from French, originally meaning 'platoon') is the main group or pack of riders. Riders in a group save energy by riding close ( drafting or slipstreaming) to (particularly behind) other riders. The reductio ...
, and earned the
yellow jersey
The general classification is the most important classification, the one by which the winner of the Tour de France is determined. Since 1919, the leader of the general classification wears the yellow jersey (french: maillot jaune ).
History
Th ...
(french: maillot jaune). Remarkably, he defended his jersey for ten days, even on stages not well-suited to his strengths. With the yellow jersey on his shoulders, and intense media attention all around him, Voeckler only rode stronger. He survived the dreaded climbs of the
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...
seconds ahead of
Lance Armstrong
Lance Edward Armstrong (''né'' Gunderson; born September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road bicycle racing, road racing cyclist. Regarded as a sports icon for winning the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 Tour de ...
. Voeckler finally surrendered the jersey to Armstrong on stage 15 in the French Alps. History repeated itself at the
2011 Tour de France
The 2011 Tour de France was the 98th edition of the race. It started on 2 July at the Passage du Gois and ended on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 24 July. The cyclists competed in 21 stages over 23 days, covering a distance of . The route en ...
, when in the ninth stage of the race, Voeckler led a breakaway, survived a collision caused by a media support car that injured two other riders, and crossed the line second, taking the overall time lead and therefore wearing the yellow jersey. He held on to the jersey daily from the beginning of Stage 10 onwards, carrying it through all the Pyrenean mountain stages and into the Alps, but he was unable to retain it at the end of Stage 19, the
queen stage finishing at
Alpe d'Huez
L'Alpe d'Huez () is a ski resort in southeastern France at . It is a mountain pasture in the Central French Western Alps, in the commune of Huez, which is part of the department of Isère in the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
It is part of th ...
. Voeckler finished in fourth place in the final general classification, 3 minutes and 20 seconds behind the winner,
Cadel Evans
Cadel Lee Evans (; born 14 February 1977) is an Australian former professional racing cyclist, who competed professionally in both mountain biking and road bicycle racing. A four-time Olympian, Evans is one of three non-Europeans – along wi ...
. It was Voeckler's highest final general classification in the Tour, and the highest placing of any Frenchman in the Tour, at the time, since
Christophe Moreau
Christophe Moreau (born 12 April 1971 in Vervins) is a French former professional road racing cyclist. For many years Moreau was the primary French contender for the general classification in the Tour de France: he finished in the top 12 in the G ...
's fourth-place overall finish in
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
. Similarly, at the
2012 Giro d'Italia
The 2012 Giro d'Italia was the 95th edition of Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started in the Danish city of Herning, and ended in Milan. The complete route of the 2012 Giro d'Italia was announced in mid October. For the fir ...
, Thomas De Gendt took a surprise win on the penultimate
queen stage of the race, attacking the group of favourites over the top of the
Mortirolo Pass
The Mortirolo Pass ( it, Passo del Mortirolo) (el. 1852 m.) is a high mountain pass in the Alps in Italy. Also known as Passo della Foppa, it connects Mazzo di Valtellina (province of Sondrio) and Val Camonica (province of Brescia). The ...
with 57 km to go to the finish, bypassing an earlier breakaway group at the front of the race and crossing the finish line atop a 22 km climb on the
Stelvio Pass
''Giogo dello Stèlvio''german: Stilfser Joch
, photo = The_Stelvio_pass.jpg
, photo_caption = Some of the 48 hairpin turns near the top of the eastern ramp of the Stelvio Pass
, photo_alt =
, map = Alps
, map_caption = Location of Stelvio Pass in ...
in first place. The performance moved him from eighth to fourth in the general classification, placing him within striking distance of the podium. In the race's final time trial, De Gendt put in another strong performance, finishing fifth on the stage and taking third place overall.
References
{{Racing cyclist types
Road bicycle racing terminology