Cycling is two sports in one. On the road, it is an endurance contest of tactics, teamwork and climbing played out over hours and weeks. On the track, it is explosive, short and brutally fast. Both are governed by the same body, the UCI, and both reward the same thing: the rider who reads the race best.

How the Sport Works: Road Racing

Road cycling's basic unit is the stage race: a race run over several days, with a different route each day, and the riders' times added together. The winner is the rider with the lowest total time across all stages.

The most famous stage race is the Tour de France, first held in 1903 and run every July over 21 stages and about three weeks, covering roughly 3,200 to 4,000 kilometres. Around 22 teams of eight riders take part. The stages vary: flat stages that end in bunch sprints, mountain stages in the Alps and Pyrenees, hilly stages for the attackers, and individual time trials, where riders race alone against the clock.

The Tour is one of three Grand Tours, alongside the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España. Below them sit week-long stage races and the one-day races, including the five Monuments — Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Giro di Lombardia — which are among the hardest single days in the sport.

Teamwork is central. The main group of riders is called the peloton, and teams ride to protect their leader: domestiques fetch water, pace on the climbs and shield the leader from the wind, while climbers, sprinters and time trialists each have their own jobs on different days.

Scoring: Jerseys and Classifications

The Tour de France has four jersey competitions running at once. The yellow jersey, the maillot jaune, goes to the leader of the general classification — the rider with the lowest cumulative time. Whoever wears it into Paris wins the Tour.

The green jersey goes to the leader of the points classification, earned at stage finishes and intermediate sprints, and usually won by a sprinter. The polka-dot jersey goes to the king of the mountains, the best climber, decided by points on categorised climbs. The white jersey goes to the best young rider under the age of 26 on the general classification. There is also a team classification, based on the combined times of each team's best finishers.

On the track, scoring depends on the event. The sprint is a head-to-head duel, usually over three laps, decided by who crosses the line first after a tactical cat-and-mouse opening. The keirin is a paced sprint: riders follow a motorbike for part of the race, then sprint for the finish when it pulls off. The omnium is a multi-race event combining several different races into one overall standings, and the Madison is a two-rider team race with hand-sling exchanges. Track cycling also includes the individual and team pursuit, raced against the clock and each other over a set distance.

Formats and Major Competitions

The UCI World Tour is the top tier of road racing, and the rainbow jersey marks the reigning world champion in each discipline. The World Championships, held every year, decide the road race and time trial titles, and the track world championships do the same on the boards.

At the Olympics, road cycling has the road race and the time trial, while the track programme includes the sprint, keirin, omnium, Madison and team pursuit. The Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España complete the Grand Tour calendar, and the spring Classics season — the cobbled races of Belgium and northern France — is the sport's most atmospheric stretch.

A Brief History

Cycle racing began in the late nineteenth century, not long after the bicycle itself. The Tour de France was founded in 1903 by a newspaper looking to sell copies, and it became the sport's defining event. The yellow jersey arrived in 1919, so the race leader would be visible to crowds on the roadside, and the polka-dot jersey for the best climber was introduced in 1975.

Track cycling is older still in its organised form, and it has been on the Olympic programme since the first modern Games in 1896. The sport professionalised through the twentieth century, and the modern era has brought power meters, aerodynamics and data analysis — but the racing itself still comes down to legs, lungs and nerve.

How to Follow It

For the road, start with the Tour de France: watch the final hour of a mountain stage, when the general classification is decided, and the final kilometres of a flat stage, when the sprint trains form. The jerseys tell you who to watch — yellow for the overall race, green for the sprints, polka-dot for the climbs.

For the track, the keirin and the sprint are the most watchable introductions: short, tactical and decided in seconds. And whatever you watch, remember the golden rule of cycling — the race is rarely won by the strongest rider alone. It is won by the strongest team riding for one leader.