Can pro cycling fix its disordered relationship with food?

Team insiders are hoping education holds the key to the curse imposed by “watts per kilo”.

Nutritionists and trainers to the world’s elite are reframing the emphasis in the power-to-weight equation and leaning into the “carbohydrate revolution” in a mission to mend the peloton’s enduringly problematic relationship with what’s on its plate.

“Cycling is a high-performance sport, and we are expected to function at our highest level. And a big part of that is being lean,” Decathlon-Ag2r racer Larry Warbasse told Velo.

“I’d say we all have disordered eating habits, but not many have ‘eating disorders.’”

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The history book of bike racing is stalked by tales of Tour de France riders picking the centers out of bread rolls at dinner and fueling five-hour workouts with a piece of fruit.

The race for peak power and minimal body mass made food became as much as a foe as a fuel.

Disordered eating behaviours – the results of an unhealthy preoccupation with food – rippled all through the pre-modern pro peloton, and still do to this day.

But now, the tone is starting to shift.

The professionalization of the sport and an increased duty of care by employing teams means an ethos of “eat or be dropped” – rather “be dropped if you eat” – is starting to take hold.

“There’s an ongoing issue with weight and disordred eating. It’s an unfortunate, inevitable part of this kind of sport,” Ineos Grenadiers nutritionist Aitor Viribay Morales told Velo. “But things are changing.

“We are now in a different era of cycling where almost everyone is educated and fuelling to perform to their highest level,” Viribay said. “By performing at the top level, riders arrive to the correct weight ‘naturally’. Body composition and weight isn’t now the main goal for us.”

Eat to perform: ‘If you get the nutrition wrong, the training suffers’

The modern peloton races harder than ever before, all year round. Power numbers increase and KoMs are shattered with every passing race.

On-bike carbohydrate intake has risen as much as 50 percent to match the demand placed on riders in the warp-speed peloton of the Tadej Pogačar era.

And that increase in race fuel has sped the peloton even further.

The result? Training is intense from January through December, and off-seasons of excess are all-but over.

Any rider that doesn’t fuel a cycling engine that’s roaring red hot will soon fade out of the frame of an increasingly wild WorldTour.

“We try to teach all the guys that you cannot see nutrition and training as seperate entities. If you don’t do your nutrition right, your training will be less effective. So one always goes with another,” Visma-Lease a Bike head of performance Mathieu Heijboer told Velo.

“If you get the nutrition wrong, the training suffers. And that of course can impact a rider’s contract, or their career.”

Also read: Fueling the Tour de France: Inside a grand tour rider’s gut-buster diet 

A rider’s calorie consumption during a spring monument or at a stage of the Tour de France can climb toward a number in the 8,000s.

Even an “easy” day of training – perhaps a two or three hour easy ride – could require a rider eats up to 4,000 calories just to keep the legs turning through the sessions to come.

One day of off-key nutrition will hinder recovery to the point that it ripples through the week that follows.

“Our nutritionists set us up with an eating plan. That makes it a lot easier to maintain your weight,” Israel Premier-Tech climber George Bennett said.

“If you follow your normal training diet, you’re never hungry,” he said. “The struggle is to eat enough, not the other way around.

Meal-plans devised by team nutritionists or spat out of bespoke food apps put the emphasis on “more is more” for riders at the top of the WorldTour.

“If you want to have the power in training you need to be fueled,” Bennett said. “Sometimes it’s eight at night and I’ve had dinner, and I still need to have 1,000 calories by the end of the day.”

The complications of watts per kilo: ‘Riders will always have a paranoia about weight’

Pro cycling is won with watts, but is cursed by power’s relationship with weight. Even the burliest of cobble-bashers won’t have been overdoing the frites ahead of the spring’s upcoming brawls.

Riders are required to report regular body mass readings to team staff, and DEXA scans or old-school callipers check for body fat percentages at team camps.

The 24/7 requirement to manage meal-sizes – whether big or small – is problematic.

While a rider can sling their bike in the garage after a day of hard graft, they can never forget their portion control.

“Things are generally a lot better than before, and the worry about bad behaviours has reduced to some extent. But of course, riders will always have a paranoia about their weight. The risk of disorder is always there,” Viribay said. “We just have to hope as a sport we can minimize it.”

Even riders at an “ideal” mass suffer a preoccupation with their plates, and disordered eating behaviours continue to pick at the pro peloton to this day.

Osteopoenia caused by excessively low weight has become one of pro cycling’s occupational hazards, and a non-sporting medic would shudder at a WorldTour cyclist’s BMI.

Also read: Study shows bone health problems in pro cyclists

More concerningly, the risk of RED-S (“Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport”) shadows the skinnier pro cyclist.

Hormonal malfunction, nose-diving mental health, and flat-lining performance can result from this misaligned distribution of a body’s resource, and has ended careers.

