Apparently, they rode a brilliant race. I guess they rode at the front at a pace to ensure no one could get away, and everyone else was too scared of them to do the work.
But there also seems to be an argument (to me at least) that they knackered themselves out and Oz (and I think Germany) looked to have better organised lead outs at the end - combination of luck / brilliance meant Cav managed to scrape through pretty much without his team
so - explain it all to me..........
Pretty much how I read it.
Lead the peleton at a good pace and chase down any breakaways in the last few km's.
Good lead out, got messed up at the start fo the 'hill'.
Brought it back together with just enough time for Cav to do his thing.
It does anoy me a bit that it's an individual prize in the WC road race, it's like having a team TT and only giving a medal to the first guy over the line (which is essentialy how team GB did it).
All down to who has the most to gain/lose ...
Team GB had to initially bring the break away back .. then keep the pace high enough to not allow any riders to get away in the final km's ..
Other countries could then sit back and let Team GB do the work ... I guess GB knew if they brought it back together and it went to a sprint then Cav had the best chance of winning
Cav is the best sprinter. Say 9 times out of 10, he'll win a sprint. As such, the other teams to some extent could sit back and say to GB to do the work to catch breaks. If they didn't then other people could attack, preventing a bunch sprint.
GB had their job made harder because the Germans who were also working for a sprint (for Greipel) lost riders in the late crash. The Aussies did everything right but Cav was still just too strong. The GB plan worked pretty much perfectly I reckon - Cav still had two riders near the end, Stannard placed him pretty well and Cav finished it off.
If Cav's there or there abouts he's likely to win on current form. The finish was a rise hence the messy sprint. The main team contribution was protecting their man and the extremely high pace set stopping the one day specialists like Gilbert etc, therefore making any attack next to impossible(as you said).
Cav was the most marked man in the race by a long way, everyone there knew that if it came to a bunch sprint, Cav would almost certainly win it.
GB had no choice but to control the race right from the gun. No-one else was ever going to do any work to help them pull back breakaways or police the bunch and they did it brilliantly - never panicked even when that first break was 8 minutes up the road, just chipped away gradually at it and watched everyone else.
as said keep the peleton together to create a bunch sprint at the end - chase down breakaways etc
last few kms set a pace so high no one can break away [ wiggo]
Last km lead out sprinter with a small train [ 2 or 3 riders]just in front of sprinter
Essentially hide the sprinter in your shadow [ less work for him if he is behind you] and leave him in position to sprint to the front with a few hundred metres to go
Messed up a touch at the end but Cav was at the front ish and is still faster than anyone else so he can cope witha few minor issues.
Cav wont win with a breakaway and he needs t team to enusre a bunch finish with him at the front. Hence why he always praises the team. Without them he cannot win.
Australia played it pretty perfectly as it goes. Goss isn't as good a sprinter as Cav so they did little work and tried to disrupt the GB lead out right near the end as they were dropping off (having been forced to do lots of work) - almost worked too but GB did just enough for Cav to be able to do his magic.
I thought Cav made the choice, not to use the train at the end, and instead use Gos' wheel as he was being marked so much.
Cav didn't have a train left at that point!
but he did not need it as he can sprint faster than anyone from that point and it was pretty much at full speed.
FWIW
Since 2001 British Cycling has won a total of 103 world championship and Olympic medals on the track and on the road.The only sports which come close to that level of success are rowing and sailing, with Britain's rowers winning 51 senior world championship medals over the same period.
From Road CC
'The teamwork from Great Britain that made Cavendish’s victory possible didn’t go unnoticed elsewhere. Italy’s Sacha Modolo, who finished in the lead bunch of 82 riders – coincidentally, the biggest by far that has ever contested the finale of a world championship – told La Gazzetta delllo Sport: “We were like amateurs, they [GB] were professionals.”'
I think for a (relatively) unsung rider, Ian Stannard's ride at the end was superb, he went through at the end when cav looked like getting boxed in like a battering ram clearing a path for the lad to do his thing. Cav then still had a job to do as Stannard's efforts there meant he couldn't lead him out but without the previous he'd have had too much to do.
I know it's not a team sport but everyone who counts knows it is really. SPTOTY, nailed on for me.
cavs learning to work without the lead out he relied on before ... itll be the making of him.
its beginning to look like that if cavs on form the only thing that will stop him winning a race will be hills
watch next year as the TdF rig it so that he cant win many stages at all - like the giro did to pantani (before he got **** up)- take away all the hill top finishes so he cant dominate ...
trail_rat - Member
cavs learning to work without the lead out he relied on before
Cav never really needed a leadout train - no more so than other sprinters anyway - there have been plenty of wins where the HTC/Columbia/T-mobile train got disrupted, Cav got left alone and he still won. The train is there because it makes it a near certainty that he will win and they can put all their eggs in one basket because they know that Cav will finish it off.
cavs learning to work without the lead out he relied on before ... itll be the making of him.
Watch the final stage of this years Tour of Britain. Round that final right hander and Cav was WAY out of position, down to 6th place (Renshaw, his lead out man was in 2nd) and there were some BIG gaps.
And Cav just opened the gas and went to the right - watching him overhaul everyone else going at their full gas was just incredible.
EDIT: 6.40 onwards in this video
The length of the stage and the fact that everyone has the same goal (to be first over the line - which is different to multi-stage races), usually leads to a thinning out of the peleton and splintering into groups. Team GB did a great job of marshalling this all day. Leaving the first group out there as long as they did was perfect, then when people tried their chances later on they still had enough energy/men to keep them in sight.
