Check out Chris Froome’s interview on “The Move Podcast” starting at 34:40 (link below). Let me know what you think.
What is “the whole wheel”?
(A bit of trivia/historical background for anyone still following this thread:
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Greg Lemond was the first pro cyclist to travel with a personal chef. He was aghast at how poorly the Europeans ate during the TdF, being at the mercy of whatever private hotel the organizers booked them into served up.
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In the 1990s, Asker Jeukendrup used to travel with the Rabobank team during the mountain stages of the TdF, looking after the rider’s nutritional needs. However, he was adamant that he always left the room when the doctors came in.)
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There seem to be many comparisons here in nutrition and training for the 90s-early 2000s Tour and the current Tour, but I think it misses the real point.
What does the training look like at 18 for these riders? How sophisticated is the nutrition & recovery for Lance in 1987 vs Froome in 2002 vs Pogacar in 2018. Minor differences in a 3-week race can add up, but over a decade it will lead to revolutionary leaps in performance.
The other factor is a wider variety of athletes are able to thrive with more modern training knowledge and tools, or at least fewer are going to be burnt out before reaching their potential. We’ve developed training methods that go beyond what works best for the experienced but still young elite male athlete adapted to high-volume training. Better knowledge of periodization, tracking of training load through PM/HR, and nutrition on the bike and recovery mean more athletes can get to that level who wouldn’t have had the feedback on why a season wasn’t going well previously.
I find the advancement in training & performance for female athletes to be the best showcase of these modern methods. There are a lot more stories of the dark side of older training mindsets, but going forward you’ll keep seeing impressive results and success stories from better recovery protocols, nutrition, and load management.
How about faster tracks and supershoes?
David Epstein, the sports science writer, once wrote a story about Jesse Owens vs Usain Bolt. Owens ran a 10.3 in Berlin. It was extrapolated that he would have ran a 9.7 in modern shoes on a modern track. Bolt may have still beat Owens but the point is that Owens would have been competitive in the modern era on his 1930s training methods.
(Someone please specify what you are talking about when you mention “modern training methods” and please explain which of them are the game changers.) I’m curious because people keep throwing out this term but it’s not really clear to me what super secret intervals or methods Pogacar and ISM know about that Lemond and his coaches did not know about.
One the one technique I see grand tour riders doing is multiple training camps to altitude per year.
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Apparently Mark Cavendish on Geraint Thomas’s podcast also suggests that fueling activities in accordance with what the science tells us is the biggest change he’s seen during his career, though I’m sure that excludes the doping that was still going on in the early 2000s when he started.
And from what I’ve seen this year, and heard on The Cycling Podcast…
Instead of the normal ebb and flow of some Tours, when domestiques go back to the car and get bottles and mustered etc, this year’s Tour a lot of teams have put staff up the road with with bottles and gels, so the pace doesn’t have to slow down as much, and this has contributed to the ‘always on’ feel to the racing.
So the riders are getting a much steadier flow of nutrition and energy. Imagine that helps greatly with the recovery as well.
This kind of supports the idea that “modern training methods” are really non-existent.
and don’t forget the peloton is using ketones, which I’ll lump into fueling/nutrition. If you agree then its a small step to claim ketones is the biggest performance leap in on-bike nutrition. Well, and they use it off the bike too. Legal EPO for the win.
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I can certainly say that juniors were training with power 10 years ago, and i know some that were using power 20 years ago
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I have recently noticed that a sleeve of Peeps Chicks (5 of them) is pretty much the same nutrition as a GU gel, except…more carbs. And, more joy.
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What’s the glucose to fructose ratio? 
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I think it’s very important to point out the extensive body of scientific research on Peeps, as well:
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I’d argue that on-bike nutrition is the biggest marketing leap of the 20th century. Sugar is not a revolutionary concept…it’s been around for millennia.
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@Abe_Froman Vaccines have been around for hundreds of years, and yet, people actually using them as recommended will, one hopes, be one of the great public health achievements of, well, whenever it is achieved… To return to the subject of the thread, I don’t think anyone was suggesting that sugar had just been discovered or invented.
