What stat(s) is it that makes certain riders extremely difficult or even impossible to catch once they break away (I only notice it in classics)?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, I mean when a certain rider attacks or worse yet just relays and pulls off the front with a significant amount of distance left in the race (50k+) and even if you counter immediately it's just impossible to have anyone hold their wheel, or if you chase no one can catch them.
A few examples:
No Wind In These Examples.
Milan-San Remo, 2009 and 2010 I was playing with Columbia - HTC and Martin Elmiger attacked with ~65k to go and just soloed off the front and even countering him with Kirchen immediately Kirchen couldn't hold his wheel, so I set everyone but Cav and Hagen to 99 chase to get him back because I knew he was dangerous, however his lead just grew and grew until he won solo. I understand victories like that happen but I don't see any stat of his that would allow him to just run a train on everyone else in the race so easily.
Paris-Roubaix 2009, Alessandro Ballan (doesn't even attack) just relays off the front with over 100k to go and is impossible to catch even though Cancellara tried to bridge the gap when it was only ~30sec and all of team Saxo Bank couldn't pull him back either.
This also tends to happen a lot with Devolder and while I was playing MSR just now with Saxo Bank career I was hoping Kroon could get a decent result and I'm aware Kroon doesn't have the same set of stats as them but he's a solid rider in PCM and it was Kroon, Devolder and Chavanel in a break with ~28k to go and immediately Chavanel was uncatchable by Kroon and Devolder and Chavanel ended up winning by 2:45 even though Columbia were chasing very hard.
I could go on and on and I'm afraid I may have already, but in essence I'm asking what Stat(s) is it that allow a rider to go solo off the front at the most important part of the race and not only hold off the whole peloton / chasing groups but gain time on them?
Hope someone has some sort of answer besides "You suck" which is the answer I tend to be getting here whenever I ask about game mechanics.
I'm not sure I can be of much help here, as this has happened to me often in hilly and cobbled classics with riders such as Devolder, Gilbert, etc.
Mostly, I just try to get my contenders to the front of the peloton and try to be very wary of other strong riders. As soon as I see them maybe getting away, I up my effort or even attack, in order to stay with them.
I thought the key to strong solo riding was to keep something in the yellow and red bars - which if memory serves are controlled by the Resistance stat......
