The Tour de France is one of the most physically demanding competitions across all sports. This year’s race started July 4 in Barcelona, traverses 3,333 kilometres and lasts three weeks with only two rest days. The 21-stage event features eight mountain, seven flat and four hilly courses, with cyclists averaging about 225 km on their bike and expending up to about 7,000 calories a day (the average active male burns 2,800-3,000 calories a day).

Replenishing those calories is key to sustaining the effort needed to ride with the pack over the three-week Tour, including the numerous high-intensity pushes that can last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. Success in the Tour is often attributed to the ability to produce and sustain the intensity needed to hold or improve position, so making sure the body is well fuelled is important. And since a common team strategy is to push the pace early to tire out the competition, maintaining the energy needed to sustain power output later in the day has become even more important.

“Nutrition support is increasingly recognized as a critical performance factor in road cycling,” said authors of the review Race Nutrition for Road Cycling published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. The review outlines “recent advances in race nutrition support for........

© Montreal Gazette