[HN Gopher] Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat a...
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Tour de France: How professional cycling teams eat and cook on the
road
Author : skruger
Score : 149 points
Date : 2024-07-02 21:01 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| bell-cot wrote:
| > 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 miles in the
| coming weeks there are principally two dilemmas [...]
|
| > The answers are gleaned from a year-round process that begins
| in December during pre- season training.
|
| You know that it has become the Sport Of The 0.0001% when...
| Ekaros wrote:
| 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.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| How 'spartan'...
|
| That aside, regarding cycling, standard mass manufactured
| piece? In one size that all have to fit to?
|
| Naa...
| sdfgtr wrote:
| Lookup Japan's Keirin racing. I think it's pretty much that.
| IIRC at the top levels they also require the racers to stay
| onsite under observation for several days before a race.
| nradov wrote:
| 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".
| nemo44x wrote:
| It's the same problem in golf. Equipment has gotten so
| powerful that the strategy of the game has fundamentally
| changed. They can not realistically continue to make
| courses longer. So they're "rolling back" the ball which
| will limit drive distances a bit but nothing regarding
| clubs.
|
| And the reason why is the pro game makes a lot of money on
| endorsements. If a top pro is forced to use a club that is
| different from what amateurs need then the gravy train
| could stop.
|
| But yes, golf is really hard and for amateurs the
| innovations help make the game more enjoyable. But for pros
| it's just too much.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| You saw this with cyclecross bikes for a long time. I had a
| beautiful cyclecross bike that I rode everywhere and I
| loved that bike but the cable-pull brakes sucked - like
| rear-end a car in traffic bad. Nobody made a cyclecross
| bike with disc brakes until the UCI allowed them in
| competition; now they all have disc brakes. Same for the
| extensive use of carbon. Love it or hate it, carbon has
| fueled intense innovation that you can see on display in
| higher-end consumer bikes and, while I don't have it or
| want it, electronic shifting is crisp and perfect. I don't
| like yet another electronic device but for a weekend rider
| to never need to tune a mechanical derailleur again is a
| game changer - you know they already have their phone with
| them 24/7 (especially you, roadies)
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| cantSpellSober wrote:
| 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| scheme271 wrote:
| Somewhat. UCI has a minumum weight (6.8kg) for bikes and
| often teams have to add weights to their bikes to hit the
| minimum limit. You easily get lighter bikes but your bike
| needs to be 6.8kg to be race legal. It certainly limits
| how many bits and bobs on the bike get switched over to
| using titanium or carbon fiber.
| bluGill wrote:
| I'm not that deep into racing, but I'll guess that teams
| still want to be way under that weight so they can
| strategically place weight where they want it.
| pandaman wrote:
| Some bikes are over the minimum weight, by a wide margin,
| and rode by the race leaders too.
| pandaman wrote:
| 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.
| cangeroo wrote:
| It's impossible to take technology out of the equation. I.e.
| that one person may have superior insights in their
| physiology/glucose levels, or a superior diet before the
| race. And so on.
|
| Similarly in football, by studying your opponents in previous
| matches, so that you can identify weaknesses during the
| match, even if playing in isolation.
| jamil7 wrote:
| I get what you're saying but a part of the culture in my
| experience is tinkering and upgrading your bike, that doesn't
| have to necessitate spending huge amounts of money,
| especially if you do a lot of work yourself and buy parts
| second hand. The sport might appeal less with all that
| stripped away, but who knows maybe it would also be
| interesting to standardize some aspects.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Why not then allow motorcycles? They are just bikes
| upgraded with motors... Would make competition lot shorter
| too and interesting. Seeing them driving around without
| speed limits.
| jamil7 wrote:
| I'm guessing because they don't meet the criteria to
| participate, what's your point?
| Ekaros wrote:
| That adding a motor would be upgrade and tinkering of a
| bike. So why should it not be allowed? Isn't it entirely
| in same spirit?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Not sure if you honestly believe this or just trying to
| be "edgy" but because a motorcycle is not a bicycle.
| jamil7 wrote:
| Do you want me to enumerate the ways in which a bike is
| not a motorbike and the parameters in which people who
| are interested in bikes operate in their hobby or
| profession? Or are you asking why professional racing
| puts guidelines around what types of bikes can
| participate?
| 1992spacemovie wrote:
| You're being disingenuous and down right annoying. By
| your logic why not just use a F-18 and win the race in 10
| minutes? Stop being asinine.
| gjadi wrote:
| This sounds similar to windsurfing, tinkering with your
| board, sail size, fin size, etc. is a big part of the
| sport.
|
| Yet, at the Olympics, the gear is the same for everyone.
|
| Btw, I can't remember where, but I heard that, in the old
| editions of the Tour de France not all gears were allowed,
| shifters for example weren't allowed even though they were
| available to amateurs.
| Lwerewolf wrote:
| 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.
| wnc3141 wrote:
| It would require a different business model. Cycling is like
| F1 in that sponsors are trying to sell their equipment.
| tpm wrote:
| All the cycling equipment in races has to be available in
| mass market and usually can be bought, if you've got the
| money. It's not cheap but also it's not a F1 car. It's more
| like.. why would you buy it when you are not a racer.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| 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.
| n4r9 wrote:
| 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 PS5 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 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.
| Arainach wrote:
| At levels lower than the very top, it's easier and cheaper
| to lose 10 pounds of your own body than 10 pounds of bike.
| You can go far - even into racing at low levels - on rather
| cheap equipment.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I'm not sure how that's any different than football
| (soccer) or football (American) or anything else.
|
| You need talent as a kid. You need money to fund travel and
| equipment (either from mom & dad, or the local
| academy/development squad, or donors). You need to find a
| coach who can get the most out of your genetics AND find a
| path for you to go pro. And on and on.
| jamil7 wrote:
| What makes the largest difference is how physically fit and
| how well you can ride (technique) rather than equipment.
