Depending on the stage, runners can lose 2 to 4 kilos. It is therefore necessary to eat, but respecting strict rules: slow sugars in the morning, refueling in the musette for the day and white meat and steamed vegetables for dinner, and especially not alcohol or «miracle products».
In the company of the cyclists during the last dinner of the Tour de France before the finish in Paris. The journalist asks Bernard HINAULT about food during and after the race. The latter is eager to be able to eat in restaurants and drink wine: "When we go out of this tour, there are still good small restaurants, we will know how to taste". The diet of the tour is indeed drastic, vegetables and pasta.
The refueling is always awaited by the cycling riders. Before mounting the collars, they are given small musettes containing fruit, sandwiches, sugar and water. Calories needed to complete the race. Interview of the refuellers.
A cyclist spends more than 6,000 calories per race. The need for food is therefore substantial. The cyclist Jean-François BERNARD states what he eats before leaving: "tartlets, rolls, continental breakfast and immediately after the full meal, pasta, rice". The rider Stéphane ROCHE explains that he has the same diet, "it’s a minimum because during a mountain stage a rider can lose 2, 3 kilos"