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Fueling the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix calls for a menu as monumental as the cobbled monoliths themselves.
Kilos of rice, endless energy gels, and multi-meal recovery plans have become mainstays of the modern spring classic nutrition strategy.
“Flanders and Roubaix are the longest and most intense days of the whole year. The feeding is crucial to supporting that,” Jayco AlUla nutritionist Laura Martinelli told Velo.
“The increased duration and stress means the amount of carbohydrate riders need to be competitive is enormous … it’s crazy to see them eat,” she said. “But it has to be that way. If you get the feeding wrong, you’re dropped.”
Meeting the demand of a day that burns up to 6,000 calories requires a 72-hour commitment to the church of carbohydrate in the cobblestone “Holy Week”.
So let’s look closer.
Here’s how monument favorites like Mathieu van der Poel and Mads Pedersen will fill the furnace and keep it roaring hot through the fury of this weekend’s Tour of Flanders and the pain of the following Paris-Roubaix.
The ‘carb load’: Calculating the caloric equation
Power files from recent monuments show that cobblestone champions burn up to 6,000 calories while they piledrive across 270km of pavé.
That’s close to three times the daily intake recommended by national health bodies.
A meticulously planned carbohydrate load will have Van der Poel, Pedersen, and Co. click between easy shakeout rides and heavy workouts with the knife and fork in the days before go time.
A properly executed “carb load” increases carbohydrate proportions at the expense of proteins and fats.
It’s a carbohydrate frenzy that will max out muscle glycogen stores in preparation for the 1,000-watt moves over the Oude Kwaremont and Carrefour de l’Arbre.
“Flanders, Roubaix, and some grand tour mountain stages are the most work-intense of the calendar,” Martinelli said, referring to the kilojoule training load accumulated during racing. “That means we plan riders’ nutrition much further in advance.
“To achieve ‘glycogen supercompensation’ for the classics, we load from 48 hours before the start rather than 24, like we might with other races,” she said. “The energy demand is higher, so the preparation period has to be longer.”
There’s a carbohydrate revolution, and it’s speeding up pro cycling:https://t.co/XJcrs1FhOE
— Velo (@velovelovelo__) November 1, 2023
Martinelli will have classics thoroughbreds like Michael Matthews and Luke Durbridge carb-load for two days. Other team’s nutritionists keep the window tight at just 24 hours.
Yet whatever the loading time-frame, the science says athletes require 10-12 grams of carbohydrate per kilo of bodymass in the day before the most arduous endurance efforts.
For ~76kg Van der Poel, that works out at somewhere between 750-900g carbohydrate. For simple real-world context, that’s around three kilos of cooked white rice, or 3,600 calories.
Yes, three KILOS of rice.
But in reality, it’s not all rice.
Team chefs make things more palatable with 5* menus that craftily cram low-fiber, high-carb ingredients into appetizing packages, whether that be sourdough pancakes, fruit smoothies, vegetable soups, or you know it – heaped bowls of pasta and rice.
“Rice is now the preference carbohydrate for us, and we encourage it for our riders. It’s perfect race food. It’s super carbohydrate dense, gluten free and so it is easy to digest,” Martinelli said.
Pre-race breakfast: Rice, rice … and more rice
Race-day breakfast will see bleary-eyed riders top off their glycogen tanks in preparation for what’s to come.
Timed three hours out from race start to ensure complete digestion, it’s a 7am ordeal that would put most of us back into a slumber.
“In general, most riders will have four times their body weight in grams of carbohydrates at breakfast alone,” Israel Premier Tech nutritionist Gabriel Martins said. “I dare a normal person to try to eat this amount of food at breakfast. Most of us would struggle to do that in a whole day.”
Rice is the anomalous centerpiece of the modern peloton’s breakfast blowout.
Traditional morning choices like oatmeal, breads, and pancakes are available dependent on riders’ preference.