| secondcoming wrote:
| I've never seen so many young people on bikes in the UK as
| I do now. Sure, the bikes are likely stolen and the kids up
| to no good, but at least one of them has TdF potential
| shermantanktop wrote:
| The kids may be doping, too.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| SonicScrub wrote:
| 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.
| matwood wrote:
| 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.
| timeon wrote:
| Peter Sagan started career winning on Tesco bike that he
| took from his sister.
|
| But I think most accessible sport is running. You just need
| some shoes. Open the door and you are good to go (run). For
| games like football you also need the ball, playground and
| other people.
| awad wrote:
| There's even a subset of runners that would argue you
| don't even need shoes!
| shallichange wrote:
| Not if everybody plays, in every school recess, every
| park, rec center, etc. That's how football is in most
| countries. "Pay to play" is a very US thing.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| The performance difference between cheaper bikes and top
| end bikes won't make the difference in being a successful
| cyclist.
|
| Anyone can pick up a bike and start training and racing in
| competitions and be talent scouted in the same way that you
| would in football, it's what happens here in Australia.
|
| Yes a football is cheaper than a bike, but it's not 0.0001%
| type stuff like Formula 1. Where you legitimately need to
| pay millions just to get a look in.
|
| Theres plenty of people on $8,000 bikes I pass on my 8 year
| old bike worth $2,000.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Is $2000 really "cheap" though? I personally would need
| to use a cycle to work scheme, and I consider myself
| pretty well off. I know people on lower incomes who would
| find that very off-putting as a barrier to entry. I think
| you'd need to go to the $150 or less range to be
| appealing to people in that situation.
| toast0 wrote:
| $2000 is not bad looking at what it costs to play hockey.
| A lot of sports are less expensive though.
|
| Otoh, around me, $100 gets you a circa 1980 road bike off
| craigslist. That'll do fine. I'm seeing a much more
| recent road bike for $500, if you don't like old stuff
| because it's old. Plenty of more expensive stuff too. I
| like the early 1980s bikes because road bikes were in
| fashion and there were a lot of makes competing and
| quality (of surviving bikes) is pretty good. Later,
| mountain bikes started trending, there was consolidation
| and I don't feel that those bikes are as good on the road
| as a general rule.
| lormayna wrote:
| In my team there is an ex professional cyclist from 80s.
| Sometimes he come in the Sunday group rides with one of
| his 80s bikes and he is able to overpass everybody.
|
| At the other side, I tried climbing the same hill at same
| power with my 2017 bike and with my 2023 bike. There was
| a 4% of difference in the time, probably because better
| wheels and improved position.
| bell-cot wrote:
| From a quick skim here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o
| f_teams_and_cyclists_in_... - all but one team are from well-
| to-do Western countries, or rich Gulf States. Cyclists seem
| similarly all-but-a-few white.
|
| Anyone can learn a bunch of gymnastic moves, too. But last I
| heard, "Olympic Gymnast" implies a >1k hour/year training
| regimen, starting at an extremely young age.
| tpm wrote:
| Primoz Roglic was a ski jumper before he was one of the
| best cyclists. There are several others like him.
|
| Most of the cyclists are white, yes, for me this is an
| issue (and I am white), but what I like is that there are
| now many from Colombia (because of the mountains there? And
| probably also some cycling culture), a few days ago a
| cyclist from Eritrea won a TdF stage.. it's slowly getting
| more diverse.
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| A UCI WorldTeam has a budget of about 10 to 60 million euros.
| That's peanuts in a lot of other sports.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| 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.
| jeroen wrote:
| 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...
| borroka wrote:
| The number, which by the common person is to be
| interpreted as unique viewers, is blatantly absurd.
| jdietrich wrote:
| 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.
| bell-cot wrote:
| 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...
| matsemann wrote:
| It's clear you don't know much about cycling. A pro team
| often consists of ~30 riders, and then 8~12 of them are
| selected for various races during the year. And similarly,
| that's the main team and they have development teams on the
| second level, junior teams, women teams etc
|
| The season is longer than tour de france, that's just the
| most prestigious tour. There are other tours and other
| races. It's about 8 months long.
|
| And I don't really think how long the season is has any
| relevance. You still train and need your apparatus whole
| year round.
|
| The stadium stuff also doesn't really work in the favor of
| nfl. A pro team makes no money on tickets or concessions,
| and has to travel the world with their gear instead of a
| few states away.
| wnc3141 wrote:
| The tour I think of like the World Series or Champions
| League tournament. Only one, highly visible, piece of a
| long calender (roughly Februrary to October)
| roelschroeven wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Cycling teams have all kinds of expenses too. True, they
| don't have to maintain a major stadium. But hey do have
| cars to assist the riders with food, drinks, spare tires,
| spare bikes if needed (sometimes multiple types of bike for
| some of the riders); team busses with showers, more food,
| meeting room (I think they also have washing machines in
| them, to provide the riders with clean clothing every day
| in a stage race); a service course for all the equipment,
| and to adjust and fix the bikes. Plus personnel to equip
| all those, plus personnel along the road with more food and
| drinks, and in some races also with spare wheels. Pro teams
| often participate in multiple races at the same time, so
| they need all that equipment times two or three. These days
| many teams haul mattresses along on stage races, to
| guarantee good sleep for the riders. All of that stuff, and
| the people involved, need to be transported to each race on
| time, sometimes to the other end of the world.
|
| I don't know how that compares with say an NFL team, but I
| do know my head starts to hurt when I think about how to
| organize all of that (and more; I most likely forgot some
| stuff) throughout the year.
| freejazz wrote:
| >If that budget is for an 8-man team, in a sport with a 3
| 1/2-week season...
|
| The tour de france is 3 1/2 weeks, the cycling season is
| much longer.
