Peloton Peloton In a road bicycle race, the peloton (from French, originally meaning 'platoon') is the main group or pack of riders. Riders in a group save energy by riding close (drafting or slipstreaming) near (particularly behind) other riders. The reduction in drag is dramatic; in the middle of a well-developed group drag can be reduced to as little as 5%-10%. Exploitation of this potential energy saving leads to very complex cooperative and competitive interactions between riders and teams in race tactics. The term is also used to refer to the community of professional cyclists in general, as in 'the professional
2007 Tour de France, Stage 11 to Stage 20 peloton could not make the gap up even if they wanted to. A bunched sprint for ninth place and the 17 green jersey points it afforded was still expected. With about 18 km, Daniele Righi and Manuel Quinziato were dropped by the leading group after an attack from Bennati; not long after, Millar and Matteo Tosatto were also dropped, leaving a leading group of four - Voigt, Bennati, Markus Fothen, and Martin Elmiger. Voigt took almost all of the workload. At just under 4 km to go, Voigt attacked the group, but Bennati bridged the gap. They tried to break