“Rice has become most common at breakfast now,” Trek-Segafredo chef Bram Lippens said. “It’s boring and can seem strange for some riders. But it works.”
But it’s not just carbs, carbs, carbs.
Small serves of egg white, yoghurt, and cheese act as low-calorie, amino-packed muscle-maintainers.
“Riders add some small amount of low-fat protein to reduce the risk of muscular catabolism. Otherwise the body could turn to muscle protein for energy during the race,” Martinelli said.
“Pre-race protein also helps speed the recovery process if they’re racing soon afterward – say if they race Sheldeprijs after Tour of Flanders, or if they go from Milan-San Remo to Catalunya.”
In-race: No room for ‘real’ food
To race hard, you’ve got to fuel harder.
Riders will push the potential of modern sports nutrition to the max in the six-hour interval workout of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
“The science in the new gels changed so much with fueling, particularly for the really intense races,” Martinelli said. “They taste good, are easy to open, and allow for far more carbohydrate to be consumed without GI problems.”
The “hydrogel” technologies and improved sugar ratios used in modern sports nutrition allow athletes to crush carbs without the worry of them coming back up and out.
That fueling revolution has resulted in a carbohydrate “arms race”. Riders now push their sugar tolerance skyward in search of new performance peaks.
“Year by year, the carbohydrate targets increase,” Martinelli said. “I started working in cycling in 2013, and at that time, 70-80 grams of carb per hour was the ideal target to be competitive.
“Nowadays, you need 100-110g at least.”
Van der Poel is among the select few capable of tolerating more than 120g of carbohydrate per hour.
In theory, if MVDP decides to race the six-hour Tour of Flanders purely on energy gels, he’ll have to slurp down 18-24 of the sticky sugary sachets – around 2,900 calories of carbohydrate – to achieve his fueling sweetspot.
That’s many times over what even recent champions like Tom Boonen or Fabian Cancellara might have managed in the earlier era of sports nutrition.
“Mathieu is a bit exceptional in that his uptake goes up to 120 grams, which he really needs,” Alpecin-Deceuninck performance manager Kristof de Kegel said.
“We all see the power that he delivers from hour to hour. So he burns it, and for that reason, the fueling is extremely important.”
In the world of pro cycling, the more carbs the better.
Nutrition brands are chasing the next breakthrough in the quest to deliver the peloton its newest, most effective superfuel.
We dive into the race for ‘more’:https://t.co/jO97pzMWQr
— Velo (@velovelovelo__) November 13, 2023
The rise of more gut-friendy, carb-concentrated gels and drinks means “real food” like rice cakes and wraps are being made redundant from monument musettes.
Unlike in a stage-race where “flavor fatigue” factors into nutrition choices, one-day racing is about fast food in simple packaging.
“Riders are preferring gels to solid food more and more in the classics,” Jayco-AlUla’s Martinelli said. “Some of them go all the way through Flanders and Roubaix just on drinks and gels.
“They might take some ‘real food’, but it’s more for the brain, just to change the texture or to offer something savory,” she said. “But we don’t see it as ‘functional’ fuel.”
The pivot away from “real food” goes further in the event of Flandrien weather.
Driving rain, blasting wind, or frostbitten bergs sees riders relying on super-strength drinks for their carbohydrate fix.
It’s a simple workaround that prevents the problems of frozen fingers rummaging beneath rain jackets.
And of course, caffeine is infused through the course of a monument classic.
The buzz-bringing, performance-enhancing effect of caffeinated gels and drinks is all the more essential when riders are grinding into a fifth and sixth hour of racing.
“In a classic, most of the guys going deep in the final will be hitting the maximum effective dose of 6mg caffeine per kilo body mass,” said Raff Hussey of Precision Fuel and Hydration, the nutrition partner to Lotto-Dstny and DSM Firmenich.
“Many riders sometimes skip caffeine on an easy day in a stage race, but the feedback we get is they can’t go without it in the big one-day races.”