| timeon wrote:
| Even you think it is peanuts in comparison when expecting
| it to be for one particular race.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| > a 3 1/2-week season
|
| This year's UCI World Tour season runs from January 16 to
| October 20. Where are you getting "3 1/2 week season" from?
| Angostura wrote:
| 25,000 people took part in last month's Ride London. It was
| awesome
| lormayna wrote:
| Maratona de Dolomites, probably the most beautiful amateur
| cycling events in the world, has more than 50k subscribers
| and they selected only 9k.
| toyg wrote:
| Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on this stuff, and then
| someone finds the right, undetectable doping mix, and bye bye.
| sdfgtr wrote:
| Tbf, millions is spent on that part. This seems to be a drop in
| the bucket.
| Jean-Papoulos wrote:
| Note for everyone that will come in here to say the secret is
| drugs : In cyclism taking drugs is not considered a secret, it's
| common practice.
| knallfrosch wrote:
| And since everyone is taking them, they're not the
| discriminator between the world class champions and the merely
| Tour-de-France participants.
| matthewowen wrote:
| There is a common refrain about the Armstrong era "all the
| top guys were taking them so it's fair" but it's not really
| accurate. Because yes, the people at the top were all taking
| them, but that's because the clean guys that _would_ have
| been at the top otherwise aren't there: the prevalence of
| doping meant that you had to dope to even be in the
| conversation at that level, and so the clean athletes that
| might have won otherwise aren't coming in 18th, they're at
| home on the couch or they're racing at the pro-conti level.
|
| For example, Greg LeMond won the TdF in 1990. In 1991 he came
| 7th, and then never completed it again. There is some
| complication here because of the hunting accident he suffered
| in '87, but he also said "The speeds were faster and riders
| that I had easily outperformed were now dropping me", and the
| guy who won in 1991 was Indurain who was basically the first
| mega-doper.
|
| Without EPO and blood doping becoming prevalent, does Greg
| LeMond compete for a few more years? Do other guys with
| similar talent who aren't willing to dope also make it to
| that top level. I think the answer is probably yes, and so
| all those guys who doped are responsible for excluding those
| clean athletes from the top level.
| vbarrielle wrote:
| You're spot on, and there's another point that makes doping
| unfair even if it was widespread. There is a max hematocrit
| rule, but riders had different pre-doping base hematocrit
| levels. Those with the lowest level could benefit more from
| doping before reaching the limit. In a way, the less gifted
| would be more advantaged by EPO.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _In professional sports taking drugs is not considered a
| secret, it 's common practice_
|
| Fixed. Cycling has one of the strictest out-of-competition
| testing regimens. Which isn't to say doping doesn't exist - it
| does, no question - only that it's WAY better now than during
| the Armstrong era.
|
| Some details... https://lanternerouge.com/2023/03/26/how-clean-
| is-cycling-an...
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| 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?
| skhr0680 wrote:
| > 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
| matwood wrote:
| If that's the goal, then you might as well get rid of all
| contact sports - drugs or not.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Probably a case to be made for doing that. At least with
| martial arts/combat sports, American football, and
| probably rugby (mostly related to brain damage, not
| broken bones/joints).
| pyrale wrote:
| Also to make it a sports contest and not a pharma
| contest.
|
| It's the same reason there's a minimum weight for bikes
| used in the race: people tend to disregard security when
| making lighter bikes, and the cost of experiments means
| that some competitors exit the sport because they can't
| compete on funding.
| Jean-Papoulos wrote:
| Admiring what human dedication does, not what human drugs
| do.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd call it a losing battle. But, I agree
| vigilance is necessary.
|
| But, I also view anti-doping measures as more of a safety
| issue than a fairness issue (maybe 60/40-ish). First
| priority - prevent athletes (and their coaches/sponsors)
| killing or crippling themselves with chemicals. Second
| order - guarantee some baseline level of fairness (because
| without it, the fans go elsewhere).
|
| This isn't really different than rules in motor racing.
| Gotta keep the drivers safe first, and keep the race
| entertaining (nobody outside Italy wants to see two
| Ferraris dominate every F1 GP).
| gosub100 wrote:
| And to me, there's a distinction between taking a drug that
| increases availability of red blood cells vs taking steroids or
| meth.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| What's the distinction? What about taking something when you
| have a cold, or nutritional supplements? It seems weird to
| draw an arbitrary line between things that make a body
| perform by stimulating natural production vs directly using
| synthetics.
| jerlam wrote:
| Seconded, there is no clear line between banned drugs that
| help you cheat and drugs that fix medical conditions. There
| are drugs that are allowed if you have a doctor's note, and
| there are drugs that you can use only up to a certain
| amount.
|
| Asthma meds for cycling, some of which are steroids, are
| one of the more popular examples:
|
| https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/the-truth-
| abo...
| vbarrielle wrote:
| WADA rules do not ban a drug just because it is
| performance enhancing. Otherwise caffeine would be
| banned.
|
| Two out of three factors have to be present to ban a
| drug:
|
| - be performance enhancing - present a health risk -
| violate the spirit of sport
|
| The third one is a bit harder to define but there is a
| WADA code defining the spirit of sport.
|
| Most banned drugs are banned because of the first two.
| Someone wrote:
| > Two out of three factors have to be present to ban a
| drug:
|
| > - be performance enhancing - present a health risk -
| violate the spirit of sport
|
| There also are drugs banned that mask the use of
| performance enhancing drugs. You could call that "violate
| the spirit of the sport", but that's so vague a term it
| could cover anything.
| alistairSH wrote:
| 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.
| gosub100 wrote:
| 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.
| eric-hu wrote:
| My understanding of steroids is that they increase muscle
| mass all over the body. And that it's a long term health
| issue for the heart, because having a heart with excess
| muscle is actually bad long term. A few lifting YouTubers I
| follow have made videos on the subject. It seems like
| there's "less unsafe" steroid use, but there will be a life
| expectancy sacrifice with any level of use.
