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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

#211

Post by hinkley »

jimbokun wrote: post #177
hinkley wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't been a cyclist since about the time that the market of energy drinks first exploded. And at the time there were a number of articles that said that really all you need is Gatorade, that most of these new drinks were advertising more calories per liter, but Gatorade was already tested out on absorption rates and dialed in to the maximum calories per liter of water that the average human stomach can absorb. T…

Maximum calories per liter sounds like something you really want to avoid unless you are engaging in extremely intense exercise.

Your body can burn calories faster than you can absorb them. And if you’re concerned about what sports medicine says the limits of human absorption are, you’re either a nerd or engaging in extremely intense exercise.

The Tour de France did 124miles on its first day this year. Through mountains.

Many amateur cyclists have a 100 mile single day even or 150-300 mile multi day event as their yearly goal. And they can’t push the sort of power for the duration that a pro can. Something less than 75% as much power for less than half as long per day. And for days instead of weeks.

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

#212

Post by nradov »

rfergie wrote: post #196
WalterBright wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the Netflix TdF documentary, they mentioned that the difference between the winner and last place is 2%. There was one stage where the winner won by 4 inches. It also said that doping made a 20% difference, so either none of the current competitors are doping or all of them are.

> so either none of the current competitors are doping or all of them are The drafting effect in cycling means that a clean cyclist can finish very closely behind a doped cyclist

That only works on the flat stages. A small difference in power to weight ratio makes a huge difference in finishing times on the mountain stages where drafting is less of a factor.

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

#213

Post by le-mark »

Someone wrote: post #164
hinkley wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't been a cyclist since about the time that the market of energy drinks first exploded. And at the time there were a number of articles that said that really all you need is Gatorade, that most of these new drinks were advertising more calories per liter, but Gatorade was already tested out on absorption rates and dialed in to the maximum calories per liter of water that the average human stomach can absorb. T…

> for cyclists that are averaging 20 miles an hour I don’t think modern professional cyclists even can ride at 20 miles an hour ;-) 20 miles an hour didn’t win you the Tour de France in 1950. Nowadays, with better tech, better training, and shorter stages, you have to do over 25 miles an hour to win it, and the last rider in the general classification easily is within 10% of that.

The last rider that finished and it’s not like if you or I go out and try to ride a hundred miles at 25 mph solo. Drafting and team dynamics play a significant role is energy expenditure.

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

#214

Post by klyrs »

Someone wrote: post #164
hinkley wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't been a cyclist since about the time that the market of energy drinks first exploded. And at the time there were a number of articles that said that really all you need is Gatorade, that most of these new drinks were advertising more calories per liter, but Gatorade was already tested out on absorption rates and dialed in to the maximum calories per liter of water that the average human stomach can absorb. T…

> for cyclists that are averaging 20 miles an hour I don’t think modern professional cyclists even can ride at 20 miles an hour ;-) 20 miles an hour didn’t win you the Tour de France in 1950. Nowadays, with better tech, better training, and shorter stages, you have to do over 25 miles an hour to win it, and the last rider in the general classification easily is within 10% of that.

I'm not a pro cyclist but I've seen one stop before. By the intermediate value theorem, they can ride at 20mph.

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

#215

Post by bluGill »

pandaman wrote: post #181
bluGill wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can make a steel frame bike which will be lighter than the UCI weight limit with modern technology. It's just nobody cares to make one because the "unracer" crowd who believe steel frames are magic, won't be spending a couple grand on a light steel frameset and the actual racers are fine with the carbon frames, where it's much easier to control properties of different parts of the frame through fiber layout.

What I want as a non racer is different from what racers want so I prefer a cheaper steel fram, as the gains from an expensive one won't be worth it.

of course the above is a guess, if someone makes such a frame I may try it and decide it is worth it.

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

#216

Post by nradov »

brazzy wrote: post #152
eloycoto wrote: post #16

Nowadays, some riders use glucose monitoring devices during training with relation to how long it takes from ingesting and getting into blood. They are now measuring more and more things, and food is a crucial role. Glucose monitoring is banned during races, but I guess that is why you don't see some cyclist collapsing like as 15 years ago is because they understand their glucose levels. For sure, doping it's still a…

> For sure, doping it's still a fear, but these guys cannot climb Galibier at that speed only with storoids/drugs, it's insane the effort that they did over the year. The way I heard it, the don't use doping to improve their performance. They use it so they can train longer and more intensely than they would be able to without it.

That's part of it sure, but anything which improves oxygen transport like EPO or blood transfusions will absolutely improve climbing performance regardless of training quality. For anyone with good fitness the main limiting factor is amount of oxygen delivered to the muscles.

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

#217

Post by wyre »

11235813213455 wrote: post #175

I wish these races were without any assistance at all, and without food/liquid at the start, a bit like in the past, if you're hungry try to spot a fruit tree, if you've a flat repair yourself, thirsty stop at next fountain

Entirely self-supported bike races still exist, but they don't get the publicity and media attention the TdF gets. The Tour Divide and the Trans Am Bike Race are two ultra-endurance races that are self-supported. I would recommend bikepacking.com for coverage for self-supported mountain bike races.

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

#218

Post by hinkley »

fbdab103 wrote: post #209
hinkley wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really, really want someone to commercialize the mechanical doping tech they've been using. Get caught and go straight please. Give me a bike that looks like a normal bike and gives mere mortals like me an extra 5 mph (power law makes that a lot worse for pros).

Assuming the pros are cheating, the professional assistance is unlikely to be of use to a regular human. At the professional level, a 1% gain could be huge, whereas a normal rider could gain far more than that by better techniques/breathing/equipment/whatever.

It’s not 1% it’s 35 watts. Which matters a lot more when you’re a rider who can only put out 200 watts.

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

#219

Post by hinkley »

taeric wrote: post #210
hinkley wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s just that amateur cyclists swear by bananas. Starch, potassium, biodegradable wrapper. Jerseys have handy pockets that can carry several. Walkers and runners often don’t.

Ah, makes sense. My naive view of bananas would be that they are also relatively high in fiber. This whole thread really underlines how little I understand about a lot of this. :D

High in pectin. Soluble and insoluble fiber behave differently and I used to be able to explain it somewhat but my brain has been too full of other things lately and I don’t think I can do it justice.

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

#220

Post by hinkley »

nradov wrote: post #212
rfergie wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so either none of the current competitors are doping or all of them are The drafting effect in cycling means that a clean cyclist can finish very closely behind a doped cyclist

That only works on the flat stages. A small difference in power to weight ratio makes a huge difference in finishing times on the mountain stages where drafting is less of a factor.

And then there’s Pidcock who has the reflexes of a fighter pilot and can scream down the hills at speeds that would make you blanch.
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