peloton

thumb|right|Peloton at 2018 Giro d'Italia In a road bicycle race, the peloton (, originally meaning ) is the main group or pack of riders. Riders in a group save energy by riding close (drafting, or slipstreaming) to (particularly behind) other riders. The reduction in drag is dramatic; riding in the middle of a well-developed group, drag can be reduced by as much as 95%. Exploitation of this potential energy saving leads to 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.

==Definition== More formally, a peloton is defined as "two or more cyclists riding in sufficiently close proximity to be located either in one of two basic positions: (1) behind cyclists in zones of reduced air pressure, referred to as ‘drafting’, or (2) in non-drafting positions where air pressure is highest. Cyclists in drafting zones expend less energy than in front positions." A peloton has similarly been defined "as a group of cyclists that are coupled together through the mutual energy benefits of drafting, whereby cyclists follow others in zones of reduced air resistance." A peloton is a complex system, which means that collective behavior emerges from simple rules of cyclists' interactions.