Beforehand team gb were saying they wanted to get to the last corner with one man left in front of cav. They did this perfectly with Geraint. And they'd kept Cav out of the wind all day until that point.
Then there was some barging off line which was pretty much every sprinter's race tactic which mean that a man got between Geraint and Cav. But Cav being the cunning devil he is didn't panic and managed to sit tight on a good wheel until a gap opened up.
If that gap hadn't opened up on the right, it would have been much harder, but Cav did his usual job of gaining momentum very quickly and getting a gap on anyone on his wheel.
Then it was a matter of hanging on for 50m further than the initial plan - you could see everyone coming up on him and my heart was well and truly in my mouth as he crossed the line.
The brilliance of it was that everybody in the peleton knew exactly what GB were going to do and how they were going to do it, but still they couldn't stop it.
I wouldn't say it was a tactical masterclass - everyone knew the GB team was the strongest and their aim was to get Cav to the finish to contest a bunch sprint. They had no choice but to bury themselves keeping the tempo up and closing down breaks as all the other teams sat back (either becuase they had men in breaks or they wanted GB to exhaust themselves chasing) - they did a great job with it though. There were a couple of heart-stopping moments near the end with Cav getting pushed about near the barriers but he made his way through in the end (and has proven previously that he doesn't need a train or even Renshaw to guide him into position - it just makes life easier and reduces the chances of shit happening).
The key to the whole thing was the fact the GB held the race together and made sure the race ended in a bunch sprint....the leadout at the end was actually a minor issue...in my opinion, Stannard and Thomas actually didn't do a great job in the last km or so and to some extent were responsible for Cav being poorly positioned. BUT - they would inevitably have been totally knackered by that stage and any zip in their legs would have been long gone, so totally understandable AND it would never have mattered given that they had delivered Cav to the point from where he would always be able to handle himself anyway.
A totally awesome performance all round!
I suppose it's the way we'll always win races?
The way road riding is in the UK we tend to produce time trialers and track riders like Cav, Wiggo and Stannart, thus we'll always have a train that can out pace any breakaway (the time triallers) and Cav to sprint for the line.
Even without a sprinter I reckon we'd have a good chance if one of them got into a breakaway.
Not so sure on that - we don't have a Gilbert/Hushovd/Hagen-Daaz at the moment. It'll be interesting to see though - typically, proper sprinters' WC courses only crop up once a decade (Zolder was 2002 IIRC).
That ToB sprint was unreal.
I think the main priority was to deliver a bunch sprint which did mean riding from the front and picking up the breaks. Without a bunch spring Team GB would have been in with a remote chance of a win. A bunch sprint (with or without leadout) is better than a breakaway for our chances of doing well / winning.
Leading Cav out was the second priority and one which was done reasonably effectively.
Thanks for that vid crazy legs - that was some sprint finish.
Dave Brailsford interview after tge race was good explanation of it. We had a plan A get Cav to the last 500m near the front of the bunch. We had no plan B... Unfirtunately as soon as the course was confirmed 2 years ago everyone worked out it suited Cav and what our tactics would be so planned counter strategies with German and Belgian breakaways, Voekler's attempt in the closing kms and the ausies sitting back and waiting for GB to crack. Gilbert's form seems to have dropped right off (or maybe these issues wuth his team?) so he was a non event and the aussie decision to drop Renshaw baffles me he's one of the few folk who could genuinely beat Cav if it had been him instead of Goss it may have ended very differently. Millar's role as road captain was played brilliantly as well, no radios so any changes came down to him.
I'll be voting Cav to be SPotY come Christmas!
I half agree about the mould of british riders. I would say that Geraint Thomas is an exception though. He seems much more up for all sorts of stuff and really seems to be relishing racing on the road.
There are others too - Russell Downing for example.
the aussie decision to drop Renshaw baffles me he's one of the few folk who could genuinely beat Cav if it had been him instead of Goss it may have ended very differently.
The theory the Aussies seemed to be touting was that Renshaw is indeed a great leadout man but at Tour length stages. The WC was a good bit longer and obviously a one day race rather than a multiday event and the view was that that would blunt his ability to help.
But how will things shake out at the Olympics?
Tougher course, only 5 team members, and no Wiggins, Thomas or Millar. Does Cav/Team GB just follow the Aussies, and hope it comes down to a bunch sprint? Perhaps put Froome in a breakaway, as someone who could possibly win the race, and force the other teams to chase him down?
Sky will have plenty of time to practice it for the olympics. We'll probanly be seeing it all through July assuming the rumours are true.
Hope they do manage it on the 28th as I've got tickets in the grandstand 
Must be a real p***er for the highroad management they would have had 2 reigning world champs in the team for next year.
When i suggested he relied - i mean in past years - this year he has been unreal !!!
and my point still stands. He's won with no backup before this year.
the aussie decision to drop Renshaw baffles me he's one of the few folk who could genuinely beat Cav if it had been him instead of Goss it may have ended very differently.
You need to watch the vid crazy legs posted 
Was Renshaw dropped? did he actually qualify.
He wasn't selected by the Aussie team.
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/530040/renshaw-left-out-of-australia-s-worlds-team.html
http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/matt-white-stands-by-mark-renshaws-non-selection-31831
a sprint after six hours of racing is not a sprint after four hours of racing. A world championships is a world championships. It's not a stage of the Tour de France or Giro d'Italia," he told Cyclingnews, implying that Renshaw's stamina didn't stand up to Haussler's
A Norwegian perspective on what went wrong. They were obviously unlucky with the crash but it's interesting how the GB pace setting drastically reduced the odds of the Norway getting it back together.
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