Free Web NovelChapter 105: Chapter 93: Attacking Early, How Will You Respond?
After that, you’ll need to ride three laps before returning to the Yunmen Village Intersection for a flat-road sprint.
Xiaoma, the five of you are better on flats and in sprints. The laps will have a lot of short climbs, and you’ll definitely be dropped by the lead riders from other teams. So, in the first few dozen kilometers on the flat sections, do your best to lead out for Huang Chong.
Once you hit the climbing laps, the other teams’ lead riders will inevitably launch attacks to try and break the main group apart.
At that point, Huang Chong, you have to grit your teeth and follow them.
Then, during the climbing laps, just stick to the other teams’ lead riders. Draft behind them and stay in their slipstream.
Just like you did last year at the National Championships when you stuck right to the Longjiang Team’s rider.
When you get to the final climbing lap, look for a chance to go solo and break away from the lead group.
The final stretch of the road race is flat again. If you can establish a lead on the climbs, you definitely don’t want to drag it out to the end with the other riders. After all, a sprint always comes with endless possibilities!"
After listening to Coach Li’s plan, Huang Chong exchanged a look with his five teammates. Seeing no objections, he nodded.
He then hurried off to rest, waiting for the third day of competition, when they would all head to the start/finish line for the team time trial: Yunmen Village.
Compared to an individual race, a TTT is all about teamwork. But the guys on the Hengxiang Team were primarily flat-road sprinters. So, apart from Huang Chong, whose ITT skills were in a league of their own, the other riders were relatively average.
So, the process was uneventful. The Hengxiang Team started early, but even with Huang Chong shouldering most of the burden, their final time only put them in seventh place out of the 14 competing teams—barely mid-pack.
"Just as I expected. Our team’s riders are relatively average in time trials. They still rely too much on Huang Chong."
In the support car following the team, Coach Li watched Huang Chong pull for nearly a third of the race by himself and shook his head helplessly.
Chen Junyi, long accustomed to this, made a rare joke:
"Compared to his time on the provincial team, when Huang Chong had to pull for half the race, today was much better."
Of course, Coach Li had also watched the Zhejiang Team’s TTT at the National Championships last year. Back then, Huang Chong had been a complete workhorse, not only pulling the team forward but even having to slow down intentionally to keep his teammates from being dropped early.
It could only be said that with Huang Chong’s strength, having him participate in the team time trial was actually nerfing him, or even just wasting his energy for nothing.
So, Coach Li decided on the spot that from now on, Huang Chong, whose abilities were in a league of their own, would no longer participate in the team’s TTT events.
It was just pointless.
It was also worth noting that after all the TTT events were over, the top favorite for the title, the Longjiang Team, had a bout of terrible luck in this stage, suffering two consecutive tire punctures—one at the beginning and one at the end.
This caused them to lose a significant amount of time, and they ultimately crossed the finish line in only fifth place.
The gold medal was won by the Hong Kong Team, whose strength was comparable to theirs. The silver went to the Hunan Team, and the bronze to the Tianjin Team.
However, after the men’s TTT, the Longjiang Team’s women’s squad still showed the same absolute dominance as at last year’s National Championships, easily taking home the gold.
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On March 23rd, the Mang City stage entered its fourth day of competition.
There was only one event on the schedule for the day: the most important one, the men’s individual road race.
The total race distance was a long 191 kilometers, 11 kilometers longer than the road race at the National Championships.
In addition, the organizers had set up a three-lap climbing circuit in the middle of the race, featuring multiple short climbs with gradients of 4%, 5%, and even 7%, making it extremely difficult to finish.
After the circuit, the final few kilometers back to Yunmen Village were on a long, flat road, but it was nearly impossible for the sprinters to avoid being dropped on the preceding climbs.
So, this race was considered a hilly classic.
It didn’t reach the level of a mountain stage, but it was still very unforgiving for heavier riders and sprinters who only excelled on flat terrain.
At eight in the morning, before the race began, there were the usual cultural performances arranged by the local government.
Huang Chong noticed that the performances were different every day. It was clear the local people had put a great deal of effort and thought into this road cycling event.
