I took Trudi to the airport, here in Austin, to go to Europe yesterday. Normally she has already worked nearly 2 months by now, so I guess it is a late start for her. She flew to Belgium and is going straight to Paris-Nice as her first race. It is amazing how many hours those guys work in support of their riders. It seems so overkill in many respects, but it seems to work, so I guess it isn’t. She’s a little nervous since she hasn’t met Thor, Gilbert, TJ, and some of the other new guys. She usually would have done a training in Spain, but she opted to stay here and watch cyclocross instead. The BMC team seems to have a little more laid back attitude, so that is good.

Yesterday it was hot. Not really that hot, but it was pretty warm, but muggy. It was nearly 80, but the humidity was higher. We only rode 40 miles yesterday, all flat, but it was windy. Today we’re meeting up with Stefan Rothe and doing 6 hours. I’ve done the ride before and it is pretty cool, so I’m looking forward to it. I’m not sure my butt is looking that forward to it, but where I go, it goes.

I went to dinner last night at the Whole Foods market at 6th and Lamar here in Austin. That place is out of control. This is the corporate headquarters for Whole Foods, so I guess it has to be a little over the top, but this is ridiculous. I got a glass of wine while I walked around the store and shopped. I feel kind of fat for some reason right now. I’m not sure why that is since I’ve been riding a bunch and haven’t been eating too much because of this tooth thing. I ate a salad for dinner, but had a cookie for dessert. I don’t know if that helped, but I bet I don’t feel too fat after today. It is supposed to be nearly 80 again and muggy still. That is a sure fire way to burn some calories.

I’m staying with two young guys, Ben Stover and Austin Vinton. They both went to bed around 10:30 while I was just mulling around. Then during the next half hour or so, they both got up and marched up and down the stairs at least a couple times each to get some food. An amazing amount of food. They said it was for the ride today, but they were just hungry. It’s easy to forget how much food I used to eat at their age.

Trudi spread out organizing her stuff.

And at the airport ready to go.

This is what Austin brought back upstairs the 2nd time around after 11 pm.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time messing with different diets/nutrition throughout my cycling career. I was a vegetarian from 14 until the first time I went to Europe in 1980, so that was nearly 6 years. Then I kind of was a poultry and fish only meat guy, plus the normal vegetables, etc. That is kind of how I still eat most of the time, but I don’t have anything against red meat really other than I don’t think that fat from it does you much good.

One thing that I truly believe is that cyclists, and athletes in general, are way too consumed by what they put into their mouths. We are pretty lucky burning the amount of calories that we do. That means we get to eat a lot more food than the average person. By eating this massive quantity of food, we get way more nutrients than the average person also. There are a few things that we need more of being athletes, but the main thing is calories. I think after you eat a certain amount of “good food”, it doesn’t matter much where the rest of the calories come from. I know a lot of you are going to disagree with me on that statement, but you’re going to you have hard time convincing me otherwise.

I’d forgotten how much food that these 20 year old guys eat. They are eating probably twice as much food as Bill, Adam or I. Yesterday we all rode around 6 hours, close to 110 miles, and it was amazing the quantity of calories consumed during the day. Ben has got some wheat allergies and other food stuff going on. Austin seems to eat just about anything he can get into his body. But both of them are eating constantly.

I did a study with the government in one winter when I was 20 years old. They paid me $20 a day for nearly 4 months to sit up in a lab in Grand Forks North Dakota to train while eating 3 different diets. The diets were a saturated fat diet (70% of the calories), a polyunsaturated diet (same 70%) and a carbohydrate diet (same). Each was for around a month long. Lab techs weighed the food I ate down to 1/100th of a gram and I did max and sub-max VO2 tests twice a week. I was eating 5500 calories a day, mainly riding inside most of the time since the winter starts super early up there. I’d guess I was probably eating another 1500 calories or so a day more when I was racing outside during the season at that time. Anyway, I felt a ton different eating those diets. I could barely stomach the saturated fat diet. I felt sick and horrible nearly the whole month. I was a vegetarian when I went in and my cholesterol was off the low end of the charts when I first got there. After 4 weeks of that diet, it was 100 points off the high end of the range. But, that being said, my output on the bicycle for a max VO2 test or a one hour sub-maximal test didn’t hardly change at all. On any of the diets.

I ate pretty good then. Lots of fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grain breads. But usually every night when I was on the road, such as the Tour of Texas, the Coor’s Classic, etc. I’d eat a pint of Hagen Daz ice cream. Nearly every night. When I got to that study in North Dakota and had to eat the 5500 calories, it was nearly impossible for me to stomach the quantity of food they were serving. It was something like 2 chicken breasts boiled in oil, plus a whole pyrex family size serving bowl of mashed potatoes, made with non dairy creamer, plus 8 slices of bread and a couple large glasses of whole milk. They finally had to split my 3 meals a day into 5 meals, just so I could eat the right number of calories and not loose weight. I was used to eating way higher caloric food that took up much less volume – ie. ice cream.

I think the movie Super Size Me was bullshit and completely unfair to McDonalds. That movie was about gluttony, plain and simple, and had nothing to do with the quality of food his was eating. It was all about the quantity of the food he was trying to consume. I’d bet you a million dollars I could eat at McDonalds for a year straight, 3 meals a day, and not have any ill effects or performance issues in cycling.

When I first started racing I used to take a bunch of vitamins. A handful a couple times a day. Now I take fish oil at night, when I have them, and just about nothing else. I figure that by the amount of food I consume, it would be nearly impossible not to get enough nutrition from it. I’ve been using salt for about 6 months now. I’ve never put any salt on my food, but a Swiss nutritionist came and talked to the BMC guys last year and told the riders to eat as much salt as they could stomach. I’ve always had a cramping problem, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it for a while. Other than that, I eat just about anything I want. I think I eat pretty good. I don’t eat hardly any processed food, but am not really against it, I just don’t like it as well as fresh food.

So, to wrap this up, I don’t think you need to worry so much about what you eat. That is unless you are just consuming too much and are showing the signs of that. Other than that, eat what you like because one of the big fringe benefits of riding your bike all day is you can eat a lot of food all night.

Here's Adam with a piece of carrot cake, a dark chocolate Snickers bar, a jug of Gatorade, plus a Starbucks double espresso shot at the 75 mile pit stop.

Ben got some jalapeno Kettle Chips and washed them down with a RedBull.

I'm not sure what these chips Austin had were. Bungles or somethig like that. I didn't really get the chips during the ride thing going on today. I just had a cup of coffee and called it a day.