Domestique
During their role as domestiques, riders do not share the fame of their respective leaders, such as Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, or Miguel Induráin.
They took 12 hours and 20 minutes longer than Émile Georget on the stage from Roubaix to Metz – they were far from last – and the judges were powerless because the race was decided not on time but points.
Brocco started six Tours de France between 1908 and 1914, finished none of them, although a stage he won in 1911 caused the coining of domestique.
On the following mountain, the Aubisque, he dropped Garrigou, passed Paul Duboc, who had been poisoned and was in agony beside the road, and took the lead with Émile Georget.
Desgrange believed the Tour should be a race of individuals and fought repeatedly with the sponsors, bicycle factories, who saw it otherwise.
Desgrange got rid of the factories' influence only by reorganising the Tour for national teams in 1930, with the effect that he thereby acknowledged teamwork and therefore domestiques.
The two men were of similar size and rode bikes of exactly the same dimensions, even though that made Ernzer a little low in the saddle.
"[8] Carrea was riding the Tour de France of 1952 and joined an attack to Lausanne to protect his leader's interests.
Carrea said: "Without knowing it, I had slid into the important break of the day and at Lausanne, to my great surprise, I heard I had inherited a jersey destined for champions.
L'Équipe said: "He no longer counts the hours, the years, spent with his nose in the wind trying to protect his leader for as long as possible".
[11] Arrieta said: When you have the chance to start your career in so big a team and at the side of a champion as great as Indurain, you grow in the service of sacrifice.
They help teammates with mechanical disasters – should the leader puncture a tire, the domestique will cycle in front to create a slipstream allowing him to reclaim their position.
The lead-out train sometimes starts 10–15 km to the finish with up to eight domestiques setting a pace to discourage others from breaking away.
For example, Lance Armstrong used teammates Roberto Heras and José Azevedo as climbing domestiques to set pace during mountain stages of the Tour de France before making a decisive attack.
Examples of traditional super-domestiques are Andreas Klöden with Astana Pro Team and George Hincapie who was a key lieutenant of U.S.
Recent developments in the compositions of the rosters of leading teams have led to an increasing number of high-status riders fulfilling super-domestique duties, especially during the Grand Tours.
This approach was largely originated by Team Sky, beginning with their success at the 2012 Tour de France, where Chris Froome finished second on the overall podium behind his teammate and compatriot Bradley Wiggins.
This finish came after some tension between the two lead riders, in particular during Stage 17 of the race, where Froome was forced to wait for Wiggins – his defined team leader – three times on the climb to the summit finish at Peyragudes, allowing Alejandro Valverde to win the stage, while both Wiggins and Froome cemented their overall general classifications standings.
This tactic was largely unsuccessful for Movistar, who experienced difficulties in coordinating their three leaders, none of whom appeared willing to sacrifice their own ambitions to serve as super-domestiques for one of the other two.
This allowed Jumbo-Visma to operate with similar tactics to those used by Sky/INEOS in previous years, by setting a higher pace throughout difficult climbs, buoyed by the fact that Dumoulin and other Jumbo-Visma support riders such as Sepp Kuss would remain present in breakaways and leaders' groups to protect Roglič, while the weaker support riders surrounding other contenders would be whittled away.
However, their defensive tactics had the unforeseen consequence of Jumbo-Visma helping eventual winner and rival Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates.
Nonetheless, the traditional domestique role remains an important one, and a 2020 poll of riders in the professional peloton by cyclingnews.com named Tim Declercq as the best domestique in the world, followed by Luke Rowe, Michael Mørkøv, Andrey Amador, Imanol Erviti, Michael Schär and Iljo Keisse.
For example, at the 2012 Tour de France Tejay van Garderen of BMC Racing Team began the tour as a domestique for 2011 winner Cadel Evans but later became team leader due to Evans struggling and eventually won the young rider classification.
For instance, Stuart O'Grady, a veteran professional rider riding for Leopard-Trek, served as a domestique supporting Carlos Sastre in the 2008 Tour de France.
[14] In September 2009, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the governing body of pro cycling, voted to phase in a ban on the use of team radios in men's elite road racing.
