It absolutely can be as you say, especially if no strong puncher goes full steam ahead in the ‘main’ climb.
So far, a breakaway of 3 men who started at km 0. No reaction from any other rider in the peloton.
It was quite funny because they were 3 when they left, but the last one (a Movistar) slew down after only a couple hundreds yards, intending to get back into the bunch; yet he changed his mind (or the DS did), and then was struggling alone like a moron to catch up with the 2 Italians ahead (1 Polit, 1 Arkéa), until these 2 riders waited for him as the peloton was very slow.
One commenter’s theory was that he had the mission to jump in breakaways, but only take part in the ‘real ones’, those with enough riders to stand a chance of victory. So he half-dropped when he saw that there were only 2 small riders with him and no one seemed to join. I would add that he remained a bit ahead of the peloton, as if he wanted to incite other riders to get out of it and join him and then join the 2 other riders. Then we might guess that as it became clear that there would be no other volunteer and no chase, it was probably decided that he should join back the small breakaway, since this small breakaway would be the ‘right one’ and there wouldn’t have been anything better to do today.
It absolutely can be as you say, especially if no strong puncher goes full steam ahead in the ‘main’ climb.
So far, a breakaway of 3 men who started at km 0. No reaction from any other rider in the peloton.
It was quite funny because they were 3 when they left, but the last one (a Movistar) slew down after only a couple hundreds yards, intending to get back into the bunch; yet he changed his mind (or the DS did), and then was struggling alone like a moron to catch up with the 2 Italians ahead (1 Polit, 1 Arkéa), until these 2 riders waited for him as the peloton was very slow.
Another Movistar tactical masterclass :D
One commenter’s theory was that he had the mission to jump in breakaways, but only take part in the ‘real ones’, those with enough riders to stand a chance of victory. So he half-dropped when he saw that there were only 2 small riders with him and no one seemed to join. I would add that he remained a bit ahead of the peloton, as if he wanted to incite other riders to get out of it and join him and then join the 2 other riders. Then we might guess that as it became clear that there would be no other volunteer and no chase, it was probably decided that he should join back the small breakaway, since this small breakaway would be the ‘right one’ and there wouldn’t have been anything better to do today.