High fat diet for high performance bike racing is without a doubt the biggest advancement. Eating fat means you tell your body to burn its own fat and the dietary fat erases bodyfat, much like if you write on a chalkboard with chalk, you also erase the chalk by adding more chalk. Pack a couple slim jim’s and break them open with 5 miles to go and use your carnivorous teeth to rip into them and the fat and protein stimulates your primal instincts and you have infinite power. WADA knows how powerful this is, but can’t actually test for it, so instead of busting people for exogenous fat intake, they just claim it was EPO as to hide the evidence. I literally have seen people loading up IV bags with corn oil and mainlining it before Tulsa Tough and they FLY up crybaby hill as if there was a 2kw motor in their frame. Think of it, it’s well known that metabolic flexibility is a key indicator of performance, and threshold power is more of a factor than just raw vo2. This is because oxygen isn’t really needed for fat to produce energy, so if your fat game is strong, you make power all day long. Pros go as far as to hide the potent effect of fat by becoming as skinny as possible as to hide their fat abuse, trying to convince each other that they can’t even burn fat because they don’t even have any fat on their bodies. Meanwhile when they get to their team vans they crush the canola. Remember when Colavita had a race team? What do you think happened to them? Obvious answer is USAC banned them because they were using supra physiological amounts of olive oil. The high fat causes insulin insensitivity, which is good, because that means you need more insulin to function properly, and since insulin is an anabolic, you basically gain more muscle, as you see by the muscularity of all of the top level world tour riders. The only people dismissing the keto diet are the people that know it works, and are simply trying to not give away the secrets of their advantage! If everyone did it, then what sort of advantage would that be.
But really, the biggest advancement is nutrition, and realizing that fasted training and starving yourself only has negative effects.
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This is a strawman argument…of course on-bike nutrition / sugar intake has been around forever. No one is claiming differently. The step-change that has arguably occurred is the scientific knowledge re: amounts consumed and, to a lesser degree, the timing of it.
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@lee82 wow, bit emotional about all that, eh? 
Shots fired!!
Alllright… how 'bout these beans on your salad!?!? 
[In a tone of very friendly ribbing jest! ]
Don’t worry, just have a twinkie, some gummy bears, or a chocolate bar, and you’ll feel better… for about 13.4 minutes… and then you’ll need to go ahead and grab a few more…
And don’t forget to consume literally the equivalent of 2 entire cans of Coke worth of sugar per hour during WOs, right? 80g?
Perfect! Yes, it entirely sounds natural and healthy to require a constant injection of liquid glucose for your body to function well.
You know, if the glucose bombers took insulin shots on the bike too, instead of just the glucose, they could jam even more sugar per h across their circulatory system’s membranes into their cells! No inflammation to arteries or veins there! And hey, then they wouldn’t have to wait until they’d given themselves full blown Type 2 Diabetes to get used to taking the shots, they’d already be all set! 
“But the pros…”
Yes. Because actual, real humans should definitely model their health & nutrition behaviour after a group of twenteenagers who have notoriously been either pressured or self-motivated to do whatever it takes to their bodies to win, including taking horse steroids, and whom crank out 300 - 450+ w for extended periods of time, multiple times a week, during tours.
I know my body definitely needs to use the same ultra-rapid-access-to-massive-amounts-of-fuel strategy that Jonas Vinegegaard’s body needs!!! And Jonas and all the boys would agree, what they are currently putting their bodies through is definitely healthy, and they plan to live like that for the rest of their lives! Not for the short term, to make milions, and then retire, and live a lifestyle that is actually healthy.
Because I definitely don’t like just going for a 1, 2, 4 hr bike ride ranging just below to well over threshold, and having the bloody time of my life, and just enjoying my day, and have infinite energy, forever, on nothing but water and salt!!
I want to spend hours bent over my phone calculating and pre-strategizing, doing “research” online about which sugar is the better sugar, or trying to figure out what forms of ultra-processed chemical poisons cause my stomach the least amount of protest; twinkie bars, oreo cookies, Coke, or gummy bears!! And of course I want my day of riding in the sunshine interupted constantly by the need to constantly be stopping and smashing this vile sludge [ “…I find I can stomach warm Coke better than Gatorade once it gets hot”… Mmmmm! Sounds lovely!!!] , and / or the onset of blood sugar crashes and low energy stints when I fail for even a 20 minute period to proactively, manually manage my blood sugar…
…not that I have anything in common with a full-blown Type 2 Diabetic…
Because that is a disease!! This is a HOBBY!!! I do this for PLEASURE!!!
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I love it! Playful banter is what we need more of. Thank you!