|
| I don't know what the story is like for EPO and other red-
| cell increasing drugs. Would be curious to hear yours and a
| few others' understanding of the cost/benefit.
| parthdesai wrote:
| My personal semi-conspiracy theory is that cycling is the only
| sport that took anti doping measures seriously and sort of
| fucked itself over. All the "anti" doping measures in major
| sports are laughable. There's too much money involved for the
| athletes to be not on steroids.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Based on what? Have revenues for pro cycling dropped off? I
| honestly don't know.
| borroka wrote:
| If it were only for the money...In CrossFit, even in
| competitions at the regional or provincial level, the top
| positions are practically all taken by athletes who use
| performance-enhancing drugs. Or, to take another example, in
| jiu jitsu, a discipline in which you almost always have to
| pay to compete and win nothing but a medal that will cost
| five dollars at the department store, I would venture to say
| that at least 90% of those placed in the top positions use
| PEDs.
| matsemann wrote:
| 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.
|
| Actually having your own chef source stuff is one way to avoid
| accidental doping scandals.
|
| I've read the Velochef book and like the recipes there. One thing
| I've never appreciated before is how hard it is to actually get
| this amount of calories down. Especially since much of it must be
| consumed on the bike so needs to be easy to transport/store/eat
| on the fly. And eating while working out can be tough on the
| stomach. EDB finally got his break through when they managed to
| nail a nutrition he didn't get cramps from eating.
| mesofile wrote:
| Sorry, I follow cycling casually but I'm racking my brain
| trying to think of who 'EDB' refers to.
| wiether wrote:
| Same, I can't find anyone close to it.
| matsemann wrote:
| Sorry, it was an autocorrect by my phone. EDB means
| Elektronisk Data Behandling, which is an archaic Norwegian
| way of writing computers, lol..
|
| I meant to write EBH, Edvald Boasson-Hagen. I probably
| should've spelled it out, but the Velochef book is by the
| Team Sky chef, the team of EBH.
| ragazzina wrote:
| ChatGPT suggests self-assuredly and completely wrong "The
| famous cyclist known by the acronym EDB is Egan Daniel
| Bernal".
| durkie wrote:
| reminds me of an anecdote from Le Ride
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Ride ) that talks about in
| one of the early Tours de France, a rider was disqualified
| because he broke his crank, hobbled to a nearby town, found the
| blacksmith, and the rider welded his own crank back together,
| but the blacksmith's son operated the bellows and this was seen
| as too much external assistance.
| ydant wrote:
| Looks to be this rider - Eugene Christophe:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Christophe
| eloycoto wrote:
| 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 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.
| deff wrote:
| That is indeed why you don't see them collapsing and also why
| the finals are much longer nowadays. Riders train their guts to
| be able to eat up to 120g of carbs per hour, for the whole
| duration of the race.
| avs733 wrote:
| 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 hour or 100g). Lots of figuring
| out digestion and timing and sources and other factors. But
| once I got there it was transformative...I could push much
| harder for much longer without a deep bonk and recovery was
| faster. More importantly, my ability to think/plan/make
| decisions at the end of races was orders of magnitude better.
|
| I'd bet if you went to an aid station around 80 miles on a
| 100mile ultra marathon you could pretty reliably identify who
| had been on the 200cal end of the spectrum and who had been
| on the 400 + end.
| davidw wrote:
| 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.
| prmoustache wrote:
| There is usually a point where you can't get those gel
| inside. It is nice to mix with other stuff.
| matsemann wrote:
| After my longest ever bike ride, 300 km, I didn't touch a
| gel for years, heh. Got so sick of 3+ gels per hour for
| those ~8 hours.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I dropped gels pretty fast. Hard to get if you're not
| somewhere with sports stores, and expensive.
|
| These days I cram haribo and peanut butter M&Ms, although
| I think the latter are more useful for multiday things.
| matsemann wrote:
| Yeah, I bought a huge bulk pack online, and then it was
| okay. But when you need a couple a week it quickly adds
| up in cost. Same with bars, which I sometimes prefer over
| gels for longer rides to not just have gels in my
| stomach. I've tried to bake some bars myself, or make
| some rice cakes from Velochef (
| https://www.rouleur.cc/blogs/desire-journal/velochef-
| henrik-... ) instead.
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| 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
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| matsemann wrote:
| Yup, part of my long distance cycle training was somewhat
| getting "fat adapted".
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| Right! That was a big missing chunk :)
| avs733 wrote:
| what is also missing is the ability to process calories
| in.
|
| 900-1000 calories might mean that in is optimal - but
| think about eating a full meal from mcdonalds every hour
| while massively extering yourself.
|
| Training your gut matters and I've never seen anything
| that suggests much beyond 400 calories per hour is
| possible during meaningful exertion.
| notesinthefield wrote:
| Since my first ultra, Ive been fascinated by the idea of
| adapting to increased fueling and have tried to apply
| periodization principles to how I eat. 23 miles into a 33
| race, I completely stopped being able to process food at
| around 150-250 cals/hr (mostly carbs and some fats)
| avs733 wrote:
| speaking from experience - I puked during a fair number
| of runs in the process of getting there. I mix calories
| in my hydration with gels just to try and get the balance
| right. Its not stable but its better after about 4 years
| of work. I have ound that if I don't do a good job of
| eating, what you describe happens about 6-10 miles AFTER
| I stopped caloric intake.
| hinkley wrote:
| 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.
|
| The tricky word there is average. If Tadej can absorb an extra
| 5 grams per liter, then you should give Tadej an extra five
| grams per liter. If Jonas can absorb 2 grams less per liter
| than the average then you should give him that serving.
|
| These race results come down to mere seconds per hundred miles,
| for cyclists that are averaging 20 miles an hour. Any 1%
| difference is going into the training regimen.
