The Prophet was very clear on how best to ride an individual Time Trial; start as fast as possible and finish as fast as possible. As for the middle, his advice was to ride that as fast as possible.
The same can be said of climbing; as we covered in Part I and Part II of the Sur La Plaque series, the key to climbing well is to hit the bottom as hard as possible, and then move into the big ring as you go over the top in order to finish the climb as fast as possible. As for the middle section; well, hit that as hard as possible and focus on keeping your momentum going.
The trouble is with this pesky notion we have of “gauging our efforts”. Certainly, the perfectly measured climb would result in riding the whole of it à bloc before moving Sur La Plaque over the top, blast down the other side and – just as you hit escape velocity – explode spectacularly, using your perfectly honed LeMond Tuck to recover in time to crush it in the valley to the next climb where you repeat the process. Panache.
Panache is a dualistic thing; almost without exception do we admire it in others, and almost without exception are we too cowardly to hold it inside ourselves. Panache doesn’t speak of caution, or of measured action. It speaks of impulse – compulsion, even – to attack despite one’s better judgement. It speaks of throwing caution to the wind. It weighs heavy with the risk of exploding magnificently and trading angel’s wings for the devil’s anchor.
But those who venture freely into that realm have blown up so many times that it hardly features in their reasoning. Pain and climbing are inseparable; what difference does it make if you blow up and suffer a bit more for a bit longer? And, should we blow up often enough, we will learn how to suffer through and push to the top with grace. And perhaps by that same grace, will we recover enough to try again on the next climb.
Vive la chance. Vive le Grimpeur. Vive la Vie Velominatus.
Exhibit A: The master of Panache, Marco Pantani. And the master of blowing with grace, Richard Virenque. For a prime example of how to blow up properly, jump to 2:00.
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@frank Great article but, a spot of Pantani worship aside (of which there can never be enough), is this really the season for panache? Isn't this the season for suffering in shit weather; freezing rain, the last remnant of lowland snow and brutal cross winds or smashing races apart over the pave whilst covered in cow shit? Panache is a summer's whimsy.
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@Chris
Which one of these is not like the other?
@Nate You win the "spot the odd one out" round, @skip was riding the pave with considerable panache that day.
Crap, Frank.....it's a great article, man. I'm convicted because I sheepishly was shopping for compact crank recently. This article was timely, loved "pain and climbing are inseperable". I thusly confess my sin, will keep the standard crank, HTFU and do hill repeats. Well written, mate.
@Cyclops
Thought you might have understood bike racing a little better than that. Talansky knew he had to put more time into Porte than the handful of seconds he had prior to that mountain stage. In hindsight, Talansky's tactics of trying to get a break look even better - was just that he couldnt get away.
Imagine the (deserved) criticism Talansky would have copped had he sat on Porte the whole way up that hill and then coughed up victory in the TT? Because that is what the time differences tell us would have happened.
@graham d.m.
I confess to my new DA group-san being compact. What was I thinking? I have repented by ordering new rings from praxis works. BTW occasionally blowing up on a climb builds character. Nice article.
Nice. I had a buddy that used to say that sometimes it's not the winner that is the best to watch in a race, it's the guy that try's the hardest, and has the most panache. Good shit.
@frank
There is this commenter on the VeloNews site that is convinced Armstrong is clean, thinks his confession was forced. I look at all the Pharmy articles just to see him go to bat.
That video is perfect - it shows exactly why Pantani was the best.
Neither the Teutonic precision of the perfectly engineered T-Mobile drug program, nor the best French traditions of performance enhancement could match him.
Who knows what shit he was on - I can imagine him just sitting there going "this is good, no? I'll have MORE" and pumping random stuff into his bald skull.
By God it worked though..
BTW, this is why I can't help admiring Contador. He seems to have one approach to winning races: "ATTACK! Oh, bloody Sky train is still there? ATTACK!! Best climber in the world is winning the Vuelta? ATTACK! Didn't work? Be tricky and wait for a FLAT road, then ATTACK!!" Sure, it doesn't always work, but I'd point out that Froome didn't win in Italy either...
Pronounce it correctly: pah - tahn -EE