Is this a rerun? I can\’t remember whether I\’ve posted about this topic before, but it sure is interesting.

What a TdF cyclist eats in one day is staggering. That breakfast alone sounds like a full day\’s food for me, or close to it. I\’ll skip the coffee, though. Maybe they\’d let me have mild, cold green tea instead?

Then more food an hour and a half later, before they even get on their bikes! I feel stuffed just thinking about it. It is said that pro tour riders need to eat a couple of hours before beginning a day\’s racing. Their food needs a chance to settle before they have to start riding. But then they have to keep on eating, while blazing along for hours at speeds that I, for one, can only dream of attaining.

After I\’ve been riding about two hours, my desire for food dwindles; especially if I\’m working hard against a headwind. It gets hard to eat, but TdF riders have to keep eating just so they can keep going. Not so easy, I\’m sure. All those bars, rice cakes, sandwiches, electrolyte drinks — oh, I\’m getting a bellyache! Bring on the Pepto Bismol!

The stage is over! Think the eating is over? Perish the thought! Right off their bikes, the riders down a recovery drink. Then there\’s dinner. And yet another snack before lights out.

My post-long Sunday ride recovery drink, chocolate whey protein powder in 8 oz skim milk, pales into nothing next to a pro tour rider\’s post-race snack. Those guys aren\’t only professional cyclists; they\’re also professional eaters! And after the day\’s stage is over, the next day is a rerun.