Originally Posted by ravenmore

I have no idea what studies he was referring to. That wasn't my quote but a quote from an interview of (I think) the author of Lance Armstrong's War. And hey, aside from the Mt. Everest analogy read the rest of it. Burning more than the equivalent calories than 28 cheeseburgers in a day is pretty telling about how hard the Tour is. Their bodies literally eat themselves because they burn more calories than is humanly possible to absorb in a day. And they do this nearly everyday for 20 straight days. That IMO has to put the sport of bicycle racing among the toughest out there.