Post-race: Don’t stop the sugars
There’s no respite from sugars when racing is done.
Carbohydrate remains king of riders’ diets for many days post-monument.
Fully refilling glycogen stores ensures recovery and hormonal health, and keeps riders rolling through the whole pro calendar.
“Riders now mostly get a juice after races. The main thing is to provide them with simple sugars; glucose and fructose to start replenishing the glycogen stores,” Bora-Hansgrohe nutritionist Tim Podlogar told Velo.
“Sometimes the juice is cherry juice as there is some evidence that this can help with recovery,” he said. “Then, they usually get some gummies or dates. Again, it’s simple sugars.”
Never forget you’re gummy bears….
Peter Sagan recuperates after Gent-Wevelgem #GWE
@Eurosport_DE pic.twitter.com/iQqn0yUEjj— Peter SagFan (@Peter_SagFan) March 29, 2017
Riders will be treated to a full drinks buffet when they arrive into the Tour of Flanders finish-line on Sunday or the Roubaix Velodrome next weekend.
Soda is commonplace, recovery-boosting ketone drinks are becoming more mainstream, and muscle-restoring whey protein shakes are essential.
Riders from Alpecin-Deceuninck, Soudal-Quick Step, and Visma-Lease a Bike will all be handed a ketone concoction after De Ronde as they think forward to the following weekend’s “Hell of the North”.
“Implementing ketones in the recovery nutrition helps recovery and lowers chronic inflammation and oxidative stress,” Alpecin-Decuninck team doctor Peter Lagrou said. “Both are very important in the prevention of illness, injuries, overuse, mental and cognitive fatigue.”
From the drinks buffet, it will be a bus-ride back to the team hotel, and the first “proper” food since breakfast.
Team chefs concoct restorative meals that tempt riders out of the appetite suppression that comes with the hormonal cascade of a monument-level effort
“Each rider will get a fresh pre-packed meal on the bus that was prepared by our chef, or there will be a buffet on board,” Martinelli said. “It’s usually rice, pasta, or potatoes, with a protein accompaniment like chicken or tuna.
“We also make sure its colorful with vegetables, and make sure it’s pleasing to eat. It can be hard for riders to ‘force’ food in after these races, so the meal has to look and taste good.”
The majority of the Tour de France peloton is taking ketones.
So why does this popular performance enhancer still cause division and debate in pro cycling?
“People think they’re a wonder supplement … No, they’re not some magic potion.”https://t.co/eUdqOUTXcp
— Velo (@velovelovelo__) February 13, 2024
A hotel check-in, scroll through Strava, and a massage later, and riders are in their sweats and waiting on team staff to prepare supper.
The night-time meal allows some relaxation from the clean-eating rigor – particularly if there’s something to celebrate.
Home-made burgers, lasagne, and brownies make for ample reward for these biggest days on the bike.
Every team will be hoping there’s cause to crack a token bottle of champagne, too.
The recovery window: Eating to the equations
Fueling for recovery is both an art and a science.
Chefs are required to dish up deliciousness. But before that, nutritionists nerd out over power files to assess almost exactly how many calories riders need to replenish.
“We calculate riders’ recovery targets rather than leave them to go by ‘feel’ or hunger cues,” Martinelli said. “When a rider is very tired and their appetites are supressed they could very easily get it wrong.”
Experts like Martinelli and Podlogar weigh a rider’s kilojoule-load from their power meter with their estimated caloric intake from the day so far.
The time a rider spent in their “fat burning” or “carbohydrate churning” power zones is then used to split the resulting deficit into re-loading targets per macronutrient.
“The numbers after Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix often show so much of a caloric deficit it has to be split across four meals,” Martinelli said.
“So it’s only after they’ve had food on the bus after the race, dinner, and then the next day’s breakfast and lunch that a rider is back on a level,” she said.
It’s just as well this year that the “Lent” fasting period of the Holy calendar finishes just before the “Holy Week” of monument racing begins.