FOOD! (during the race)
 

does anyone know, or have any good links, about what the tour riders are woofing down mid-stage? at first i thought it would be a pretty straightforward answer, but with so many riders being from different cultural backgrounds, i wonder if what they eat differs from team to team or even rider to rider. i know it's all about maximum energy input, but palettes are palettes.

I know that Garmin has Dr Allen Lim who talks a lot about what the riders eat on the road and even offers up some recipes...actually I had one of the rice cakes on my ride yesterday and it was good!

http://www.examiner.com/x-9652-Seatt...werful-recipes

palate ;)

For the most part, the pro riders do not eat the typical supplement type race food (gels, power bars, etc). Most of what you see are small handmade sandwich-type things and sugary pastries/cakes made by the soigneurs. Musette bags in feedzones also usually have a small can of coke and perhaps a couple cookies. When I raced over there, I was completely surprised that I never saw gels and only occassionally saw sports bar type food (ClifBars and similar were pretty popular). Though its been 7-8 years since I was over there, I doubt things have changed and by seeing them eating out of handwrapped foil wrappers, it doesn't look like things have changed much. As far as drinks go...thats were it was much more common to see the electrolyte/carbohydrate blends (the most popular being PowerBar drink mixes).

I'd imagine some of the teams where the majority of the riders are one nationality (Euskatel for example), you would find foods a little more consistent culturally. Riders typically don't get specific food items unless they carry them with them since the feed zone can be chaotic and your unlikely to get a specific musette bag. Perhaps if a rider was in a breakaway, he might be able to ask for a certain item in his bag, but thats definitely the exception.

Garmin swears by Clif Bars.

I am curious though: what happens to the musette bags? Do they chuck them aside?

yes they do....and this year I've seen quite a few riders gulping down gels...including Lance.

Astana was feeding both gels/bars and cakes/pastries/sammies plus Coke on Saturday:

http://www.livestrong.com/lance-arms...-a5b04b6ec980/

Yeah, they chuck them and the crowd eats them up as souvenirs.

Oooh, do they sell those bags? They look great!

You can sometimes find them for sale. They're just cheap little cotton cloth bags. They're a cool souvenir and you can occasionally use them. They don't really stay put well on your back though and wouldn't stand up to daily use anyhow. Best use is the use they are intended for and then being thrown on the ground, snatched up, autographed and hung on a wall......

http://sporting-goods.shop.ebay.com/...=p3286.c0.m282

I have a La Vie Claire one signed by Hinault and LaMond. Serious treasure to me - did the snatching it up, getting it signed and hanging it on a wall thing myself. It's in a closet right now for it's own good (starting to fade on the wall). I should get it framed behind u/v blocking archival glass. Sorry.......

yeah i've seen these, anyone know what's inside?

One of the teams did an insider thing earlier in the season (during TOC, I think), and the soigneurs will put various things depending on the riders preferences. Obviously, because of the chaos, they cannot make a bag for each specific rider, but the make it a mix. This is why he riders can be seen trading food on occasion.

Also, if you notice, i believe that Lance's hydration mix is different than the rest of Astana, since he is carrying the FRS bottles, and the rest of the team are carrying Astana bottles. Not sure if that is because of a sponsorship deal, or what.

I saw a rider eating a Clif Bar the other day! :thumb: Hah, I laughed a bit.

Actually they do make up specific bags for at least some of the riders. But they also plan for things going wrong, so each team pretty much has a base setup that would at least provide something useful when things go wrong.