| ricw wrote:
| that is outdated advice. for one, some people sweat more than
| others, the salt levels in the sweat is totally different
| too. this means that if you're really serious about sport or
| are doing endurance races (ie 2 hours+) you should really not
| just use gatorade, but something where the mix of salt/water
| is closer to whatever you're sweating.
|
| if i personally use gatorade for endurance exercise, i'll
| just cramp up after 90 minutes and not be able to ride
| normally. if i use a high salt mix instead, this isn't an
| issue whatsoever. I'm sure the exact same is true about food
| itself. remember that for the tour de france, last years time
| difference between the winner (Vingegaard) and the second
| (Pogadcar) was 8 minutes out of 82h 05' 42", aka only 0.16%
| faster overall. every single sub-percentage matters here.
|
| there are tons of products that cater to this. the one i've
| been using is https://www.precisionhydration.com/ which is
| cheaper and more tailored than gatorade (i have no
| affiliation to them).
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I basically just add salt to Gatorade and cut it with extra
| sugar and malto. It's a couple extra steps but I train
| regularly enough that I make a concentrate (100ml=200kcal)
| that I put in bottle and dilute as needed.
| hinkley wrote:
| One of the runners I mined for training advice was using
| gatorade to take salt tabs. That was not the advice I
| took from him, though. I will probably avoid at least one
| injury from other things he said.
| hinkley wrote:
| Yeah I wasn't talking about electrolytes, just calories per
| minute. The top level was about glucose monitoring not
| electrolyte monitoring.
|
| It's funny that Precision uses almost exactly the same
| bottle as Nuun.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| > that is outdated advice. for one, some people sweat more
| than others, the salt levels in the sweat is totally
| different too.
|
| People forget that. They just follow "salt is killing you"
| advice, meanwhile I sweat salt like it's water. Last race I
| did had the sense to add salty potato chips to their rest
| stops... I didn't cramp up.
|
| Meanwhile Gatorade is absolute trash for electrolyte
| maintenance for someone like myself.
| hinkley wrote:
| The people drinking a gallon of water (not fluids, just
| water) a day are often flushing out electrolytes. There
| are a lot of things you might expect a doctor to yell at
| you about in an ER but from what I understand coming in
| with heart palpitations triggered by low potassium due to
| over-hydrating is a good one.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I still use Gatorade because I'm a cheap bastard.
|
| The limits aren't wrt water absorption, but gut tolerance of
| sugar.
|
| I get about 100g of sugar into a bottle by doing roughly
| 50:50 Gatorade and maltodextrin, and then throwing in some
| extra Na an K salt if it's going to be hot. Although with the
| super hi carb stuff you should make sure that you have some
| plain water as well - it sucks to be super thirsty but only
| have carb drink on the bike.
| hinkley wrote:
| Sibling comment explains about the maltodextrin. I'll have
| to read up more.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| There are multiple kinds of carbohydrate and the differences
| can matter.
|
| Gatorade's ingredients list shows sucrose (glucose+fructose)
| and dextrose (glucose).
|
| Maltodextrin is isotonic in a 6x stronger solution than
| fructose and glucose. This means you need to drink
| meaningfully less water during a race to digest maltodextrin.
| So do we want all maltodextrin? Nope! Fructose can be
| absorbed by a separate pathway, which is less efficient, but
| increases your total intake of carbohydrates into the
| bloodstream.
|
| So you're probably not going to see Tour de France teams
| giving their riders Gatorade. You want more maltodextrin and
| less glucose.
| vgt wrote:
| Powdered sugar is 50/50 fructose and glucose, a close to
| perfect ratio for absorption. A dash of Gatorade powder for
| taste and you got yourself a drink that's inexpensive and
| gets you all the carbs you need.
| hinkley wrote:
| I forgot about the Fructose pathway. Yeah that's been known
| for ages.
|
| It turns out though that maltodextrin didn't exist in
| manufactured quantities until the mid 1970's, which was
| after Gatorade was a national brand. That they never
| changed their formula is disappointing but maybe not
| surprising (especially after Quaker Oats bought them in
| '83)
|
| But none of the 'sports drinks' that Coca Cola and friends
| were pumping out in the 90's had maltodextrin in them to my
| knowledge. It was just more sucrose and glucose, so its
| star fell a bit more recently.
|
| Do you know when the isotonic research was done? I don't
| have any recollection of that being even mentioned in the
| tests I talked about.
|
| Also maltodextrins are made from wheat in Europe and a
| problem for celiacs.
| ruszki wrote:
| They count it as gram per hour. If I remember well, pro
| cyclists can absorb 2-2.5 times as much carbohydrate in an
| hour than beginners.
| Someone wrote:
| > 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.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Maximum calories per liter sounds like something you really
| want to avoid unless you are engaging in extremely intense
| exercise.
| WalterBright wrote:
| 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.
| rfergie wrote:
| > 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
| brazzy wrote:
| > 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.
| ydant wrote:
| 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 something like Soylent and protein
| powder and supplements. To see them chowing down on "normal" food
| and drinking alcohol (at all) was surprising for me.
| gullywhumper wrote:
| 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 winning a stage
| at last year's Vuelta a Espana (one of the major multi-day
| stage races) Sepp Kuss took a huge long chug on the podium -
| and then went on to when the entire race [1]!
|
| Some riders used to drink during races too. Freddy Maertens was
| able to do it and still win [2].
|
| [1] https://www.atwistedspoke.com/sepp-kuss-champagne-
| supernova/
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_Maertens#Alcohol
| jdietrich wrote:
| 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.
| deff wrote:
| 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.
| flosstop wrote:
| 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.
| cptcobalt wrote:
| Really, hidden motors in the tour? That would be an
| interesting read.
| kergonath wrote:
| No, not really. These motors exist, but it's not really a
| thing on the Tour de France. And I only mention this race
| because I am not much of a devotee and don't really follow
| the others, but I would expect quite a lot of noise if it
| were a thing in the other big races.
