Winning from the break is the closest thing in cycling to playing jazz. The best jazz players in the world know the rules, they know what they are supposed to do, but through their mastery of the art, they can improvise and make music that seemingly — and beautifully — defies what music theorists hold to be true.
To get into the breakaway and win from it, no matter what rider you are, you have to understand how bike racing works, you have to know your limitations and capabilities, and then you have to be prepared to throw out all those perceived notions.
Some of the most prolific breakaway riders will win through unimaginable power and force — what Jonas Abrahamsen has been doing at this Tour, or what Thomas De Gendt did in the past. Others will do this through masterful cunning and efficiency — think of Tim Wellens’ crafty win on stage 15. And some will use a combination of the two — Ben Healy’s win on stage 6 or Ben O’Connor’s victory yesterday.
This exemplifies the fact that there are no set rules to winning from a breakaway. Where one rider will take a handful of darts and throw them at a board, another will use pinpoint precision and hit the mark with a targeted toss.
Unlike a mountaintop finish, sprint, or TT, directors, pundits, and the vast majority of the peloton can never predict how, when, or where a winning break will form. Everyone will have ideas, and sometimes routes, features, and terrain will make those points more obvious, but there is never a clear playbook on how to get into that winning break — and then how to win from it. Furthermore, regardless of how clever you are or how powerful your legs are, winning from a break requires you to go beyond your perceived limitations as a rider. You have to suffer.
Imagine starting a marathon, but 5 km into the race, having to run one of your best mile times. This is how you will, almost inevitably, feel when getting into a winning break. I remember hearing that, when he was at his best, Thomas De Gendt would pick a point on the parcours before the race and say, “This is where I am going to go all-out for five minutes,” then he would go out and do it. In the Thomas De Gendt era of cycling, this made the guesswork of getting into the break a lot easier — once you saw him at the front, you sprinted — but it also made it really hard. I still remember one Vuelta, seeing this exact moment unfold, jumping on his wheel, and then setting one of my best 5-minute powers. After five minutes, I looked behind and saw that I was in the break, but then thought, “How the hell am I supposed to now ride for another 170 km?”
Stage 14 was another example of this. I attacked countless times in the opening 80 km of the race, hoping I could infiltrate the break on the flat. This was a gamble, because if I had made it into the break on the flat, I likely would have been in a group not filled with climbers (which would have been an advantage), and the odds of us building a sizable margin over the peloton would have been higher. Instead, for 80 km, no attack stuck, and I arrived at the base of the Tourmalet totally gassed, facing 4,000 meters of climbing in the final 100 km of the stage.
So far, I have made it into four breakaways at this race. One time we were caught by the peloton, and three times, due to varying circumstances, the break won, but I didn’t have what it took to cross the line first. I have, however, won from, or set up teammates to win from, a grand tour breakaway on several occasions. Here is how I do it:
Mentally, I usually break down my approach to winning from a breakaway into three phases. The first phase — which, in this Tour, is the only phase I’ve been truly succeeding in — is actually getting into the break. For the reasons mentioned above, before trying to get into a winning move, you can’t allocate any mental energy to anything beyond the effort required to get into the break. The moment you try to think past that, before actually doing it, success becomes almost impossible. It is simply too hard to see the race in its entirety when you are trying to generate separation from a Tour de France peloton.
On a breakaway day, the most important part of my pre-race research is trying to identify where I think the break will form. I’ll comb through veloviewer.com and Google Street View, looking for pinch points in the road, twisting sections, and elevation changes. Any feature in the opening kilometers that could significantly disrupt the peloton’s rhythm becomes something I highlight. For stage 12, here is what I identified as being important before the race:
I will check and recheck multiple weather sources, seeing where the winds are blowing. I will identify crosswind, headwind, and tailwind sections. I will write down a list of riders I think will have a good chance of getting in the break, and then I will study the neutral zone. To me, I think calling it the “neutral zone” is a bit of a misnomer. Riding a good neutral zone can set you up for the rest of the race. When I won in the Tour in 2023, the breakaway formed at km 0, and were it not for me being well placed in the neutral, I would never have gotten in.
Regardless of whether I think the break will go early or late, if the neutral zone is less than 5 km, I will go to the start of the race up to 15 minutes early to be at the front for km 0. If the neutral is longer than 6 km, I will start at the back and show up only minutes before the start.
Once there are 3-4 km remaining in the neutral, I will spend 2 km working my way up the side of the peloton, squeezing around riders, and dodging sewer grids until I am at the front of the group with about 1 km to go. This task is not easy, as often neutrals take place in city centers, with lots of corners and road furniture—meaning that a mistimed roundabout or traffic island can see you starting km 0 in position 80. Whether the break goes in the first kilometer or the 90th, being at the front for the flag drop is, to me, essential. It allows you to see what teams are controlling, who wants to be involved in the break, and you save a boatload of energy — trying to move up through a peloton when Wout Van Aert has attacked from the gun, on the bumper of the commissaire car, is next to impossible.
Finally, if the break doesn’t go in the very opening kilometers — which has been the case for every stage this Tour, except the one that Jonas Abrahamsen won — I take a moment to acknowledge that this could be a very hard day on the bike. I have given up on trying to get into breaks 90 km into a race, thinking there’s no way it will survive, only for that break to go in the 91st km and win. More often than not, at the Tour, it takes over an hour for the break to form. Staying cool, calm, and positive is one of the keys during this battle.
The next phase of winning from a breakaway is typically the longest. It’s the time between entry into the front group and the final. This middle phase is an intimidating period. You’ve just gone as deep as you ever have, and now you’re faced with sometimes more than 100 km of holding the peloton at a winnable gap, working with the guys you will inevitably be fighting for the win, assessing your key opponents, devising a plan of attack, conserving as much energy as possible, and just trying to stay cool. It’s the most mentally demanding phase, in my mind, because many riders win or lose the race during this period.
Complacency and self-doubt can easily build with every passing kilometer. As fatigue sets in and the desire to end your suffering grows, it becomes very easy to talk yourself out of going for the win. “I don’t feel great. I went too deep to get here. The peloton is riding too hard. This guy is definitely stronger…” The self-doubt loop is hard to crack. It’s essential during this period to try to break this cycle and, as corny as it sounds, talk yourself up: “You can win today. You are the strongest guy here. Everybody is suffering. Ride smart.”etc.
Here is what I wrote down pre race on stage 14:
The final phase, for me at least, often ends up being the most redeeming part of the race. Even if I don’t win from the move, after the monotony of riding in a pace line for hours, the excitement of actually racing your bike — while helicopters fly above and people scream on the sidelines — is exhilarating. This is why pretty much every kid decides to get into pro cycling. The final in a breakaway is like boxing in the 12th round. The fatigue of the day, combined with the composition of the breakaway, democratizes ability. Through sheer will, wit, toughness, and often a combination of the three, I’ve seen climbers outsprint sprinters and flat specialists out-climb seasoned climbers.
Because of all the intangibles of the breakaway — its rider make-up, who has used less energy, the terrain, and who is chasing from behind — it is almost impossible to predict before the race when and where the win will happen. You have to feel the moment and seize it if it comes. This is why I love watching a rider throw a hail mary or execute a race-winning move, even if it’s not me.
Every time I’ve been in a break — whether it was my winning move or another’s — I’ve known, in that exact moment of attack, that that was where the race was won. The finality of it is stunning. You live what feels like an entire life when you’re in a grand tour breakaway, and with one simple attack — just a few pedal strokes — it is all over. The race is won or lost, and no matter what, unless it’s stage 21, you get a massage, drink your recovery drink, and hope that you can be in the break again the next day.