Road Bicycle Racing

Road bicycle racing is a popular bicycle racing sport held on the road (following the geography of the area), using racing bikes.

It is popular all over the world, but especially in Europe. The most competitive and devoted countries are generally thought to be Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, although the United States also has a high international standing, and many countries in the world have great professional cyclists.

Though the objective of a race is quite simple (namely, to be the first rider to cross the line) a number of tactics can be employed to achieve this goal. Usually a rider or group of riders will try to break from the peloton (main body) by attacking and riding away to reduce the number of riders competing for the win. If the break doesn't succeed, and the body of cyclists comes back together, the winner will often be someone whose strength is explosively sprinting past the bunch to reach the line first. Teamwork between riders (both pre-arranged and ad-hoc) is important in many aspects: to prevent a break from getting away, helping riders in a break get clear of the bunch, and sometimes in delivering a sprinter to the front of the field.

Races often feature difficult sections such as tough climbs, fast descents and sometimes technical surfaces (such as the cobbled pave used in the Paris-Roubaix race) to make the course more selective; stronger riders will be able to drop weaker riders during such sections to reduce the number of direct competitors able to take the win.

In all racing, drafting is a very important concept whereby one rider can save a lot of effort by closely following the rider in front in order to stay in his slipstream. This can be used as a strength or a weakness by competitors; riders can cooperate and draft each other to ride at high speed (a paceline), or one rider can sit on a competitors wheel, forcing him to do a greater share of the work to maintain the pace and potentially tiring earlier.