As some of you may know, I'm fascinated by the food elite sports people eat. At the moment the Tour de France is underway. This gruelling cycle race covers 3,500km over three weeks. Participants are riding for four to six hours per day, reaching speeds of 75 - 80km per hour at the end of some stages, and climbing up mountains which would make the rest of you and I weep. Then they get up the next day and do the same thing over again.

 

Each day the cyclists go through at least one feeding station, a section of the race where they are handed bags called musettes, full of food and drink. There's no stopping at the feeding station, instead the cyclists have to grab a bag in mid flight, and organise their food and drink on the go. Different teams include different food in their musettes, but there may be sandwiches, bananas, energy bars and drinks, little cakes and gels.

 

However it's the sheer quantity of food Tour de France riders have to eat which always stuns me. The intensity and hardness of the race means cyclists need to eat 23,000 - 25,000kJ (5,500 - 6,000 cal) per day. This is more than twice the energy requirement of you and I. The sheer logistics of eating this much food each day is difficult, especially given they're spending a large proportion of it on a bike. However, if the cyclists don't eat enough kilojoules and don't eat frequently, it can drastically affect their performance. And even when Tour de France participants do eat enough, they will still lose weight and muscle mass during the race.

 

There's a great piece on the effort required to ride Le Tour at The Conversation.

 

 

 

 

Photograph by kelsey e.