| fuzzylightbulb wrote:
| Mechanical doping, a problem so wide-spread that only one
| person at the elite level has ever been found to have been
| doing it. To date, no one has ever provided hard evidence of
| another rider using a motor. I am not saying that this
| doesn't happen at the amateur level (it certainly does) but
| to imply that this is a pervasive problem in elite cycling is
| little more than a baseless conspiracy theory until someone
| shows up with some actual evidence of motors being used in
| major events.
|
| Ghost in the Machine [1] is a great podcast on this topic.
|
| [1] https://play.pocketcasts.com/discover/podcast/de6ba1d0-91
| 32-...
| fsckboy wrote:
| the long history of cheating at the highest levels of every
| sport indicates that if there is not mechanical doping in
| cycling, it's because the mechanical technology is not as
| good at hiding yet as it needs to be. We are talking about
| human beings here.
| hinkley wrote:
| 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).
| jdietrich wrote:
| That's basically already a thing. There's a big market
| for older riders who want a little bit of discreet
| assistance on their group ride.
|
| https://www.orbea.com/us-en/ebikes/road/gain/
| hinkley wrote:
| To my eyes, that bike obviously has a battery in the
| downtube. But I'm not the average person where bikes are
| concerned so perhaps I should have said, "a bike that
| would fool other bicyclists."
| hinkley wrote:
| Only one person has been caught. It's been a long time
| since I bothered to look into this, but LeMond suspected at
| least half a dozen people, with video evidence of varying
| degrees of plausibility. The thermal imaging and the fallen
| rider with the spinning wheels were especially damning.
|
| But if you're analyzing old races how do you get a
| conviction? You can't.
| freejazz wrote:
| > with the spinning wheels were especially damning
|
| No it wasn't. Wheels spin through crashes all the time.
| matsemann wrote:
| And if this is the Toms Skujins case, it spins for like 3
| seconds on video after the video cuts to him. It's
| obvious that he just had lifted his bike up and spun the
| pedals to see if everything was in order before biking
| on. And when an alternate video later was released, this
| was proven to be true.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| I found that podcast terrible. At the time I knew nothing
| about road cycling and that podcast left me with the
| impression that it's a pervasive problem and a grand
| conspiracy. It wasn't until I spoke about this with some
| real road cycling enthusiasts that I realised I had been
| taken in by a bullshit conspiracy theory.
| kergonath wrote:
| They do systematic checks for the winner, whoever has
| suspicious performance jumps one day, as well as random
| racers. They do take it very seriously and what you are
| saying is a bit far from the truth.
|
| Some people will try, and some scandals will happen, sure.
| But it is not a widespread problem and is unlikely to become
| one.
|
| See here, for example:
| https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/tour-de-
| fran...
| hinkley wrote:
| I've lost track of how many bike changes I've seen and I've
| only watched the first 3 days of coverage so far.
|
| Plus if your lieutenant uses a motor in order to pull you
| up to the front, then your bike is clean.
| xcskier56 wrote:
| Through axels have become a very convenient excuse for
| bike changes. Watching Cavendish have his wheels changed
| in one of the early stages this year was so slow. It took
| a guy with a drill like a minute plus to do front and
| rear wheels.
| hinkley wrote:
| I just learned about through axles last fall. And narrow-
| wide chain rings (mountain biking). I used to keep up
| better with the tech changes.
|
| I only caught the end of that wheel change when I
| realized the mechanic was holding a Milwaukee cordless
| and Bob(?) was talking about it.
| jdietrich wrote:
| 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...
| deff wrote:
| Impossible to use mechanical doping now with the current
| inspections. Has it been used before these inspections were
| implemented? Very likely. An hungarian engineer developed a
| motor with spools in the rims and the stator in the forks.
| For sure at some point this offered a better risk/reward than
| PEDs.
| hinkley wrote:
| Greg LeMond was one of the people calling for more scrutiny
| of bikes for mechanical tampering. One of the best pieces
| of evidence he provided were thermal cameras pointed at
| bikes while they were in motion. Lots of thermal blooming
| in places no professional bike mechanic generate a tenths
| that much friction.
|
| One of the problems is that bikes can be made so light with
| unobtainium that there are rules in place requiring a
| minimum weight so that poorer teams can compete. So if you
| make a bike that's 10 lbs you have to stick weights into it
| to bring it up to spec. What else could you put in that
| bike besides chunks of iron pipe?
| freejazz wrote:
| Weight minimum has nothing to do with teams being poor,
| it has to do with having a safety minimum.
| bluecalm wrote:
| Bikes being too light and needing weight added to rich
| 6.8kg minimum is a tale of the past. With aero frames,
| disc brakes, deeper wheels and bigger cassettes most TdF
| bikes are way over the minimum, sometimes more than 1kg
| heavier.
| hinkley wrote:
| At the Track and Field qualifiers for the 2024 Olympics they
| kept talking about how one of the runners was disqualified from
| Tokyo because she violated the whereabouts rules. They didn't
| say how.
|
| Is that like parole where they check in, or is it like house
| arrest where you have an ankle monitor?
| xcskier56 wrote:
| It's a bit of both. If you're an athlete being tested at that
| level, you have to keep your country's antidoping agency
| informed of your whereabouts at all times. They will randomly
| send testers to wherever you are and you have a short time
| window, like 1-3 hours to show up. If you no-show 3 times (I
| think) it counts as a positive test and you're banned. I
| really don't know how someone could run in the trials with
| too many missed tests and not be allowed to race the
| olympics... I'm pretty sure the rules are the same.
| hinkley wrote:
| If you missed 2 before the trials and another after? I
| could see someone being on final notice before the trials
| and then fucking up again.
