The peloton is the main bunch of riders in a road race. Ride in the peloton, the peloton caught them, the front of the peloton.
Sitting in it saves something like forty per cent of the effort, which is why breakaways are so hard to sustain and why the bunch usually reels them in. The French word means a little ball, and also a platoon of soldiers.
1nounpelotonThe main bunch of riders in a road race.
“The leading cyclist broke away from the peloton on the final climb.”
peloton is a group.
French peloton means a little ball or a platoon, from pelote, a ball. Platoon is the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*pel-
Latin
pila — ball; ball game; globe, sphere
French
peloton — small ball (of thread, etc.), pellet; (cycling) group of riders formed during a cycling road race; (military) small group of soldiers, platoon
English, today
peloton
Built from
Borrowed from French peloton (“small ball (of thread, etc.), pellet; (cycling) group of riders formed during a cycling road race; (military) small group of soldiers, platoon”), from pelote (“small ball (of thread, etc.)”) (ultimately from Latin pila (“ball; ball game; globe, sphere”) (probably referring to a ball of hair), from pilus (“strand of hair”), of uncertain origin) + -on. a doublet of platoon.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA