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Comment by neogodless | Hacker News Reader

Could someone in the bike racing world explain what "peloton" is in this context?

> Five days in and Morton was 420km ahead of the peloton

Of course a web search just comes up with Peloton exercise bikes, but this is lower case. So I'm guessing maybe they are not talking about a team sponsored by Peloton?

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Peloton is the bulk of packed cyclists that is grouped together in all long races, due to the lesser average air friction riders have to fight within it. In the tour de france, the peloton group have a pretty homogenous total race time, outliers being either people frequently in leader group, or people that have mechanical problems or bad performance. Being in leaders groups frequently generally means you have put more efforts in the races, the smallers the groups, the harders. Not keeping up with the peloton is generally catastrophic since you add extra effort in finishing the race atop of your bad performance.

The peloton is the main group of riders in bike races.

Riders will usually spend most if the race in groups for efficiency and rest: most of the group will be drafting and only the front edge will be fighting against headwind.

The largest such group (usually containing the majority of the riders) is the peloton.

Others have summed it up nicely, but for more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloton

With Google, that result is fourth. Not bad. But because they are so focused on things people can buy, the first visible page of results is dedicated to the brand and local stores, and then the brand's Twitter. I should've kept scrolling...

I made a wikipedia shortcode search, so I type: wp <item> about as often as I just do a google search

It sucks that corporations get to steal words from the common language.

As others have mentioned it's the main group of riders in a bike race. However, as is the case in this context, it can also be used to refer to the race in general, given that in the TdF all the riders will generally finish each stage within an hour or so of each other (or else be disqualified) and start the next one all together.

The peloton is the main group of riders. They all share the same time, even if they're spread out 50-100m.

In this context, it's just a nice way to say that he was 420km ahead of the actual race.

The pack of riders who are on the main course and in close position.

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