Especially since a mountain bike league was scheduled to be held here right after their road race, the local civil servants must have had an incredibly heavy workload.
After the performances ended, the race officially began.
The road race was similar in essence to the criterium, but the route selection was completely different.
Naturally, the difficulty of finishing was also on a completely different level.
The criterium was mostly flat and confined to the city limits.
But the road race not only went out of the city onto national highways and mountain roads, but its finish line was also no longer at Mang City Square.
The number of participants today was already smaller than in the criterium.
Some riders, their stamina depleted after three days of high-intensity racing, had been forced to withdraw.
But the top-tier, powerful riders were all still in the race.
After the race started, quite a few riders, as usual, chose to break away right from the beginning.
Huang Chong, nestled among his teammates, didn’t react.
He glanced at the riders in the breakaway and saw that none were contenders for the win.
In a road cycling race, many riders who attack early in a breakaway aren’t necessarily aiming for the win.
Rather, being in the breakaway gives them airtime; they attack for their sponsors.
For example, in the World Tour, the live broadcast cameras are focused almost exclusively on the breakaway riders for the first two or three hours.
In a way, this is how breakaway riders work for their team’s sponsors.
And as the flat section ended and the main group reached the climbing circuit, the race situation unfolded just as Coach Li had predicted.
The original breakaway riders were all caught by the main group. Immediately after, a top-tier lineup of contenders for the win launched a new attack.
At first, the Hengxiang Team riders could still grit their teeth and lead out for Huang Chong on the first few climbs.
But as the race entered the final climb of the first lap—a short, steep incline with a 7% gradient and a length of 430 meters—all his teammates were suddenly dropped.
This kind of steep climb was sheer torture for sprinters.
Only a GC Cyclist like Huang Chong, who specialized in the overall classification, would probably enjoy this kind of stage.
Soon, after the most difficult part of the climb, there was a long descent, followed by a return to a flat section.
At this point, only 13 riders remained in the breakaway group.
Huang Chong scanned the group. They were mostly familiar faces who had been in the final breakaway during the criterium, but with the addition of a young rider from the Shandong Team, Liu Zhicheng, and a rider from the Hebei Team, Wang Bing.
Today’s champion would undoubtedly come from one of these 13 riders.
Because the main group of over a hundred riders behind them had been completely shattered and left behind.
The second lap of the circuit began. The race was now more than halfway over. They had ridden over 100 kilometers, and more than two hours had passed.
Huang Chong took advantage of the descent to refuel, drinking an electrolyte sports drink and eating an Energy Gel provided by the team.
In fact, Road Cyclists have notes to help them with energy management, with clear instructions on when to eat a gel and when they’ll reach the team’s feed zone.
These notes are taped to every rider’s handlebars.
However, for Huang Chong, a race of this intensity wasn’t nearly enough to require him to use the system’s supplies.
The team’s supplies were sufficient.
The commercially available Energy Gels couldn’t compare in effect to a system Energy Bar, but they were more than enough for him to win today’s race.
Time flew by. As the race entered the final climbing lap, the breakaway group, originally 13 strong, had shed another 5 riders. Now, only 8 were left, gritting their teeth and hanging on.
To Huang Chong’s surprise, Liu Zhicheng of the Shandong Team and Wang Bing of the Hebei Team hadn’t been dropped. In fact, they seemed to be getting stronger and more spirited as the race went on.
But how they ultimately performed had nothing to do with him, and he couldn’t care less.
Because on the final lap, just when everyone expected him to attack on the last 7% climb and were conserving energy to counter it, he suddenly launched an attack on the third-to-last climb—one with a 5% gradient and a length of 370 meters.
He did this because he had long since noticed that when this group was leading on the final lap, they had deliberately slowed the pace.
This uncharacteristic behavior was a clear sign that they were all saving energy to prevent him from launching a solo breakaway on the final steep climb.
So, having anticipated the other riders’ intentions, how could he possibly fall into their unspoken, mutual plan?
’You want to team up against me?’
’Fine. I’ll just attack ahead of schedule, outside of your little plan. Let’s see how you react then.’
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