Cycling and Endurance Sport Training Information

The Art of a Good Lead Out

By Erik Saunders - PCG Coach & O-Foto Professional Cyclist

   The key is for a good lead out is to understand the mechanics of leading out a sprint. For each of the riders it will be a max effort for the time that they have to take the front, so individually they will have to do a lot of VO2 max work. Many don’t understand this. They shouldn’t be saving any for their own top ten finish as they need to be beyond the red-line. A lot of the training of the different physical abilities can be done alone, VO2 max, anaerobic capacity, high intensity lactate resistance work, and sprinting.

When you want to lead the sprint out you all need to line up and take the front, not by hiding in the wheels and pushing your way around so that you end up wheel to wheel, but by lining up in the wind (not in the pack) and riding to the front on your own and passing the front of the pack, taking control of the race and accelerating the tempo.

From that point its a matter of everyone doing the max effort that they can until the line comes... as a group you have to figure how long you can burn out before you all crack and then you will know when you will need to take control of the race... it gets more complicated if you have to chase a break for a while and then lead it out, so for the sake of our discussion, we will just assume that this is a field sprint situation and you don’t have to do any work to prepare it by chasing a break.

If things are competitive it is worth it to have a guy sweep your sprinter's wheel. and open a gap up when he jumps so that your efforts don’t benefit another guy. This guy needs to sit up and NOT try to follow your sprinter in for 2nd.

Its OK to rotate as a group on the front if you are starting from a ways out, but in the closing laps it is best to do one pull per rider and go till you absolutely blow. This keeps the pace higher than if you try to rotate and it makes things easier for the riders to understand. Give it full gas until you legs seize up and then your race is over, job well done, now get out of the way.

You can get together and practice riding HARD together in training, running through your line up just like you would in a race, (actually if your are dealing with inexperienced riders, the main focus should be on pace line riding, close drafting at max effort and bike handling), the real thing to do is practice this in a race. So you all have to commit to racing together a lot. You have to lead out every sprint you can, lead out for the win, lead out for tenth, lead out for 20th if there are 19 guys up the road, lead out sprints for a tire prime! You cannot miss any opportunity to practice. It takes a LONG TIME to get good at this and its mostly an exercise to gain in experience and confidence.

It is really all about TAKING CONTROL, and if you keep this in mind, it is a lot easier to psych yourself up to do the job. It is NOT a measured effort. You need to be thinking about stringing the race out wheel to wheel so that the only way for your rivals to gain position is in the wind where they will have to use up their sprint energy before the sprint actually starts.

To learn more on the subject, check out this story about team O-Foto leading out the sprint at http://www.lombardisports.com/Bike/erik.php.

To sum it all up; learn to ride hard wheel to wheel at a max effort by doing pace line drills and understand what you are doing before you do it. Racing is the best training for leading out sprints, so race together often and lead out every sprint you can.

Erik is a PCG coach and professional cyclist on the domestic O-Foto cycling team w/ over 17 years of cycling and racing experience. To find out more about Erik, visit his bio here.

Cycling and Endurance Training Information by Erik Saunders