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Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#81

Post by jdietrich »

flosstop wrote: post #59
deff wrote: post #25

Regarding drugs, yes it´s most likely still happening, but nowhere near the levels it used to be. Riders are tested a lot and have to provide year-round whereabouts for random testing. They also have a frequently updated blood passport to detect sudden changes in values caused by PEDs. It can never be fully waterproof, but at least serious efforts are made.

They have moved on from pharmaceutical doping due to the extensive testing to what is referred to as "mechanical doping". Motors are hidden in hubs/frames and the organisation is busy doing everything they can to pretend that it isn't a problem.

We've had a handful of cases at the lower levels of the sport, but I think the scrutineering is just too strict for anyone to get away with it at the ProTour level. The UCI have got mobile x-ray facilities which they're starting to use much more rigorously.

https://www.uci.org/pressrelease/uci-reveals-technological-f...

Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#82

Post by nradov »

WXLCKNO wrote: post #76
avs733 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am far FAR from the tour de france but I do train for and run ultramarathons. When I started the general guidance seemed to be about 200 calories (50g of carbs) per hour during training and races. I followed that or a little above for a long time, and constantly had problems both physically and cognitively near the end of races. It took about a year to get used to fueling heavier (for me...about 400 calories per ho…

At 250w average during a 5 hour ride I'm burning like 1000 calories per hour or something mething close. Glycogen reserves are 2000 calories from a quick Google search, so that's 3k calories I need to make up for or 600 per hour. I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff I'm missing but 400 definitely makes more sense than 200

What you're missing is fat metabolism. If you're metabolically healthy (which you must be if you can hold 250W for hours) then you can make up the difference by converting stored fat into glycogen.

Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#83

Post by cantSpellSober »

bluGill wrote: post #52
nradov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would essentially kill cycling as a professional sport. Much of the team revenue comes from equipment sponsors. And while many of the equipment innovations get a bit ridiculous, some of them have really benefitted amateur cyclists. I would hate to still be stuck with a 10-speed drivetrain on a steel tube frame with mechanical friction shifters just because that was "standard".

I'd be perfectly happy on a steel tube 10-speed from 1975 if I was allowed a modern click shifter and modern disk brakes. Steel frame bikes are really nice, and 10 gears is more than you need anyway. Steel frame bikes from 1975 won't win you a modern race, but they won't be far behind.

Yes Steel is Real but the last Tour winner on a steel bike was in the '90s (and that's the subject). Bikes weigh no more than 8kg. The weight weenies are winning, carbon everything down to brake rotors.

> I was allowed a modern click shifter and modern disk brakes

Doubt you'd see a bike equipped with anything else at the Tour.

Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#84

Post by gosub100 »

alistairSH wrote: post #78
gosub100 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to me, there's a distinction between taking a drug that increases availability of red blood cells vs taking steroids or meth.

Isn't that really sport-dependent? EPO and other red-cell increasing drugs provide a massive gain for endurance athletes (runners, cyclists, XC skiing). Steroids are a massive gain for strength athletes (sprinters/athletics, contact sports). Both can be used "safely" or "unsafely" depending on dosage, combinations with other drugs, etc.

My opinion is that roids are much worse. And I included meth for dramatic contrast. It's not so much about the gain it's about the danger and harm. But I'm sure this will invite all sorts of semantic bickering about the meaning of the word "danger". As I said it's my opinion about where the line should be drawn.

Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#85

Post by [deleted] »

flosstop wrote: post #59
deff wrote: post #25

Regarding drugs, yes it´s most likely still happening, but nowhere near the levels it used to be. Riders are tested a lot and have to provide year-round whereabouts for random testing. They also have a frequently updated blood passport to detect sudden changes in values caused by PEDs. It can never be fully waterproof, but at least serious efforts are made.

They have moved on from pharmaceutical doping due to the extensive testing to what is referred to as "mechanical doping". Motors are hidden in hubs/frames and the organisation is busy doing everything they can to pretend that it isn't a problem.

