Team time trial in the context of "Road bicycle racing"

A race stage, leg, or heat is a unit of a race that has been divided in several parts for the reason such as length of the distance to be covered, as in a multi-day event. Usually, such a race consists of "ordinary" stages, but sometimes stages are held as an individual time trial or a team time trial. Long races such as the Tour de France, Absa Cape Epic or the Giro d'Italia are known for their stages of one day each, whereas the boat sailing Velux 5 Oceans Race is broken down in usually four stages of several weeks duration each, where the competitors are racing continuously day and night. In bicycling and running events, a race with stages is known as a stage race. Other examples include ultramarathons and adventure racing.

An individual time trial (ITT) is a road bicycle race in which cyclists race alone against the clock (in French: contre la montre – literally "against the watch", in Italian: tappa a cronometro "stopwatch stage"). There are also track-based time trials where riders compete in velodromes, and team time trials (TTT). ITTs are also referred to as "the race of truth", as winning depends only on each rider's strength and endurance, and not on help provided by teammates and others riding ahead and creating a slipstream. Individual time trials are usually held on flat or rolling terrain, although sometimes they are held up a mountain road (in Italian: cronoscalata "chrono climbing"). Sometimes the opening stage of a stage race is a very short individual time trial called a prologue (8 km or less for men, 4 km or less for women and juniors).

Starting times are at equal intervals, usually one or two minutes apart. The starting sequence is usually based on the finishing times in preceding races (or preceding stages in the case of a multi-stage race) with the highest ranked cyclist starting last. Starting later gives the racer the advantage of knowing what time they need to beat (and also makes the event more interesting to spectators). Competitors are not permitted to draft (ride in the slipstream) behind each other. Any help between riders is forbidden. The rider with the fastest time is declared the winner.