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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

#51

Post by bluGill »

n4r9 wrote: post #22
NoPicklez wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a sport of the 0.0001% when anybody can go buy a bike and ride. At the top level of any sport and in the top race or competition of that sport, it is going to represent the pinnacle of that sport.

I guess the point is that in cycling - relative to other sports - money gives you an easy edge. You can afford much better equipment, nutrition, coaching etc... . Compare that to (say) football in the UK: you just need a £5 ball and a few friends, and if you show promise you can track into your local team's programme and get top quality coaching at minimal cost. It depends on the culture as well. From what I read abo…

If you do well on a cheap bike in a local race someone will notice and start asking if you belong on a major team with money. The teams with money want to win, they cannot afford to keep out a poor person who otherwise is good.

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

#52

Post by bluGill »

nradov wrote: post #14
Ekaros wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder should we go to basics in many sports. With things like banning any equipment including clothing and shoes... Or with cycling giving one standard mass manufactured piece. And then a pile of standard replacement parts and standard tools. All bought from cheapest supplier randomly distributed to participants.

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.

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

#53

Post by matwood »

skhr0680 wrote: post #45
skeeter2020 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're still fighting a losing battle. The business of cycling dictates that they remain ever vigilant and attempt to catch dopers and keep the sport "clean", while the science of what the atheletes are trying to do suggests they should just accept the reality and not police legal vs. illegal. It's like a drug-free body building contenst; what's the point?

> It's like a drug-free body building contenst; what's the point? The point is to not die or be in a wheelchair by the time you’re 60

If that's the goal, then you might as well get rid of all contact sports - drugs or not.

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

#54

Post by Lwerewolf »

Ekaros wrote: post #3
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…

Sometimes I wonder should we go to basics in many sports. With things like banning any equipment including clothing and shoes... Or with cycling giving one standard mass manufactured piece. And then a pile of standard replacement parts and standard tools. All bought from cheapest supplier randomly distributed to participants.

Sounds like the typical case of people not looking at the core work required in order for the very expensive individual items like tailored nutrition, top-end (and even customized) parts, per-race-specific optimized chains and what not to make any sense whatsoever.

If your times are, say, 20% or more above the absolute top times for a given course, you've got a long way to go by improving yourself - on just about any bike whatsoever. The super expensive parts make low single digit differences.

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

#55

Post by prmoustache »

davidw wrote: post #32
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…

Yeah, some of the modern nutrition stuff like gels work really well. I did a 115 mile road bike ride on Sunday and kept eating gels and... I'm not going to say I was super fresh or anything by the end of that, but I was still feeling pretty good.

There is usually a point where you can't get those gel inside. It is nice to mix with other stuff.

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

#56

Post by SonicScrub »

n4r9 wrote: post #22
NoPicklez wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a sport of the 0.0001% when anybody can go buy a bike and ride. At the top level of any sport and in the top race or competition of that sport, it is going to represent the pinnacle of that sport.

I guess the point is that in cycling - relative to other sports - money gives you an easy edge. You can afford much better equipment, nutrition, coaching etc... . Compare that to (say) football in the UK: you just need a £5 ball and a few friends, and if you show promise you can track into your local team's programme and get top quality coaching at minimal cost. It depends on the culture as well. From what I read abo…

At the top level of any sport, the expense comes from the coaching, exercise science, travel and other support over the course of years. That's true whether the game is cycling, or football. A $20,000 bike is peanuts in comparison to this cost. Unless you are at the top 0.001 percent of cyclists, better/more training has a much bigger impact than gear. $1,000 gets you a competitive road bike that you can win your local races with. Even cheaper if you buy used.

> From what I read about China, they're constantly scouting primary schools for Olympic talent, so you can come from any background and reach the top in a sport that would be limited to wealthier people in other countries.

This is what wealthy countries do as well. Most wealthy nations have programs to identify and develop top-level athletes. An obvious example being the very lucrative scholarships offered at American universities.

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

#57

Post by matwood »

n4r9 wrote: post #22
NoPicklez wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a sport of the 0.0001% when anybody can go buy a bike and ride. At the top level of any sport and in the top race or competition of that sport, it is going to represent the pinnacle of that sport.

I guess the point is that in cycling - relative to other sports - money gives you an easy edge. You can afford much better equipment, nutrition, coaching etc... . Compare that to (say) football in the UK: you just need a £5 ball and a few friends, and if you show promise you can track into your local team's programme and get top quality coaching at minimal cost. It depends on the culture as well. From what I read abo…

Money can help in any sport, but talent and physical attributes trumps all. At least with cycling, people can cycle almost anywhere. Sports like golf are hard to break into if someone doesn't have money because rounds and practice almost always have ongoing costs.

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

#58

Post by jeroen »

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.

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...

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

#59

Post by flosstop »

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.

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

#60

Post by ragazzina »

mesofile wrote: post #31
matsemann wrote: post #11

I'm a bit sad that a topic I find so interesting mostly gathers knee-jerk reactions here on HN. Yes, doping, blah blah we get it. But the logistics of TdF is insane. With a new city every day, things need to move fast and preparations start early. For instance Uno-X team has a small trailer with 800 kgs of ice they travel around with, after having trouble sourcing enough ice in the small villages they stay at. Actual…

Sorry, I follow cycling casually but I'm racking my brain trying to think of who 'EDB' refers to.

ChatGPT suggests self-assuredly and completely wrong "The famous cyclist known by the acronym EDB is Egan Daniel Bernal".
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