Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

They were all World Tour Cyclists. While his cardiopulmonary ability was stronger, their FTP Power levels were comparable.

He simply had his own specialty; his overall strength wasn’t leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else.

So, just as his team leader had said, a solo attack to drop everyone was absolutely impossible.

Before long, after taking their turns pulling at the front of the eight-man breakaway, they reached the first intermediate sprint point at the 56-kilometer mark.

The sprint was located within a small town in South Australia, and crowds of spectators had gathered on both sides of the road.

They had just come down a long descent from Lofty Mountain, riding all the way into town.

However, the sprint point itself was positioned after the bottom of the descent, on a gentle incline within the town that forced the riders to climb again.

With 300 meters to go to the intermediate sprint point, Huang Chong began to accelerate on the gentle slope, getting out of the saddle and launching himself from the breakaway group.

He did this because he knew there was a cyclist from the Alpecin Team in the breakaway.

That team was well-known for being stacked with powerhouse sprinters, practically a dedicated sprint squad.

If he started his sprint too late, and the Alpecin Cyclist—seeing the line wasn’t far—decided to stand up and test his legs by going head-to-head, Huang Chong would surely be out-sprinted.

In the end, however, when Huang Chong got out of the saddle and sped off, the seven other breakaway riders completely ignored him.

They simply maintained their steady pace, letting him entertain himself with a lonely sprint to easily claim the first-place time bonus.

As for second and third place, the rest of the group didn’t contest them either.

They just let whoever happened to be in the first two positions in their current rotation take the remaining time bonuses.

This made Huang Chong, who was being so calculating and carefully marking the other riders, look a little ridiculous.

But in reality, it made perfect sense for the group to no longer contest the intermediate sprints at this point.

First, none of them were general classification contenders; they were already several minutes behind their respective teams’ leaders in the overall standings.

Second, the sprint jersey, the Polka Dot Jersey, and the White Jersey had all been effectively locked up by their respective wearers.

As for the riders from the UAE Team and Quick Step Team, they were in the breakaway to prevent Huang Chong from launching a solo escape, not to compete with him for time bonuses at the sprint points.

In their eyes, even if Huang Chong snatched the six seconds in time bonuses from the two intermediate sprints, he’d still be 43 seconds down in the overall standings.

’A gap that large poses no threat to our leader. If he wants the seconds, let him have them.’

They weren’t about to burn precious anaerobic energy on sprint points that had become completely meaningless.

Ultimately, when the breakaway group reached the 80-kilometer mark, Huang Chong attacked early again. Even though he knew the others likely wouldn’t contest the time bonus, he did it just to be safe, successfully claiming the final three-second bonus of this World Tour event.

’No matter what, a time bonus is only yours once you’ve actually secured it.’

After successfully securing six seconds in time bonuses, he was only about 50 kilometers from the finish line.

He had also just successfully completed his first ascent of Lofty Mountain, the site of the finish line.

But over the next two laps of the circuit, Huang Chong had no intention of calmly maintaining the current pace with the breakaway, only to ride until the final few kilometers and be effortlessly swallowed by the peloton.

’My goal in the breakaway today was to play it safe for the first 90 kilometers to secure the time bonuses.’

’But for the final forty kilometers...’ During his second ascent of Lofty Mountain, he suddenly accelerated.

The move instantly shattered the harmony of the eight-man breakaway.

The powerhouse from the Alpecin Team, in particular, couldn’t handle Huang Chong’s acceleration on the climb. His face contorted in pain, and in the blink of an eye, a huge gap opened up.

As Huang Chong hit the middle section of Lofty Mountain—a 400-meter stretch with a punishing 10.6% gradient—he stood up and began furiously mashing the pedals.

At this, the riders from the UAE Team and Quick Step Team also began to struggle, and they anxiously got on their team radios to report to their respective directors:

"Bad news, Team Leader! The Chinese cyclist from the Bora Team just launched an attack on the steep section of Lofty Mountain, and his speed is incredible!"

"I think he’s trying to drop us here and solo all the way to the finish!"

When the UAE Team’s leader heard this news, his expression immediately darkened.

Just as the Bora Team Leader had predicted, the UAE leader had specifically discussed Huang Chong during yesterday’s strategy briefing—the very rider who had cost Del Toro the leader’s jersey.

That was why he was paying particularly close attention to Huang Chong’s every move today.

Now, learning that Huang Chong had launched his attack so early, with around 30 kilometers still to go, he thought to himself:

’This rookie from China is just as I expected, trying to pull off some grand, heroic solo performance.’

Of course, he didn’t actually believe Huang Chong could solo for 30 kilometers and win with a massive lead.

That was something only their team’s star rider, Pogačar, could do!

Huang Chong was just a rookie new to the World Tour. ’What gives him the right to even try?’

However, as the leader of a top-tier team—even if he was only in charge of the third-string squad here—prudence was a fundamental quality.

So, without a second thought, he immediately spoke to his rider, António Morgado:

"Don’t let him get away, Morgado."

"Even if you blow up before the top, you have to stay glued to his wheel on this climb."

"Once you get over the top of this climb, it’s a long descent. You can recover on the way down and work with Gelders from the Quick Step Team to chase him. There’s no way he can stay away."