I’ve been watching the Tour de France and the stages in the mountains are fascinating. It helps the best riders if they have teammates riding up the steep slopes in front of them, but surely they are travelling too slowly for this help to come in the form of a slipstream, like on the flat, fast stages. So why is it easier to follow another rider up a mountain slope? Is the effect purely psychological?
Nicola Dorset, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, UK