Chapter 429 207: Wear the Red Jersey All the Way, and Set a Historic Achievement?

The situation on a road cycling racecourse is like the weather in high summer, often impossible to predict.

Similarly, a Professional Cyclist's performance on any given day can't be fully and specifically analyzed by pure science and reason.

The riding styles of Road Cyclists can perhaps be summarized using big data and their past performances.

Take O'Connor, for example. Every team has a decent understanding of his riding style.

He has respectable climbing ability and his overall strength is above average.

However, steep climbs and his Sprinting Burst are considered his relative weaknesses.

But even though every team knew his characteristics, none could have predicted that his form in today's race would be this astonishingly good.

He didn't just launch a direct attack around the 120-kilometer mark of the stage, with 65 kilometers still to the finish.

With 27.5 kilometers left, he also dropped his only rival and went solo.

After receiving Aldag's orders, Lipowitz began a frantic chase.

But no matter how he gritted his teeth and pushed on, he could never catch the breakaway rider, O'Connor.

In fact, in the final leg, the time gap between them only grew wider.

By the time the peloton reached the final Third Category Climb of Stage 6, the Alto de las Abejas, they were still trailing the solo O'Connor up front by nearly five and a half minutes.

This was undoubtedly a very dangerous sign.

After all, this final climb was not particularly difficult.

Although the climb was 8.9 kilometers long, its average gradient was only 3.9%, with a maximum gradient of 5.9%.

O'Connor was already on the climb, riding full-out toward the finish. With such a massive time advantage, it was safe to say that even if the peloton attacked now, it would be virtually impossible to catch him.

His stage victory today was all but guaranteed.

"O'Connor, keep pushing!!

Maintain your current power! The finish line is getting closer and closer!

Your lead over the main group is a full five and a half minutes! If you can finish with this advantage, you'll take the Red Jersey from the Red Bull Bora Team!!

Come on!!!

You can do this!!"

The Decathlon Team's coaching staff was ecstatic, frantically feeding one of their star riders a stream of encouragement and hype.

As coaches, they had naturally been monitoring the peloton the whole time. They knew that in an effort to wear out the Red Bull Bora Team's support riders, none of the other teams were contributing to the pace-setting or rotations in the main group.

That was why their star rider's lead hadn't been shortened at all since his attack; in fact, the more he rode, the bigger his advantage grew.

Riding behind his team's support riders, Huang Chong saw how stubborn the other teams were, still refusing to help with the pace-setting or the chase even on the final climb. After a moment of thought, he asked Aldag:

"Director, we're only about 8 kilometers from the finish.

From the looks of it, the other teams have no intention of chasing today.

And it seems they didn't expect O'Connor from the Decathlon Team to be in such incredible form either.

At this point, their support riders probably can't get organized for a chase!"

"You're right, Huang.

I have to admit, these teams have steady nerves.

I didn't expect them to be willing to let O'Connor overtake them in the general classification rather than take up the chase."

Aldag said, his voice a little grim:

"In that case, we'll wait a little longer.

I'll have the riders controlling the pace up their power slightly, just to close the gap between you and O'Connor as much as we can.

When the support riders get you to about the 3-kilometer mark, you'll attack on your own when you see an opportunity.

I'll be feeding you specific time gaps based on O'Connor's finishing time.

So after you finish, you must hold onto the Red Jersey. At the same time, you need to manage the overall time gap with O'Connor as precisely as possible.

That's the only way to maximize the time gap between O'Connor and the leaders of the other teams.

But you have to be careful about one thing, Huang.

O'Connor has dropped all his rivals, so he's definitely going to win the stage today. That means he'll get the 10-second winner's time bonus.

You have to factor that time into your calculations during the final part of your ride. Don't forget it.

Otherwise, you'll accidentally give away the Red Jersey!"

Huang Chong, of course, had the math for the Red Jersey down to a science.

After all, the jersey was directly linked to UCI points, and points were the only thing he truly cared about. How could he possibly make such a basic arithmetic error?

'I've been calculating it in my head the whole time. Before the stage, I was 4 minutes and 58 seconds ahead of O'Connor in the GC. So, to keep the Red Jersey, I can let him finish no more than 4 minutes and 48 seconds ahead of me.'

Of course, if he really did let the time gap stretch that far, not only would O'Connor jump to second in the general classification after Stage 6...

...but O'Connor would also open up a gap of nearly three minutes on the previous second-place rider, Almeida.

On the GC standings, a gap like that could only be described as a massive lead.

After all, to overcome such a huge time deficit, the UAE Team would have to completely break O'Connor in the upcoming mountain stages.

Otherwise, if they tried to chip away at the lead with the small time bonuses from finishing in the same group, they'd never be able to close the gap by the end of the entire Vuelta a España.