The vast majority of cycling events require two or more commissaries to fulfil a variety of roles, including supervising pre-and post-race formalities, briefing riders and race officials, checking the compliance of equipment, monitoring compliance with the rules and maintaining safety during racing, resolving disputes and judging results.
Sitting as a panel they serve as a "race jury" chaired by the Chief Commissaire to resolve contentious decisions, although this term is now deprecated.
Commissaires' administrative duties include checking riders' eligibility to compete and filing results and reports on race organisation, incidents and penalties.
There is no standard international uniform although some countries provide clothing; in the USA commissaires often wear the traditional black and white stripes worn by officials in American sports.
A separate judging team observe finishing sprints and intermediate primes and adjudicate the results with the assistance of photofinish and electronic timing equipment where available.