Tactics
Tactics in outdoor inline racing are similar to those of marathon ice speed skating and of road bicycle racing. Skaters tend to form packs or "pacelines" (also called "pelotons") in which skaters line up behind a lead skater, thereby saving energy by skating in his draft. Sportsmanship requires that skaters in the paceline share the duty as paceline leader. Those who never "take a pull" at the front will likely find other skaters tacitly working together to defeat them.
During the course of a race skaters may make "attacks", speeding up the pace in an effort to weed out the weaker and slower competition. These attacks may include "breakaways" and "fliers", in which skaters try to create new smaller and faster packs or else to escape entirely from the other skaters. Depending on the length of the race and the skills and the cooperative effort of the chasers, these breakaways may or may not prove successful. If a skater escapes a pack in order to join a successful breakaway group, it is known as "bridging up".
When skaters who are member of teams participate in a race together, they often have pre-determined roles. One or two would be designated attackers whose role it is to tire out the competition. Another skater may be the designated winner for the team, and he may avoid chasing any breakaways until late in a race, possibly until the final sprint if the lead pack has never broken up.
Read more about this topic: Inline Speed Skating