Cycling is a sport, a recreational activity, a mode a transport and a form of entertainment for millions of people around the world. This blog post will attempt to breakdown the sport and how competition works at the highest level of the sport.
To start, let's take a look at the various levels of cycling. The highest level is know as the "World Tour" and it contains racers from all across the globe who compete in various "World Tour" level races all across the planet, however some of the most iconic races are in Europe. This would be the equivalent to the MLB or NFL. In the second tier we have the Pro Continental Teams that typically race a little closer to their home, but still travel internationally. These races are still broadcasted but usually on more local networks. These teams often compete in smaller races against WT teams, and are sometimes invited as a "wildcard" to compete in the WT races on the worlds biggest stages. In the third tier we have Continental Teams, who race predominantly within the continent in which they are based in. To move up the ranks, riders are traded based on skill and performance with the WT having the top of the line athletes funding and resources. The average WT team budget is €15.5 Million Euros, for PT teams its around €2-5 Million Euros, and for CT teams its €100,000-1 Million Euros (UCI.org).
Teams (3 Tiers): (sorted from highest to lowest)
World Tour Teams (WT): 19 WT teams in 2020.
Pro Continental Teams (PT): 27 PT teams in 2020.
Continental Teams (CT): There are probably somewhere between 200 and 300 CT teams world wide.
The World Tour contains around 38 races each year, some of which have different structure to one another. Grand Tours are multiday events that can last upwards of three weeks in length, an example of this is the Tour De France which has 21 days of racing and two rest days. Most days are point to point races, that start and end in different locations. Occasionally some races will have loops or repeated circuits, but the majority of stages have different starting and finishing locations. Sprinkled into these multiday events are time trials. These are usually solo efforts where riders race to set the fastest times on a shortened course, typically between 10km and 40km. The fastest time wins the stage, and this is also true for the "normal" or point to point days. Teams often focus on multiple different aspects of the race. Some focus on the opportunity to win a stage, meaning that they cross the line first on the day and others focus on points or general classification. The points classification contains categories called King of the Mountain (KOM), Sprint, and Young Rider competition. Whoever leads the points in each category gets to wear a special jersey the following day, or until they lose the lead. For the KOM jersey, passing first across the top of certain climbs can give you points towards the KOM and if you have the most accumulated points at the end of the day you will get to wear the jersey. For the sprint classification, there are intermediate sprints sprinkled across each stage, teams will target these as well as sprint finishes at the end of flatter elevation stages to gain points towards the sprint jersey. The young riders jersey is given to riders under 23 years of age who are highest on the GC or general classification. The GC is determined by overall time on each stage. So riders who have the lowest overall time at the end of the Grand Tour will be crowed the winner, with each stage adding to the combined time. Most teams focus on trying to win the GC, but after the first few stages most riders who are not competing for the GC are already hours behind the leaders. Teams are often broken down into multiple sections. Each race only allows a certain amount of riders per team usually 8 or 9 riders. Of those riders you will often see one or two GC contenders who will focus on staying in contention on the overall time leaderboards, one sprinter who will focus on sprint finishes/stage wins and one rider who will focus on the KOM jersey. The rest of riders will focus on keeping the GC contenders safe and as relaxed as possible. These riders are called domestiques and work for their teammates so that they can save energy for later in the stage.
These domestiques ride in the front of the group and make a draft so that the other teammates do not have to expend as much energy. Studies from the Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics found as much as a 50% saving in energy when drafting behind another rider(Blocken et al., 2018). This is why a group or "peloton" of riders can travel faster than one rider alone for longer periods of time.
Citations
Blocken, B., Toparlar, Y., Druenen, T. van, & Andrianne, T. (2018). Aerodynamic drag in cycling team time trials. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 182, 128–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jweia.2018.09.015
“Regulations.” Home, https://www.uci.org/regulations/3MyLDDrwJCJJ0BGGOFzOat#part-ii-road-races.
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