|
| But they didn't actually say how and when she was DQed,
| just that she missed the Tokyo Olympics due to breaking the
| whereabouts clause. There are clearly favorites at the
| trials and if someone 'should' have gone I could see
| announcers making the speculative leap.
| Someone wrote:
| The athlete may have had a third failed test, but still had
| time to protest that. There have been examples where
| athletes filed changes to their schedule, but doping
| authorities missed those and ended up at the wrong place
| for a random test, for example.
|
| (Having to file your whereabouts is horrendous, by the way.
| https://www.wada-ama.org/en/athletes-support-
| personnel/provi...:
|
| _"RTP athletes are required to provide the following
| whereabouts information on a quarterly basis:
|
| - Home address, email address and phone number
|
| - An address for overnight accommodations
|
| - Regular activities, such as training, work, and school,
| the locations and the times of these activities
|
| - Competition schedules and locations
|
| - A 60-minute time slot for each day where they'll be
| available and accessible for testing and liable for a
| potential 'missed test'"_
|
| That "60-minute time slot" sounds somewhat reasonable, but
| (https://www.wada-
| ama.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/At_a_Gl...): _"And
| remember, athlete can be tested anytime and anywhere - not
| just in their 60-minute time slot!"_
|
| Miss a plane? Plane delayed? You may have to inform your
| doping agency. A loved one suddenly ends up in hospital?
| Before you rush to go there, report where you'll be.
| hinkley wrote:
| The simplest would be dead battery on a solo run. I've
| killed mine on a workout before. I've also delayed a
| workout to charge and ended up regretting it.
|
| More likely you're young, mad fit, and have some energy
| you want to burn off with a friend. You've heard about
| the Olympic Village.
|
| No way do I want to tell some official whose apartment
| I'm visiting.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> Riders are tested a lot and have to provide year-round
| whereabouts for random testing.
|
| If I remember correctly, these rules were changed after the
| Armstrong scandal where he would be scheduled for testing, he
| would say he was at his house in Texas. The testing folks would
| show up and he just wouldn't answer the door and wait until
| they left so they couldn't test him. It was one of the ways he
| was able to dope on a set schedule, all the while being able to
| maintain he was being tested more than any other athlete - when
| in reality, he was just avoiding being tested.
|
| It seems like a lot has changed since his scandal and several
| others that followed and they've really clamped down on what
| you're saying, changes in blood values and getting suspended if
| you cannot be reached for testing.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > and getting suspended if you cannot be reached for testing.
|
| Hard to believe it took a scandal for that to be a rule.
| daanlo wrote:
| Afaik that was already the rule 25-30 years ago when
| Armstrong was cycling. I can remember track and field
| athletes being banned when they didn't show up for surprise
| tests. So either cycling was more lenient or he got a bonus
| treatment because he was famous.
|
| On a side note: much harder today to not be available/found
| than it was 30 odd years ago.
| matsemann wrote:
| There is an app where you have to give your whereabouts for
| one hour every day. If you don't fill it in or are
| unavailable at the location for that hour, you get a strike.
| Three strikes in a set period and you will get a ban as if
| you had been doping.
|
| One problem with the system is that it relies on countries
| being strict with their athletes, which they aren't
| incentivized to do. Also, it's easy to "be available" but not
| get tested by going somewhere remote for a height camp for a
| few weeks.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Like Russia where the testers were running the doping
| program.
| bluecalm wrote:
| Like Spain when there are legal problems with testing on
| weekends.
| lormayna wrote:
| Guess why only Basso and Ulrich get disqualified after
| the operacion Puerto and why Spain dominate in almost
| every sports for more than a decade.
| TuesdayNights wrote:
| Cyclist need to log virtually everything they consume (food,
| water, medications), on top of declaring their whereabouts
| and biological passports, in case they return a positive
| test. I'm not disagreeing with the "price of admission" for
| competing in the world tour shouldn't be high, but I can
| imagine it's stressful that something as simple as drinking
| water from a tap could, effectively, end your career.
|
| Lizzy Banks goes into great detail about her experince with
| doping control and trying to overturn a positive result due
| to a contamination. It's a long read, but if you're a fan of
| the sport it's super interesting. https://lizzybanks.co.uk/
|
| It was also discussed here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40612281
| frereubu wrote:
| The part about not eating too much fibre because it irritates the
| gut reminded me of an amusing anecdote in Dan Martin's
| autobiography, where he talked about coming (I think) third in
| The Tour and was sitting with Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas
| from Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers) after the finish in Paris.
| He was looking forward to a big burger and chips, and Froome and
| Thomas were discussing how they were really looking forward to a
| nice salad (i.e. lots of fibre). He partly admired the
| dedication, but at the same time wondered how on earth they could
| live like that.
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| Salads can be really good in Paris! :D Martin might just be
| imagining a slice of tomato on a leaf of lettuce, Froome and
| Thomas might have been imagining a range of herbs and roasted
| nuts with a delicious oil or vinaigrette, chunks of an
| interesting cheese or two and some powerful olives and garlic.
| Or thereabouts.
| frereubu wrote:
| Yeah, I'm sure he knows that - he lives in Andorra - but I
| read it as him being surprised that of all the tasty things
| they weren't allowed to eat (as the article makes clear the
| food during the Tour tends to be pretty bland) the first
| thing they'd crave is a salad.
| lormayna wrote:
| I remember Fabio Aru saying that he was allowed to eat a
| pizza once in an year, at the end of the season. This is
| one of the reason why several modern cyclist had a mental
| breakdown like Tom Dumolin
| Optimal_Persona wrote:
| Tomorrow's headline: Turd de France - How professional cyclists
| poop (or don't) on the road...
| hinkley wrote:
| Don't poop on the road, poop in the bushes.
| hinkley wrote:
| Runners also warn about high fiber being bad. I keep being
| drawn back to our friend the Banana.
|
| I think pectin is easier on the stomach than insoluble fiber,
| but I have a lot of gaps in this part of my knowledge.
