Tour de Frans Fuel – Secrets of team cuisine – BBC News in Serbian

Several weeks ago Previous Tur-Fransa, in the middle of a chaotic planning, which concerned Eight cyclists and more than 10 vehicles that served as support and cruising the country, the main chef of the race team EF Education-Easypost Oven Blanda got a message from one of the hotel where the stay is planned.

Due to further unexplained reasons, Blandia was told that it would not be allowed to use hotel cuisine, nor will it be able to cook in its equipped truck on the hotel possession.

If he wants, he may be able to oversee the hotel chef during food preparation, but will not be allowed to do it within the kitchen itself.

For a man who had the task of preparing food for a professional cycling team during the most important race in a competitive calendar, this was not very great news.

It, however, has not excited it.

« It was okay, » Blanda shrugs.

« I had a little more exciting for a few days until I prepared my own kitchen. »

Personal experience has gained on the road that was cumulatively for more than a year during large cycling races and it taught him to receive blows like this.

« There are no perfect working conditions in cycling, so you always have to be ready to adapt and be flexible, » he says.

If the hotel decided to prevent the team cook to prepare food, then it should be reconciled with that.

Not so long ago, the dietary dietary approach is quite basic.

The cyclists had a cramped and monotonous choice of options – paste, rice, or anything, the night hotel cuisine could provide.

The approach is different today.

Huge sums of money are spent on special food preparation trucks, personalized disposal applications and precisely planned nutrition regimes – all this in the name of the athletes performance improvement.

For nutritionists and cooks who have a task to provide and support the power of cyclists in the upcoming 3,500 kilometers of race, there are only two dilemmas: what foods prepare and how to do it constantly changing.

All responses come from the data collected during the process that begins in December to the pre-season trainings.

And while the athletes grind their own form and prepare for numerous races that are ahead, statisticians diligently collect data to better understand their nutritional needs.

« We know their bodies, their metabolisms, know how much calories burn, we know how their trainings look, their intensity, and the amount of calories that will burn, » says Martin Redegeld, the head of the nutrition team in the team WISMA-LEASE A BIKE.

,, The work of the heart plays an important role. We check that after each training. In certain parts of the season in laboratories, we test lactation and breathing and so we compile detailed profiles for each cyclist « .

As one of three teams, with UAE Team Emirates and Ineos Grenadierswhose budgets are dominant in relation to others, WISMA-LEASE A BIKE He sought to position himself in the very top of teams that take care of the diet.

Partnerships with universities aim to ensure that the « team provides a competitive advantage in relation to competitive teams, » said Redegeld.

Since competitors burn somewhere around 6,000 calories during the tour (about three times more than an adult during the rest), in WISMA-LEASE A BIKE They began using artificial intelligence to make precisely determine the colic and type of food that every athletes should consume individually.

Personalization has become absolutely necessary and that’s why the team developed Own app In which various algorithms are used in order to generate individual nutrition plans.

When a runner returns after the day spent on a bicycle, its application opens that precisely shows the amount of each nutritional component (brain hidrates, proteins, fats) that needs to be put into its plate.

It is only necessary to take advantage of this information as if it was a buffet table.

And while the methods used to generate precise nutritional needs are different from the team to the team, everything is eventually reduced to a daily plan – breakfast, snacks before the race, nutrition during the race, a meal of recovery and dinner.

The basic principles of nutrition remain on the whole race, with some settings that depend on special requirements and whether a mountaineering specialist is or is Sprinter, whether it is a team driver or a placement candidate.

Carbohydrates, usually in the form of paste or rice, are used as fuel that provides a high level of consumption.

Proteins, before all chicken or fish, are always unprocessed, while the low-level fibers would not reduce irritation and improve digestion. Fruits and vegetables are most often consumed in liquid form, like Đusevi.

Vegetarian people usually use protein shakes, with vegetable origin proteins, such as tofu or silent.

Cyclists are sometimes allowed to use more vegetables and fibrous food before the plain stages, while red meat meals are used as a treat before the day rest.

The food consumed during the race cyclists are given in the bags that twinkle around the shoulders and in which there are different foods rich in carbohydrates.

Energy tiles, gels, drinks and rubber candies are a quick entry during heavy stages.

Some more traditional food choice includes soft cakes from rice, brioša, sandwiches with jam, pancakes, sweet hops and other cakes for less strenuous days.

