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by ano-ther 963 days ago
How do they adapt between racing and less strenuous times? Must be hard to maintain that kind of eating discipline.
3 comments

Riders like Pidcock, Van Aert and Van der Pole will be racing all year round swapping between Road, MTB and Cyclocross.

In "Faster: The Obsession, Science and Luck Behind the World's Fastest Cyclists" Michael Hutchinson talks about how much effort Team Sky/Inneos into planing diets.

They copied the way doctors help cancer and terminally ill patients that have difficulty absorbing nutrients. The team use medical dietitians work out exact plans for each rider.

The final ingredient is guilt. Geraint Thomas talks on his podcast about how he could go off plan when no one is watching but that he knows it will come out when the team next meet up and start measuring performance. Guilt and fear of failure keeps them on the programme.

It's no coincidence that a lot of professional cyclist go a bit off they rails after they finally retire.

Some cyclists are suffering from burnout and end their career early. Think about Tom Dumolin
An army marches on its stomach, and so do cycling teams. Good teams make sure they have a good cook.

https://amacx.com/blogs/news/what-does-a-team-jumbo-visma-ri...:

“For more than three weeks, two chefs from the team prepare 5 personalized meals daily for each rider. They prepare these in their own fully equipped cooking truck using only fresh groceries from Jumbo. This ensures optimal hygiene at all times, and the exact composition of each dish remains known. Because 'taste fatigue' is a serious danger during an exhausting race like the Tour de France, the chefs ensure that the riders are never served the same meal twice. This way, the riders look forward to the next meal every time, and it is ensured that they can keep eating.”

If you see the hell professional cyclists put themselves through, eating discipline is probably the least of their concerns