340 watts, 500g of carbs, and nothing on the mind – How Silvan Dillier pulls the peloton alone for hours on end

I forget who said it, but there’s a saying that goes something along the lines of ‘professional cycling is an individual sport, practised in teams’. Only one man or woman can win the race, but they cannot do it without the help of their teammates.

As such, a professional team is made up of different roles. The leaders, of which there is usually just one per team but sometimes two or three, and the support riders, known as domestiques, who come in dozens of different guises.