What is Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport?
Simply, RED-S is a mismatch between energy intake and exercise energy expenditure. When food consumed doesn’t provide enough energy to fuel normal body functions, optimal exercise and training.@MargotRogers_ https://t.co/A2xG7ukiPC pic.twitter.com/Nph3FdgJQc

— Sports Dietitians Australia (@SportsDietAust) May 1, 2019

Although the narrative is shifting toward fuelling for performance, old-school mentalities still linger in the pro peloton.

Combine those with a rider’s-own super-competitive internal expectations and the W/Kg equation is never far away.

“Whether it be a little comment here, or a director grabbing your stomach there, the importance of weight is constantly reiterated to you on the rocky road to the top,” former Hagens Berman Axeon rider turned gravel privateer Joe Laverick wrote in his blog.

Movistar veteran David Cimolai believes he “threw away two to three years” of the start of his career due to disordered eating behaviours.

The Italian cited a poor culture in some of his former teams and his own lack of understanding as the cause of what became a career-threatening disorder.

“You turn pro and think that being lightweight is the only thing that matters. But maybe that extra kilo is the difference between going strongly and stopping riding,” Cimolai told Bici. “I learned that at my own expense.”

Educating away from disordered eating? ‘Riders start to realize how much they have under-eaten in the past’

Misinformed and over-ambitious riders will continue to underfuel, under perform, and eventually burn out.

But at the very top of the sport, teams are racing to reframe the feeding narrative. Riders are now encouraged to eat to perform so as to maximize the training potential.

“I always try to make the riders think about what is coming up for the next session, and then fuel accordingly,” Bora-Hansgrohe nutritionist Tim Podlogar told Velo. “Avoiding disordered or problematic eating habits is about education.”

The theory of “fueling for the work required” became popular late last decade and is being pushed by staff as far as possible.

“We manage the balance between weight and power by being careful how we distribute calories, especially carbs. If there’s a high-intensity session to do, the nutrition for the day will increase a lot for that,” Podlogar said.

“But what they eat the day of an easy ‘base’ ride, that might be different.”

Fuel for the work required. If you’re going to be doing a lot of work, you need a lot of fuel ⛽️ https://t.co/qFwKT7tRQc

— Andy (@AndyTurner132) July 2, 2021

Increasing numbers of teams now use proprietary apps to help riders thread the needle between watts and weight. They – theoretically – ensure training is fully fueled, but not overloaded.

“The app determines daily how much fluid, carbohydrates, protein and fat the rider should consume, based on the planned training sessions. These amounts are spread over several meal moments so the rider can perform optimally,” Alpecin-Deceuninck performance manager Kristof de Kegel said of his team’s “Foodmaker” platform.

But how healthy can it be to have your portion sizes served up by a smartphone?

Visma-Lease a bike’s performance guru Heijboer believes his WorldTour-topping team’s “Food Coach” app liberates riders from a fear of food.

“The app helps prevents the wrong eating behaviours,” Heijboer said. “All the riders who are new to our team and that start using it realize how much they have under-eaten in the past.

“They’re surprised when they see how much more they need to eat to properly adapt to their training. More volume of food, and eating more regularly.”

Elsewhere, teams like Bora-Hansgrohe believe better understanding of nutrition empowers riders toward healthy eating habits.

“I don’t like to make riders weigh food. They can if they want. But when they start working with me we teach them how to fuel appropriately by ‘feel’ and knowledge,” WorldTour nutrition guru Podlogar said.

“It’s about them understanding what types of food, and quantities, are most important or appropriate for their next session and the time of year.

“Giving them the education gives them an element of self-responsibility and better satisfaction.”

UCI intervention or self-regulation?

Nutritionists and medics are leading the way in dragging pro cycling away from disordered eating habits.

But can more be done by the sport’s overseers?

The International Federation of Sport Climbing – the climbing world’s equivalent of the UCI – recently mandated athletes undergo targeted RED-S and eating disorder screening before being granted a license for the 2024 season.

It was one of the first targeted policies of its kind, and is seen as a breakthrough in the world of elite performance.

Other weight-focused sports like running, rowing, and gymnastics are also toying with similar regulations, or have introduced some measures to keep a handle of athlete’s health.

Yet in pro cycling, the path away from disordered behaviours is left in the hands – and plates – of team staff and riders.

“This lack of regulation [of body mass and fat percentages] could jeopardize the well-being of cyclists and the sport’s image in the long run,” concluded a study out of the University of Bern that investigated the downtrend of BMI in pro cyclists.

“The UCI could consider implementing similar interventions, taking inspiration from other weight-sensitive sports. These may include prevention and awareness campaigns, screening programs, and BMI-based guidelines for elite-level riders.”

Would mandated minimums nudge pro cycling away from disordered eating behaviours?

They would help save athletes’ health, but when weight matters as much as watts, racers will always be stalked by the bathroom scale.