Tempo means time in Italian. Riding tempo means riding steadily, like a metronome. It is an important skill to have and since it’s Italian, it sounds cool. What it does not mean is riding at a constant speed, half-wheeling or killing it at the front. Riding at a constant speed is like having cruise control on in a car; the car seems to accelerate on the uphills and rides the brakes on the downhills. One would never purposefully drive a car or ride a bike like that. Riding tempo means riding at a constant effort, ticking over the pedals. Without getting back into the topic of power meters, riding at a steady wattage would be a good starting definition.
Tempo predates watts or heart rate or even the V-meter. If you are good at riding tempo, then you are good at keeping a group moving along as a group, eating up the road but not shelling riders on every hill the road offers up. Tempo implies some amount of pace. Riding piano is how every flat stage of the Giro d’Italia used to unfold. Riders would roll off the front to visit family waiting on the side of the road; riders would abscond with trays of pastries to be passed around the peloton. Then, with forty kilometers to go, the pace would accelerate endlessly until some Italian threw his arms up in victory. It was as predictable as today’s formula: break escapes, leader’s team rides tempo for a few hours, sprinter’s teams then ride hard tempo to catch break, and a field sprint ensues. I like the first formula a bit more. It is now a rarity for a rider to discuss his personal agenda with the Patron and then be allowed to ride solo off the front for a teary roadside reunion with mom, dad, family and cousins as the race passes through that rider’s village.
Riding tempo should be a sustainable effort. When your teammate asks you to go to the front and ride hard tempo, that is a different thing all together, or maybe not all together. Someone is going to get hurt now, most likely you, unless you have a few friends to share the work.
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Oh my, I'm going to hijack my own post right off the bat. Who is the second Sky rider (not in yellow) in the photo, with the white socks and white shoes. He is may favorite Sky rider now. I'll put his poster in my bedroom. Rapha makes white socks, why, why would choose black ones, especially with blue Bonts? That is fucked up.
@Gianni
Looks like Peter Kennaugh, regardless the dudes got style.
I'm actually speechless. The first paragraph is just poetry.
chapeau
Nice one Gianni! Me, I love the Giro piano idea and wish it would still happen. Apart from the token last day rolling into Paris with a glass of champers in hand, we've lost some of the romanticism from days of yore. .
And that black socks/blue Bonts combo? WTF? I guess he does have the Sky colours happening
Fanfuckingtastic!! Outside of the weekly worlds ride, this should be recited before every shop ride!
@mobygrape
Poetry? That's a new one for me. Maybe Frank is contagious. If this is not spam, Chapeau back at you.
@VeloSix Ditto for you!
@il ciclista medio
Yeah, I so agree. Those photos of Cipo fooling around in the peloton and riders embracing their families on the side of the road, man, that's what makes this sport special.
@Ccos
OK, he is my man on Sky now. Watching Criterium du Dauphiné reminded me how fucked Froom looks on a bike, especially when he attacks. No doubt he is fast but who ever came up with "spider humping a light bulb" was a damn genius.
Only 8 comments on this? And only one comment regarding a spider humping a lightbulb? Man we are slacking.
Personally I'd rather see a full ban on race radios with the exception of officials warning of hazards crashes etc, and a return to the days of Faustian deals for the breakaway. Make it a little more exciting than UK Postal tapping out 400 watts on the front to catch the break with 2K to go Every Damn Time.
The real fun of riding tempo in a group is when your sustainable effort slowly but surely causes your neighbour to implode in a cardio-vascular mess.
On what should have been a steady ride a few months ago I came to the front with another guy and he started half-wheeling me and pushing it a bit.
I was doing about 300 watts to keep the pace which I could do for an hour or more, but I was pretty sure he wouldn't last that long. After a couple of minutes the half-wheeling stopped, then I could hear the breathing getting heavier and harder but I just kept the same effort as he started dropping back, until finally he gasped desperately at the next riders to come through. Point made.