Читать книгу One More Croissant for the Road онлайн

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Modern pro teams travel with their own chef, whose job it is to keep the supply of low-salt, high-protein, easily digestible food and drink coming: as Sean Fowler of Cannondale-Drapac delicately put it in a 2017 interview, ‘intestinal stress’ is less than ideal in a tour situation. That means rice rather than glutinous pasta, lots of fish and white meat, and definitely no salty ingredients that might lead to water retention. Understandably, no one wants to carry a single extra ounce up an Alp.

Sickly energy gels and bars are handed out to riders en route, along with rice cakes, fizzy drinks (‘for a bit of pleasure’) and the odd ham sandwich, if they’re lucky. On particularly tough stages, however, competitors struggle to find the time to swallow all the calories they need and still keep up with the race – ‘You kind of have to force it down,’ according to current pro Joe Dombrowski. I literally cannot imagine burning 7,000kcal in a day, and not stopping for a bar of Milka. In fact, so much wasted opportunity for sugar makes me feel a little bit weepy.