{"id":141653,"date":"2016-06-28T14:49:43","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T14:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=141653"},"modified":"2016-06-28T14:49:43","modified_gmt":"2016-06-28T14:49:43","slug":"tour-de-france-useful-lingo-read-starts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/06\/28\/tour-de-france-useful-lingo-read-starts\/","title":{"rendered":"Failing to Understand the Tour de France Lingo? Become an Expert with Our Guide!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\">Confused by the terms you hear at the post-ride visit to the pub? Bewildered by the terms you hear on the TV coverage? We break the <em>omerta<\/em> (silence) so you can relax and enjoy Le Tour 2016.<\/span><\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Peloton<\/strong> means pellet, and describes the bunched mass of riders who huddle close together for aerodynamic advantage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Break-away <\/strong>is a smaller bunch of riders who break from the peloton early in the race. They\u2019re usually looking for individual glory, and the odds are stacked against them. The peloton almost always catches up, but if the break-away succeeds, the sponsors and crowds will be happy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-141656\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/06\/profimedia-0166899481-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"profimedia-0166899481\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>General Classification<\/strong> or GC refers to the race for the Yellow Jersey \u2013 basically, which cyclist completes the entire course in the shortest amount of time. Look for the race time on your telly in the corner of the screen &#8211; the yellow jersey indicates how far they are from the break away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Points Competition <\/strong>refers to the race for the Green Jersey \u2013 who places highest on each stage.\u00a0 Usually it\u2019s the cyclist who wins the most stages, regardless of their overall time. You can come first on almost every stage, but if you do badly on one mountain stage, you might not even come in the top half of the GC competition.<\/p>\n<p><strong>King of the Mountains<\/strong> or KOM refers to the race for the Red Polka Dots on White Jersey.\u00a0 As you\u2019d expect, this title is given to the cyclist who goes up steep hills the quickest \u2013 and it attracts the most rabid fans on the <em>parcours<\/em> (course).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-141657\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/06\/profimedia-0253704964-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\" \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Attack<\/strong> describes an attempt of one cyclist to <em>drop<\/em> (leave behind) another cyclist. A well-timed attack can have a devastating psychological as well as physical effect. The term is sometimes replaced with the more bombastic phrase \u2018<em>drop the hammer\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cadence<\/strong> refers to the <em>tempo <\/em>(speed) a cyclist rotates their pedals. <em>Spinning<\/em> refers to quicker rotation at lower gears, and <em>grinding<\/em> refers to slower rotation in higher gears. Sometimes the angle of the road dictates the style the rider adopts \u2013 going up a steep mountain means spinning isn\u2019t an option, and the cyclist has to find gear as low as possible and grind up the incline.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dancing on the pedals<\/strong> describes a cyclist standing on the pedals with their bum out of their seat and is usually employed for climbing steep hills. To <em>dance on the pedals<\/em> properly the technique must be executed with a carefree abandon, and suggest that <em>this is what a cyclist lives for<\/em>. See vintage legends Fausto Coppi or Charly Gaul for great examples of the art.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-141658\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/06\/profimedia-0076967958-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"profimedia-0076967958\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bonking <\/strong>is when a cyclist runs out of energy. Cycling doesn\u2019t impact the leg joints in the same way as running, so it\u2019s difficult to tell when you\u2019ve crossed the line into exhaustion. Even the most experienced riders find it difficult to spot the tell-tale signs of bonking \u2013 in 2013 on the Alpe D\u2019Huez, Richie Porte had to save his then team-mate Chris Froome from <em>the bonk<\/em>, famously breaking the rules in the process and receiving a 20-second time penalty.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Classics <\/strong>are single stage races that precede the grand tours at the start of each season. Hell of the North race Paris-Roubaix is perhaps the most famous example. Expect to hear a commentator rooting for Mathew Hayman thanks to his stellar sprint effort to win in Roubaix earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Confused by the terms you hear at the post-ride visit to the pub? Bewildered by the terms you hear on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":141655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[433],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-141653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-tour-de-france"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Failing to Understand the Tour de France Lingo? 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