That said, high fat diet causes diabetes, not fruits, juice, potatoes, or sugar. High fat diet decreases insulin sensitivity, especially with high amounts of oils that cause oxidative stress, where high carb diet increases it and makes you healthier. #trustthescience
I mean I don’t have a ridiculously high 400w 20’ power, but it’s like 340-350. My intake needs on a 5 hour day after burning 4000 kJ isn’t less than a world tour rider that just did 4000 kJ. I know people in their 40s 50s and 60s crushing hundreds of grams of carbs a day, just like me, winning national level masters races and have great health. My body is already lean and will be insanely lean by the time summer rolls around, on 500-1000 grams of carbs a day. Ever seen a T2 diabetic with 350w ftp and single digit bodyfat? Me either =)
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LOL, right on! Glad it was received as intended!
Hmm, interesting. First time ever I’ve heard HF decreases insulin sensitivity. Legit.
Unfortunately we live in a world where there’s too much money influencing science. True, pure science these days seems harder to find than a Canadian that has never said ‘Eh’ !! I know this makes me sound like a science-doubting, tinfoil hat wearing idiot, and I hate that it does. Years ago, I was “Trust the science. Period.” Now it’s “Trust science.” But sadly, filtering through the trash, to find science, now seems to be the person’s job. Which has lead to… eeeeexcellent results, because of course, we’re all super qualified to do just that! 
Often, one of the most powerful and valuable lenses is just common sense. [Again, tinfoil hat talk, I know.]
If I tell you I have an Alexandrian library full of genuinely flawlessly designed & executed studies that prove that pigs don’t exist, you really don’t need to see any of them, or pay me much time.
When we drink sugar, it goes directly into our blood, fast. - Yes.
We know it has to be maintained in an extremely tight range, or we can go into a coma, etc. - Yes.
Is the hormone that stimulates cellular uptake of sugar from the bloodstream insulin? - Yes.
So is it dumped into our blood in large qtys when we consume sugar? - Yes.
And we can easily monitor this. The insulin response of foods, etc. Without getting into complex study design, with ___ participants eating _____ diets, over _____ timelines, blah, blah, blah.
We can just have someone at an insulin baseline eat a bunch of fat, or drink a ton of sugar, and watch what happens to their blood glucose, and blood insulin levels. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.
We can also monitor the blood insulin levels of people who eat high amounts of fat, and very low amounts of carbs, and spread their meals out in time. It tends to be very low. And that makes sense, right?
I mean, if person 1 eats two lbs of bacon only, once a day, and we check their insulin level over that 24 hr period, we know damn well where that insulin level will be. There’s no spike in blood sugar when they eat it, so not a lot of insulin. And 12 hrs later, it’s definitely near zero. No?
Similarly, if someone chugs a can of Coke, once an hour, on the hour, and we check their insulin level across 24 hrs, it’s going to be high. Right? Or no, we aren’t sure?
And if two people get on a bike, and start cranking out 200 - 250 W, and one can do that for 60 minutes on water only, and the other constantly needs to be ingesting sugar, or they crash, we know damn well what’s going on with insulin levels in their bods. Right?
We also know, all of us, even you, I’m sure, that off the bike, sugar is a disastrous health mess. It is the cause of Type 2, full stop.
So we’re saying that this thing is a health disaster off the bike, but on the bike, is healthy… 
Your FTP / sustainable is very impressive! Genuinely. May I ask how many hours per week you train, and for how many years you’ve been training / racing? Just wondering if your hrs / wk may have a significant effect, not just the sugar / low sugar thing.
I’m way way less powerful!! Was at 215 W for a while. But have only been doing structured for about 18 mo, with a ton of very long breaks due to life. Have increased 15% during this time, and plan to get to 250 - 280 in the next 12 mo. I only do LV, 3.5 h / wk, + recovery impacted by 1 - 2 swims / wk 2 - 3.5 km at SS - Race / Sprint pace. My bike and swim power have continued to improve and show no signs of slowing down rate of improvement… at least so far.
I can swim 3 km steady, without a single breath break, in just under 60, and do rides 2 - 4 hrs without fuel, pushing. I never crash, never get low, and never “NEED FOOD, RIGHT NOW!!!”
Body fat is single digit, and all blood chems are perfect, for 24 mo now.
By all indications, it is going exceedingly well, and I’m very healthy.
IDK man… I’d love to be 350 W, but I’m not going to do anything and everything to my body to get there. I wouldn’t take PEDs, steroids, etc.
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