Ordnance Survey – Great Britain's national mapping agency

Cycling lingo!

26 August 2008

The world of professional cycling can be a confusing business. There’s a break up the road but the peloton is chasing hard and hope to catch the escape before the flame rouge, thus setting up a bunch sprint.

Now to many people this will sound like complete gobbledegook, but don’t worry; with The Tour of Britain’s handy cycling glossary, you’ll know all the key terms for the race this September.

Probably the term you’ll hear most is peloton, but what is it? Well the peloton is the main field or pack in a bicycle race. The riders save energy by riding close to each other in the peloton because of a reduction of drag. Estimates vary, but those at the centre may be using 40% less energy than those on the fringes.

The term can also loosely apply to professional cyclists in general; for example, ‘Mark Cavendish is one of the fastest riders in the peloton’.

So what happens when someone breaks away from the peloton? Well then they’re considered an escapee or are in a break. This means that they’ve broken away from the main field and have built a time advantage, which they will try and maintain to the finish.

Obviously, whichever rider crosses the finish line first each day wins the stage, but they won’t necessarily be given the Yellow Jersey, as this is awarded to the race leader – the rider who has completed the course so far in the least possible time.

There are three other jerseys in the race, each of which you can see presented on the podium at the stage start and finish. The Green Jersey is awarded to the most consistent finisher in The Tour of Britain®, with points available to the first 15 riders to cross the line.

The King of the Mountains Jersey (E.ON Polka Doy Jersey) is awarded to the race’s best climber and calculated by points awarded at the three King of the Mountains climbs during each day’s stage.

The final jersey up for grabs on The Tour of Britain is the red, white and blue Sprints Jersey. Riders will be able to get points towards this competition at the Hot Spot Sprints each day. There are three of these each day where the first four riders get points, and also a small time bonus towards the overall classification. The rider with the most points overall wears the jersey.

Finally, you may have heard of the term stagiare in connection with some of the young British riders. A stagiare is an amateur rider who is taken on by a team in order to gain experience of riding a professional race and to allow them to assess their abilities.

In previous years Mark Cavendish and Ben Swift have ridden The Tour of Britain as stagiares and gone on to bigger and better things. This year Johnny Bellis will be riding for the world’s number one squad, Team CSC – Saxo Bank as a stagiare, just three weeks after he represented Great Britain in the road race at the Beijing Olympics.

Bellis is an excellent young rider, but there’s only one way of finding out how well he does in The Tour of Britain, and that’s by being roadside on one of the eight exciting stages this September 7–14.

Tour of Britain is a registered trademark of British Cycling Federation Promotions Ltd.

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