March 20th, 2012
Graceful Chaos The words, gestures, manners—and good luck—that keep a peloton rolling.
By Ted King
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In a thick Italian accent, the shout cuts through the metallic drone generated by 150 drivetrains: “Ow-toe!”That’s “auto,” one of many alerts we racers use to tell each other that, somehow, a car has gotten onto the course.
The pack compresses and shifts slightly outward, like a river coursing around a boulder. As we pass the car, which has pulled to the side and parked, I glance over. Two wheels are situated on the tarmac, while the pair on the far side seem precariously close to the ravine that drops away from the road. In the back seat, children are clapping hysterically while, in the front, the fast-acting mom and dad snap photos of us through the windshield.
No big deal for us: A pro peloton is adept at adjusting itself to whatever parcours the day presents. Perpetually dynamic, the pack stretches and snakes down long, straight roads at tremendous speeds, widens and becomes more compact when the riders at the front decide to ease off the pace, lengthens again in the stressful fight approaching the early stages of a climb, and bunches to snarled congestion when presented with tight corners. And the internal choreography of a pack streaming around one of Europe’s ubiquitous roundabouts is a study in chaos and complexity theories. Like a school of fish, we somehow, temporarily and rapidly, form into a self-contained, larger individual organism.
The language the peloton uses to achieve these high-speed adjustments might be as confusing to an outsider as its movements. The pro peloton draws together languages and dialects from around the globe. Even more common than auto is another Italian term, occhio, which literally translates to “eye,” but in practice is a useful general term meaning “heads up.” It works for potholes, dogs, traffic islands, cars, or whatever. There’s also what we call charades—a hand pointing to the ground, either left or right, to warn of an oncoming danger. Additionally, and certainly not recommended in, say a Category 4 field, is the gentle push or tap from a rider who sees an obstacle and is destined to smack straight into it unless he makes space.
The country in which we’re racing determines our movements as well. Italian roads are frequently narrow and abrupt, while the Spanish are similarly small but somehow allow smoother flow. Even the most basic roads in America are like interstate highways in comparison with their European counterparts. The Dutch and Belgian roads can be as narrow as cow paths, and bring the added excitement of what is known to the cycling public as “road furniture.” Terrifying, 2-foot-high cement pillars erected to protect parked cars, the occasional concrete flower beds, and random sidewalk curbs that inexplicably jut farther into the road all help control automotive speed wonderfully, but demand that we continually chatter to stay upright.
Privately, in the pack, we refer to these perpetual obstacles as “form f$%ers.”
It is precisely because the professional peloton is so fluid as we sweep our way down the road that the rare but inevitable crashes are so startling. A shouted auto does not always echo its way through the peloton, especially when we’re guttered at an all-out pace, cross-eyed, maintaining what draft is possible by staring at the wheel in front of us. Or, sometimes, a single rider misjudges how far the sideview mirror of a car parked along the road sticks out, starting a domino effect that shatters a peloton.
We absorb the bad and the good outcomes casually, as people perform the most routine parts of any job. Yet, I still find the grace and ease with which a peloton harnesses its chaos fascinating and beautiful—unless it’s me having to desperately poke someone in the hip to open some space.
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