HOW TO WIN THE TOUR DE FRANCE

What does it take to win a stage of the Tour or even the race itself? Cycling Plus investigates the physiology and skills required to triumph in the world's biggest bike race

- James Witts

1 FUEL TO THE FIRE

Tailoring nutrition on the go

When it comes to performance nutrition, few teams can match the rigour of current champion Jonas Vingegaard's team Visma-Lease a Bike. Sports nutrition scientist Asker Jeukendrup has worked with the Dutch outfit for many years and charted the lengths they go to in one of his popular webinars.

"Planning for the Tour de France starts months in advance,"he explains. "We know what the route is and then make a series of nutritional predictions for each stage. These are based on who's going to ride the Tour and a rider's physiology. For each stage and the potential role and goal of each rider, we can then predict their power output and intensity of effort, and so can predict energy expenditure and carbohydrate use."

"We know what the route is and then make a series of nutritional predictions for each stage"

This is where the team chefs come in. With this information, they can start to formulate meals for each stage. This can then be tinkered with as soon as the stage is over. "When the riders stop their power meters, all the data, including power output and calories burnt, is sent to the Cloud. The chefs can then work with live data and adapt their meal plans if necessary."

A real-life example is from stage six of the 2022 Tour de France, where Wout van Aert sat in the break for most of the day before riding the last part solo. "We based our calculations on Wout being in the break but could see he was on form so increased his predicted power output, which meant a greater carbohydrate intake," said Jeukendrup "Once he'd crossed the line, we were still below his actual power output so upped his carbohydrate intake again."