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Comment by outside1234 | Hacker News Reader

There is a pretty strong culture in bike racing of making deals like this and sticking to them, because in a break like this, if two people work together, they have almost literally twice as good a chance of winning.

For example, Lance Armstrong and Marco Pantani on the famous Alpe d'Huez in the Tour de France: Lance offered him the stage win if he would work with him so he could make time on his rivals for the overall 23 day race general classification:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/armstrong-if-i-was-the-c...

In top level professional riding, if you renege on a deal like this, you will have a seriously hard time making another deal like this in the future and that will seriously impair your professional prospects, because these deals are everywhere because of the multi-goaled nature (stage vs. overall vs. mountain points vs. sprint points) of the sport.

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That's a stage race, that happens a lot. Help me win my war and I'll let you reap the spoils of the battle.

But in a 1 day like the national championship I really do not think that such verbal agreements are valid at all. Ok, I've never raced, but I've watched a lot of racing and have literally seen this scenario happen multiple times to just one rider alone (Peter Sagan). He was/is often the strongest rider but was on a bad team and was prone to tactical mistakes when he was younger, so he would do a lot of the pulling and get screwed at the end. Nobody wanted to see Sagan lose, but nobody called the winners cheaters either.

> But in a 1 day like the national championship I really do not think that such verbal agreements are valid at all.

That would be the case if each rider would have the same chance of winning and each rider would be there to win. However, for many riders, the national championship are not their main focus. They might be exhausted from a long program of races in the previous weeks and are not at their best. Or they might be preparing for other more important races in the coming weeks and are not yet on their best, for example when coming from a training camp at height, or are unwilling to take extra risks to prevent injury. And, of course, some races are better suited to certain riders than others.

All these factors mean that there are a lot of riders that know they aren't there to win, but would be willing to help another rider. For example, one who has helped him before, or a team mate, or one would could beat a rival, or one who is an underdog, and so on.

You have said a lot of things that are kind of true and not relevant to this. First of all, I think most of the people at the U-23 USA race in 2001 were not there to be domestiques. For an U-23 rider in a non-European country I think national championship is your big break. We can safely assume that at some point towards the end of the race they were both in it to win it. Then Mike kind of played Ian, but Ian LET HIMSELF get played. This scenario is very common in 1-day races. Like 10-50% of (pro, 1-day) races I would say end up with a breakaway getting away without enough of a cushion to have the luxury of cat and mouse, and in many of these cases 1 rider is stronger than the other. It's 'unfair' to the stronger rider, but this story proves that you can only trust yourself and teammates. So either drop the weak guy or make him help. If he doesn't help, well, actions speak louder than 'verbal agreements.' I still think it is a fascinating story and mad respect for both guys.

You have to take the long view. Sure, its a one day race, but if you make a deal and back out of it, the rest of the peleton is going to hear about that and you aren't as likely to get one in the next race.

Secondly, coming in 2nd in the National Championship race is still a huge deal. Far better than coming in 122nd, and enough to get you attention, and possibly a professional deal. There are real reasons to make a deal for 2nd.

Cool, I hate this more than tennis now.

This is the metagame and is one of the appeals of cycling. It's not a bug it's a feature.

...if you're Lance Armstrong.

No, if you're a serious professional cyclist.

There is huge difference between driving in front and driving in second place. Between having one good teammate with you and not having one. Between having a good day and a just-so day.

How can you ensure others do as much of the 'upfront' work as you? How can you try to prevent others from benefiting from your teammates? How can you prevent one just-so day from ruining a multi-day tour?

That all requires communication, negotiation, deals. Sometimes the deal is just the default: every few km we switch positions. Your behaviour is your acknowledgement of the deal. Sometimes the deal is more intricate.

Example: you broke away with two competitors who are in the same team. If you work together you are 90% likely to take all three places on the podium. You can offer them places 1 and 3. If they try to shake you off they will probably succeed, but both you and them are less likely to make the podium at all. What do you do? Take an 90% chance on a second place or try for a maybe 30% chance to become first?

What if second place nets you 50K?

Just because an anecdote involving Lance Armstrong was illustrative of this tactical cooperation doesn’t mean that it’s only for Lance and other loathsome cheats and bullies.

As the previous commenter pointed out, it’s common practice to work with a few of one’s opponents in order to beat all the others. Road cyclists’ greatest adversary is aerodynamic drag, which cannot be fought alone as long or as hard as it can be fought in a group of riders cooperating with each other. If you’re in a small breakaway with a few opponents, you and your opponents can choose to cooperate with each other or you can choose to not cooperate and end up falling back into the peloton, within which each rider has much less work to do and consequently tires much less quickly.

Re Armstrong link; that was a great read, thanks very much. Armstrong comes across with complete honesty, which is great to see - I just like when people write in an unfiltered, open way.

"When you name all the other winners from those days, all the riders, he was geared up in just the same way"!

Lance Armstrong was one of the most evil protagonsts in sports, ever.

If he only would have cheated for himself that would be one thing. But how he threatened and destroyed others for personal gain is pretty much unforgivable.

Here's something to chew on :

https://deadspin.com/the-ridiculous-saga-of-lance-armstrong-...

I agree that candor can be refreshing, but Armstrong (in my opinion) is a bit of a sociopath that knows how to manipulate the truth to cast himself in the best light possible.

It may appear unfiltered and open, but he's obscuring a lot of the truth there.

> sociopath

I assume most people who are world class (in anything that takes practice) and appear honest and/or normal are somewhat "sociopathic."

Driving towards a goal with that kind of monomaniacal focus isn't normal. Ergo, if someone seems to be, they're probably acting the part.

Not that I hold that against them: their achievements are mind-bogglingly amazing, and I imagine it's easier to pretend to be normal in social situations.

I don't think the parent was referring to his singular focus, but rather his decades-long history of telling lies. In fact, not only did he lie, but he did everything in his power to destroy the careers and reputations of anyone who tried to investigate him.

For example:

> When Betsy Andreu cooperated with David Walsh on his first book, revealing that Armstrong had admitted using PEDs to his oncologist, he sued her for libel. He has called her a "crazy bitch." He threatened to "destroy" Filippo Simeoni for cooperating with anti-doping officials. After Tyler Hamilton released his book about doping in the world of professional cycling and began to cooperate with law enforcement, Armstrong accosted him in an Aspen restaurant: "When you're on the witness stand, we are going to fucking tear you apart. You are going to look like a fucking idiot. I'm going to make your life a living ... fucking hell." [1]

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/how-aggre...

I wasn't saying his singular focus made him a sociopath.

I was saying his singular focus, world class performance, coupled with managing to appear normal (as another poster mentioned) pointed that way.

I'm referring to his constant lying and rewriting of the truth, not his drive as an athlete.

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