SS: The older riders are very set in what they do over the years, but the younger riders buy into it. So we would look and see what was happening, when the mountain stages were coming up, if it was going to be hot or not, and really looking at tailoring position and terrain to what they needed.
SS: Overall diet not so much of a change, but on the bike, what are they using on the bike? So we look at some of the legal ergogenic aids to put in their bottle to give them that extra bit when they need it right when they need it. SS: That comes from poor recovery or inadequate glucose regeneration and glycogen. Like after your gut has been under this extreme stress for seven to eight days, your appetite is completely gone. SS: This is a little bit more individualistic.
It depends on training history, what the work output was during the Tour — were you a domestique , or were you the GC contender, the sprinter. But absolutely stopping off the bike is not a great idea, because your body has been so used to training for so many months and months, and racing.
So recovery is just real easy facilitation of blood movement and muscle contractile strength. SS: This is when all the injuries and niggles come out. So some of the scar tissue will start to really adhere, trying to repair some of the micro-trauma and inflammation factors that have happened. You lose a lot of your plasma volume, the watery part of your blood, because you need some stimulus to keep that, so your overall blood volume shrinks.
You have a decrease in your red cell count as well, you have a decrease in your immune factors as well. So when your body is used to having some increased blood flow, and increased heart rate, and increased blood circulation through everything, and then it stops, the repercussions are as if you are bedridden. And you have that same response every time you have something major to do.
The body is more efficient in carbohydrate utilization, more efficient in fat utilization. If there were to be a four-week grand tour, who knows what would happen. You would probably see some guys really take off in that last week because of the residual fitness and the ability of the body to learn what that stress is. For some of the younger riders, some of the results are coming out really well except for bone density. Sometimes it is used to check out a climb on the next day's stage and above all it means the riders are not spending too much time staring at four hotel walls.
A They'll also get longer massages an hour rather than 45 minutes , visits from relatives and friends, and a chance to talk to the press. Rest days used to be far more relaxed affairs than they are these days. In the Tour rest day in Andorra, the future race winner Jacques Anquetil went to a lamb barbecue and stuffed himself silly he nearly abandoned with indigestion the next day after everybody attacked at the foot of the first climb while British great Tom Simpson pedalled up the Envalira pass to see some friends, then went to a bullfight.
Sometimes a special Mass will be held for the Tour's riders, particularly if they're near some religious sanctuary such as Lourdes. A Lots. In one of cycling's three Grand Tours — that's the Tours of Italy, France and Spain — riders cover 3,km 2, miles at an average speed of 40km an hour, roughly the equivalent exertion of a marathon every day for almost three weeks, which means they will consume up to 8, calories a day, which is about the same as 17 Big Macs.
According to a Dutch study, their metabolism can sometimes become so efficient that only four species on earth can better it. Alcohol is not indulged in on Tour for obvious reasons of rehydration. Some teams will celebrate stage wins with a small glass of bubbly. A Carb-high food to pack those calories in, lots of roughage to make sure the waste gets out the other end. Riders will often become obsessive about what they eat, or irritated if they can't eat what they like — as Mark Cavendish admits has been the case he was placed on a sugar-free diet earlier this year to bring down his weight pre-Olympics.
Lance Armstrong used to weigh his food on his own personal scales. Chefs will be brought in to try to vary the very limited options on offer and prepare personal favourites if the riders are feeling down or have won a stage. Back in the s one American team would wrap the riders' mid-race sandwiches in torn-out pages of Playboy to try to cheer them up.
Haimar Zubeldia, currently Spain's leading rider, eats a ham and cheese tortilla every morning of the Tour, specially made by his chef. I can also remember bringing a British rider packs of Jello jelly cubes on the Tour in the s unobtainable in continental Europe as a treat.
Help us to make it better. Back to Features. Here's what the pro riders get up to when they're not racing First Published Jul 12, View this post on Instagram.
Continue Reading. Tour de France Anna Marie Hughes. Latest Comments chrisonatrike 6 min 9 sec ago. Captain Badger 14 hours 16 min ago. Rendel Harris 14 hours 57 min ago. Chris Hayes 16 hours 52 min ago. Sriracha 18 hours 5 min ago. In the past, some riders have also relied on motorhomes RVs during the tour.
However, in , the UCI Union Cycliste Internationale banned motorhomes from the Tour De France and ruled out that all riders should use the official hotels booked by the organizers of the event. The main argument behind the decision was that all riders should have equal conditions during the competition.
Once the stage is done, the riders have to travel to their hotel and get to the next point in the morning. Thus, the riders and the teams spend a lot of time going between hotels and races. The extra traveling results in chronic fatigue.
There are situations when big cycling names have to sleep on an inflated mattress on the floor of a hotel room.
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