Why Some Cyclists Can Attack Again and Again While Others Explode
There are secrets in cycling.
No, I’m not talking about doping. Every time someone mentions “secrets” in endurance sports, that’s where people’s minds immediately go. What I’m talking about are the things that the best riders understand, either consciously or unconsciously, that many cyclists overlook because they’re busy chasing the latest trend, the latest workout, or the latest training buzzword.
Over the years I’ve watched cycling move through phases. First it was mileage. Then it was intervals. Then it was threshold training. Then everyone became obsessed with FTP. Today it’s Zone 2. Scroll through social media and you’ll find an endless stream of coaches and influencers telling you that if you simply do this workout, buy this supplement, or follow this protocol, you’ll unlock another level of fitness.
The problem is that cycling doesn’t work that way.
I’ve been riding and racing for nearly thirty years. I’ve raced against riders who went on to become professionals. I’ve raced against national champions. I’ve spent years getting dropped by riders who seemed superhuman and years wondering what they knew that I didn’t. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that the biggest breakthroughs in cycling rarely come from discovering something new. More often than not, they come from finally understanding something that was sitting right in front of you all along.
One of those things is lactate clearance.
Now before half of you stop reading because the word “lactate” sounds like a university physiology lecture, bear with me.
Think about the hardest race you’ve ever done. Not a time trial. Not a hill climb. A real race.
For me, the races that stand out the most aren’t necessarily the ones with the highest average power. They aren’t the races where one rider rode away from everyone. They’re the races where the pressure never stopped. Every time things settled down, somebody attacked. Every time a move came back, another rider countered. The pace surged over a climb, eased briefly, and then surged again. Lap after lap. Corner after corner. Attack after attack.
What always fascinated me was how some riders seemed almost immune to it.
You’d look over and they’d be breathing hard like everyone else. They weren’t superhuman. They weren’t floating above the road. Yet every time the pace exploded, there they were. Every attack. Every acceleration. Every surge.
Meanwhile, good riders were disappearing out the back.
The interesting thing is that they weren’t getting dropped by one effort.
They were getting dropped by the accumulation of efforts.
That’s an important distinction.
Most cyclists train as though fitness is about producing one big effort. We obsess over our FTP. We obsess over our five-minute power. We obsess over our best twenty-minute climb. We compare ourselves to our buddies on Strava and take pride in that one climb where we averaged 350 watts.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Power matters.
But racing doesn’t care what your best effort is.
Racing cares what your twentieth hard effort looks like.
That’s where lactate clearance enters the picture.
For years we were taught that lactate itself was the enemy. Lactate was blamed for burning legs, fatigue, and suffering. The science has evolved considerably since then. Today we understand that lactate is actually a valuable fuel source. Your muscles can use it. Your heart can use it. In many ways, lactate is not the problem at all.
The problem occurs when the demand for energy becomes so high that the byproducts associated with that energy production begin accumulating faster than your body can process them. The result is the familiar sensation every cyclist knows: the legs begin to burn, power becomes harder to produce, and that gap in front of you slowly starts to open.
The rider who survives is not necessarily the rider producing less lactate.
Often, it’s the rider who is better at using it.
The rider who can clear it.
The rider who can recycle it.
The rider who can recover while still working.
That’s the key phrase.
Recover while still working.
When I look back at some of my best seasons, I realize that many of my most effective workouts weren’t the glamorous ones. They weren’t the workouts that generated huge social media posts or impressive screenshots. They were the workouts that taught me how to ride hard when I was already tired.
Over-unders.
Surge-and-clear efforts.
Long tempo rides with repeated accelerations.
Threshold intervals interrupted by attacks.
The purpose wasn’t simply to produce fatigue. The purpose was to teach my body how to process fatigue.
That’s a very different goal.
Many cyclists spend years building bigger engines. They increase their FTP. They improve their VO₂max. They become stronger athletes. Yet they never spend enough time teaching their bodies how to repeatedly access that fitness under pressure.
Then race day arrives.
The first attack is manageable.
The second attack is manageable.
The third attack hurts.
The fourth attack creates doubt.
By the sixth or seventh attack, the legs are full, the breathing is ragged, and suddenly the rider who looked incredibly strong in training is hanging on for dear life.
If that sounds familiar, don’t worry. Most of us have been there.
I certainly have.
The good news is that lactate clearance is trainable.
One of the biggest mistakes I see among Masters cyclists is becoming too binary with training. We either ride easy or we ride extremely hard. Both have their place. Easy riding builds the aerobic system. Hard intervals raise the ceiling. But racing often happens in the uncomfortable space between those two extremes.
Racing is a constant game of producing, clearing, producing, clearing, producing, clearing.
That’s why I encourage athletes to include workouts that force them to recover at meaningful power outputs. Not while soft-pedalling. Not while coasting downhill. While still working.
Try incorporating over-under intervals where you surge above threshold and then settle just below threshold. Try long tempo rides where every few minutes you accelerate hard before returning to pace. Try race simulations that mimic the repeated attacks and recoveries that happen in the real world.
These sessions are not always glamorous.
In fact, they’re often messy.
The power file isn’t beautiful.
The average power may not impress anyone.
But they teach a skill that matters tremendously when the racing starts.
The ability to continue functioning when everyone else is beginning to fade.
If Zone 2 builds the engine, and VO₂max training raises the ceiling, then lactate clearance determines how much of that fitness you can actually use when things get chaotic.
And make no mistake, races always become chaotic.
The next time you’re watching a professional race, don’t focus exclusively on the rider launching the attack. Watch the rider who follows it. Then follows the next one. Then follows the one after that. Watch the rider who somehow remains present every single time the race explodes.
That rider may not have the highest FTP in the race.
They may not have the biggest VO₂max.
But there’s a good chance they have learned one of cycling’s most valuable secrets.
They’ve learned how to recover while still working.
And in cycling, that’s often the difference between surviving the race and influencing the outcome.
Fuel your next breakthrough. Don’t miss new insights, workouts, and the launch of SMART Cycling.
Leave a Reply