What's a soigneur in cycling?

A soigneur is a term for a general purpose employee of professional cycling teams. A soigneur's job can be as specific as being a massage therapist for the team, to being the massage therapist, the chauffeur, and helper on the side of the road who hands out the bidons (bottles) to the rider during a cycling race.

How specific a soigneur is depends on the individual soigneur themselves and on the team level. Pro/1/2 teams (those teams that are below World Tour level) will generally have more multi-faceted soigneurs as they won't have the budget to hire as many employees on the payroll.

During races, if they're tasked with handing out bottles, sogineurs will mark their location with Velo Viewer and be visible to riders on their head units.

Interesting Tidbit: Soigneurs will generally have both pure water and carbohydrate drinks for riders to choose from at their roadside positions.

Riders often develop stomach issues if they stick to pure carbohydrate drinks. Bottles are often marked with a '+' if they have carbs, and hence it's why you sometimes see riders immediately toss bottles away after grabbing them from the soigneur, looking at the lid, and being frustrated it's not the variety they want.