|
| The cheeseburger calls to us all. Some of us are just "better"
| at resisting the call.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> The cheeseburger calls to us all.
|
| One my trainers when I was in college told me that when you
| crave foods, its not your lack of willpower, its actually
| your body telling you it needs certain nutrients. He told me
| when you crave chocolate its because your body needs carbs,
| so if you get some carbs, your chocolate cravings will go
| away.
|
| I'm guessing the idea you crave a cheeseburger is the same
| thing, his body was in need of complex carbs and protein?
|
| This is purely anecdotal evidence of this, but in my
| experience as an endurance athlete (soccer, cycling,
| adventure racing) its seems to work. When I've craved
| chocolate, I just eat some toast or chips or drink some Mt.
| Dew (a lot of people have no idea how many carbs are in soda)
| and the desire for something chocolatey goes away.
|
| As others have pointed out in the thread, everybody is
| different, but in my case, this idea seems to be accurate.
| hinkley wrote:
| Protein and fat, but probably mostly salt.
|
| One year I bumped into a friend of a friend at the checkin
| for a 3 day bike tour and we decided to 1) ride together
| and 2) see how fast we could do it. Short rests, riding
| hard, drafting the entire way. All day, in the Labor Day
| sun.
|
| On day two after we pulled up to the stopping point, we got
| set up and then crawled back on our bikes to ride to the
| other side of this small college town to find the Dairy
| Queen for a bacon cheeseburger. It's not the best tasting
| beef I've ever had (that was in New Orleans), but it was
| the best tasting burger.
| hinkley wrote:
| In a completely unrelated anecdote, one day on a club ride
| we were almost to the turnaround point for the day. The
| town was on a hill on the far side of a river valley and it
| was a relatively nasty hill. One of the older guys was
| falling off the back and I and a few other people heard him
| yell something but we couldn't make out what it was, so we
| dropped back to see if he was okay.
|
| He had yelled "CHEESEBURGER!" as a rally cry.
| mikedelfino wrote:
| Someone told me once that food cravings are often driven by
| our gut's bacteria. We eat what they want us to eat.
| mckn1ght wrote:
| Probably because they consume the nutrients before our
| bodies can, so our body says "more of that please!"
| hinkley wrote:
| That's the theory that we're all high on sugar because
| our gut bacteria are feeding us neurochemicals.
|
| There's certainly circumstantial evidence that's true.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Lol what's the nutritional case for drinking Mt Dew to
| avoid chocolate?
| bluecalm wrote:
| Pure carbs are better than fat and protein if you're
| about to start or are in the middle of long endurance
| effort.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| That any human can complete a race like this is still mind
| boggling to me, regardless of what you eat.
| philshem wrote:
| > "The food I make is all transparent," says (chef) Blandy.
| "There are no rich sauces, it's all plain, simple cooking with a
| light amount of seasoning, light amount of oil, fresh herbs and
| citrus.
|
| That's some top-notch nominative determinism.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Aptronym: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym
| tdumitrescu wrote:
| Hey if they wanna pay me for real transparent food I'll cook
| them up some "Emperor's New Hollandaise"
| abcd_f wrote:
| Hey, there's a sub for that!
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/NominativeDeterminism/
| frankhhhhhhhhh wrote:
| A great basic formula I stole from NorCal Cycling's YouTube
| channel for coming up with a nutrition plan for a bike ride is:
|
| TRAINING TIME(HOURS)x60=CARBS(GRAMS)
|
| https://youtu.be/WNhOAIMDmQ0
| gield wrote:
| = 1 gram of carbs per minute of training
| wnolens wrote:
| I recently participated in an 85 mile race, and all the
| nutritional advice boiled down to.. drink a water bottle with a
| ton of pure sugar and some table salt every 10-20 miles. Bananas
| and gummies etc. were had, but mostly because they're pleasant to
| consume.
| vlachen wrote:
| Interestingly, that same advice was offered to recruits in U.S.
| Marine Corps boot camp for the final series of tests and
| challenges, known as The Cruicible. We were directed to put the
| salt and sugar packets from our MREs into our canteens and chug
| them. Disgusting, but effective.
| wnolens wrote:
| Fastest possible carbs to process and electrolytes. Works
| surprisingly well
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| 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
| temporarara wrote:
| That's really the kind of fun that is completely missing in
| most of today's professional sports. Everything is just too
| good and planned ahead for my tastes to be worth actively
| watching. The surprising elements still around, like crashes
| and injuries, are just not that exciting at all.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'd get rid of the radio communication with the rider. In
| Formula 1, too.
| lmm wrote:
| PBP still runs every 4 years if that's what you want - there
| are official food/rest areas (there have to be with that many
| people) but no motorised support allowed. Sports cycling races
| are for an audience that cares about the racing and athleticism
| rather than random luck, and I don't blame them for it.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > "Instead of putting flavour in with cream, salt and butter
| we're adding it with herbs and citrus because they are low
| calorie and contain antioxidants."
|
| Aren't they trying to maximize calories?
| mvdtnz wrote:
| If you think you have no interest in cycle road racing I strongly
| recommend watching the Netflix series Tour de France Unchained. I
| watched it on a whim with no interest whatsoever in road racing
| and I found it addictive and it got me hooked on the sport (to
| the extent I can be hooked - UCI is a garbage organisation that
| makes it as difficult as possible to actually watch it).
|
| Start with series 1, even though it's 2 years out of date. They
| explain how the sport works, and they skip over this in series 2.
| It's important information.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Watching the TdF, I wonder how the cyclists cope with the
| motorcycle/car right in front of them spewing exhaust in their
| faces the whole race.
| hervature wrote:
| They obviously breathe in exhaust occasionally but the caravan
| tries to stay far enough that there is no slipstream and the
| wind would make it a non-issue. Those dunces that light flares
| during mountain summits are probably much worse.
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