Domestique

A domestique (French for 'servant') is a professional cyclist whose job is to work for a team leader rather than to win themselves. On any given day a domestique might fetch bottles from the team car, shelter the leader from the wind for hours, chase down rival attacks, or sacrifice their own race pacing the leader back after a mechanical or a crash. In the mountains, a climbing domestique sets a punishing tempo to soften up rivals before peeling off, spent, long before the finish. It is one of the most self-effacing roles in sport: the domestique's success is measured entirely by someone else's result. The best are highly paid and fiercely respected precisely because a Grand Tour cannot be won without them. Occasionally a domestique is handed a rare free day to chase a stage win of their own, and the whole peloton tends to allow it out of professional courtesy. The depth of a team's domestiques often decides three-week races more than the leader's raw talent does. Road.cc covers the tactics and unwritten etiquette of these roles well.