Some breakaways are harder than others
“It was a big one,” Hugo Houle said of his breakaway at this year’s GentWevelgem. He was speaking the day after the race. “It was a pretty fast start. We had to fight for 5 or 10 km before they let us go for real because they kept us at 20 seconds for a while.” At about one hour and 29 km into the race, the Ag2r-la Mondiale rider’s break with eight others was ahead of the bunch by a little less than two minutes.
There are advantages to getting the break at the northern European one-day race. A rider has an easier time taking climbs, such as the Kemmelberg, or navigating gravel sections, such as the new plugstreets that were added to Gent-wevelgem this year. But the rider from Sainte-perpétue, Que., wasn’t out in the break for himself. He positioned himself there so he could help team leader Oliver Naesen. “When the group caught me, at about 50 km to go, I was able to do some work for him,” Houle said. He even helped in the final chase to try to bring back what would be the decisive move with winner Greg Van Avermaet. It was tough as had used a lot of energy in the day’s break. Still, the savvy rider, who’s raced in northern Europe for at least seven seasons, knew how to conserve enough strength to finish in the main bunch that day, the only one from the breakaway.
This past spring, Houle was also in a different sort of breakaway during the second stage of Tirreno-adriatico. During one-day races, teams such as QuickStep Floors or bmc are more aggressive with managing the composition of the break. Early in a stage race like Tirreno-adriatico, teams are often sizing each other up, which can allow other riders to escape a little more easily. “It was pretty easy. We got caught pretty quick at the end,” he said. Most of the riders in the breakaway were on Italian teams. They needed to perform for their sponsors and snag a few points for the climber’s or sprinter’s jersey. “It wasn’t really a good breakaway, but I got some good training in,” Houle said.