The required amounts of food are inevitably huge. Every bicyclist consumes close to 1.5 kilograms of rice or pastes every day and approximately 120 grams of carbohydrates per hour while on a bike, which is the equivalent of carbohydrates containing in five bananas.

One cyclist once, during a three-week race, he entered four servings of maple syrups.

In Bland’s laptop, there is a real mild nutritional information that allows it to form a menu.

The table helps to compare all nutritional values ​​of individual types of food and decides whether he will cook a meal with eggplant or pacchinat, cinema or cousin, chicken white meat or battles.

EF Education-Easypost The team also has a kind of recipe Bible in which there are numerous soups, salads, carbohydrates, proteins, side meals, desserts, snacks after race and drinks.

In order to avoid dietary monotony, repeating meals is maintained at the absolute minimum during the three-week race.

« The food I’m preparing is completely transparent, » says Blanda. « There are no saturated seasons, everything is simple, usually cooking, with a very small doses of spices and oils, with fresh medicinal travmas and citruses ».

« Instead of tasting forimmer, with sour cream, salt and butter, we add a spice plants and citrus because they are low-calorie and contain antioxidants ».

This preparation does not belong to innovative kitchen exhibitions that you can see on television or in expensive restaurants.

« When I train new chefs, I always tell them how the only way is to ruin the meal to act large cooks, » says Blanda.

« You need to swallow your own chuvary ego and put it in dessert or save it for the end of the race. Then you can do what you want, but never experiment with ordinary things such as carbohydrates and whites. Give the guys what they want and they will be happy « .

« I used to prepare a risotto earlier, and they just wanted plain basmati rice. They are not on vacation here. They are not interested in Fancy food. They are literally here to pour the fuel in them. « 

Blanda estimates that he has stayed so far, and he was cooking, in more than 300 hotels during his engagement in EF Education-Easypost Team.

This nomadic nature of the job was produced by numerous logistical headaches.

The working day of the chef at the France tour begins about six in the morning.

They have to prepare a fresh breakfast (breaking foods are unpacked the night before) starting at eight o’clock, before the package and departure to the next hotel while the race takes a great time.

In addition to food preparation, the cooks are responsible for the purchase of groceries.

This task varies depending on the team itself and, which is crucial, a team sponsor.

BLANDE’s experience with European supermarkets benefits him in the sense that he always knows where he can find the highest quality food and it is most often bought.

In addition, he advance sends to the purchase of orders for the acquisition of easily perishable foods.

In contrast, WISMA-LEASE A BIKE For years, this has been sponsoring the Supermarket Jumbo, which delivers all the necessary food before each race, including Tur-France.

« During the race, new delivery arrives three times from the Netherlands and is filled in the supplies of fresh products, » said Redegeld.

« It’s always the same Dutch food and guys love it because they know exactly what they expect them, and we know what foods are in question, so it’s always available to us. »

« This makes things easier for cookies that don’t have to search for local stores for various things. For me as a nutritionist, which I know all nutritional values ​​of all products, this greatly simplifies the whole process « .

Upon arrival at the hotel, the chefs start preparing dinner and breakfast and snacks for the next day.

Professional cycling teams comply with one of two ways to form dinner.

Many travel with pre-equipped kitchen trucks, sizes similar to those vans supplied by supermarkets, in which food stores and prepares.

The food is then served by cyclists and other team members in private rooms at the hotel.

Several selected teams, among them it is Ineos GrenadiersInstead of these vehicles, use much larger trucks in which kitchen and dining room are located.

The friendship between the Couvers of the Super Teams is at a high level.

« You used to be in the hotel with six teams, so parking spaces are used, » says Blanda.

« It’s crazy. Everyone shares water and electricity. So we have to help each other.

« Other cooks approach me and ask for some ingredient, or I go to them for something. We help each other, « he adds.

This is all miles away from three consecutive weeks of paste and tomato sauce to which cyclists are not to get used to the effort that requires tour de Frans.

Redegeld stipulates that this nutritional evolution will continue and believe that the teams of the analysis will also use the teams within the next ten years and thus lift the dietary personalization to an even higher level.

But all these analyzes are useless if there is no one that will be food and prepare.

At the beginning of last year, Blanda was preparing for a quiet weekend at home when the call arrived from his team.

He only had 30 minutes to pack all his belongings and catch the airport taxi, because his colleague cook from EF Education-Easypost The team became sick before the beginning of the race of Paris-Rubejks.

« I packed my knives and put them in the suitcase, » he said. « I felt like I belong to special cook trunks. »

Cooking is a serious job in the world of elite cycling.

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