[deleted]

Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#86

Post by bluGill »

cantSpellSober wrote: post #83
bluGill wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be perfectly happy on a steel tube 10-speed from 1975 if I was allowed a modern click shifter and modern disk brakes. Steel frame bikes are really nice, and 10 gears is more than you need anyway. Steel frame bikes from 1975 won't win you a modern race, but they won't be far behind.

Yes Steel is Real but the last Tour winner on a steel bike was in the '90s (and that's the subject). Bikes weigh no more than 8kg. The weight weenies are winning, carbon everything down to brake rotors. > I was allowed a modern click shifter and modern disk brakes Doubt you'd see a bike equipped with anything else at the Tour.

At the top level - which is pretty much the definition of a tour winner - grams make the difference between a win and loss, so of course they will not be riding steel.

I'm not at top level and never will be. If I want to go faster there are many things I can do that are more effective than playing what my bike is made out of.

Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#87

Post by jdietrich »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #46
wasmitnetzen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A UCI WorldTeam has a budget of about 10 to 60 million euros. That's peanuts in a lot of other sports.

Maybe mainstream sports, but not when you spread it across the number of fans and account for their intensity. The Tour de France is likely the only cycling event most people can name. It's an awful lot of money for a very niche sport.

It's a niche sport in the US, but it's huge in lots of European countries. Conversely, most Europeans would struggle to name a single baseball or American football team, but they're far from niche sports in their domestic market.

Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#88

Post by bell-cot »

wasmitnetzen wrote: post #13
bell-cot wrote: post #2

> Not so long ago, the professional cycling world's approach to fuelling was remarkably basic. [...] > These days, it is an entirely different prospect, with vast sums spent on custom-built food trucks, personalised nutrition apps and meticulously planned meal regimes all in the name of performance enhancement. > For the nutritionists and chefs tasked with providing sustenance to power their team's riders over 2,170…

A UCI WorldTeam has a budget of about 10 to 60 million euros. That's peanuts in a lot of other sports.

If that budget is for an 8-man team, in a sport with a 3 1/2-week season...

An (American) NFL team has 53 "active" players (plus a practice squad, plus ...), and plays a 5-month season. And has a lot of "maintain a major stadium"-type expenses, which (my guess) cycling teams don't have.

Based on your figures, and trying to scale...no, the cycling team budgets really aren't peanuts by comparison.

NFL Data: https://shareholder.broadridge.com/pdf/2022-packers-annual-r...

Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#89

Post by jdietrich »

gullywhumper wrote: post #36
ydant wrote: post #21

I enjoyed this show about feeding the tour riders: Eat. Race. Win. https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Race-Win-Season-1/dp/B086HVQ5RB Related, Unchained ( https://www.netflix.com/title/81153133 ) has been an interesting view into the race although food isn't discussed at all. Before Eat. Race. Win. I had this entirely uninformed idea the food the riders ate would be incredibly streamlined and controlled - I was thinking some…

The alcohol really surprises me given how meticulous they are about everything else - especially sleep monitoring. After a big win, it's not uncommon for the entire team to have sparkling wine or beer that night. Maybe not a big deal for one day races, but with stage races they usually have another hard race the next day. On the podium during stage races, victors will often drink sparkling wine/beer too. After winnin…

Any risks in terms of performance have to be weighed up against the benefits to morale. A grand tour is long, a full year's calendar of racing is even longer, but a glass of champagne to celebrate a win goes a long way towards breaking up the monotony of suffering.

Re: Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the road

#90

Post by [deleted] »

borroka wrote: post #79
jeroen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TdF is apparently the 2nd most watched sporting event in the world, with 3.5 billion viewers. That's not very niche. -- https://www.roadtrips.com/blog/the-most-watched-sporting-eve...

The number, which by the common person is to be interpreted as unique viewers, is blatantly absurd.

[deleted]
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