NUTRITION IN SPORT

employed indirect calorimetry or doubly
labelled water as techniques to measure energy
expenditure, while energy intake is usually esti-
mated by the reported food intakes of athletes.
The reported energy intakes, however, display
large variation and are susceptible to a number of
methodological errors. Besides that, there are
only a few studies available in the literature
which systematically looked at the food intake of
cyclists. Nevertheless, the few available studies
report mean energy intakes which are similar
to those of other groups of endurance athletes
and which range from 15 to 25 MJ · day-^1 (3500–
6000 kcal · day-^1 ) for male athletes (Erp van-Baart
et al.1989), cyclists in the Tour de France and

Tour de l’Avenir having the highest energy

intakes (Table 43.1).

During the Tour de France, mean food in-

take was 24.3 MJ · day-^1 (5800 kcal · day-^1 ) while

the highest recorded values reached 32.4 MJ

(7600 kcal) on the days of the long (300 km) stages

(Sariset al.1989). This indicates that the athletes

in the Tour de France match their energy expen-

ditures quite well with their food intake (Fig.

43.1), and they remain weight stable (i.e. main-

tain energy balance) during the entire race. Only

during the long stages with extremely high

energy expenditures could food intake not com-

pletely compensate for the energy expended. In

general, riders in the Tour de France remain

cycling 563

Table 43.1Daily energy expenditures (EE) and energy intakes (EI) in cyclists.

Race/category EE EI (MJ) Reference

24-h race NR 43.4 Lindeman et al. 1991

Race across America NR 35.4 Lindeman et al. 1991

Tour de France (peak) 32.7 MJ 32.4 Saris et al. 1989

Tour de France (mean) 25.4 MJ 24.7 Saris et al. 1989

Tour de France NR 24.3 Van Erp-Baart et al. 1989

Tour de l’Avenir NR 23.3 Van Erp-Baart et al. 1989

Amateur cyclists NR 18.3 Van Erp-Baart et al. 1989

NR, not recorded.

40

35

30

25

20

15

Energy expenditure (MJ) 12.5

Energy intake (MJ)

Alps

1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

rr r

Day

500 km

35

30

25

20

15

12.5

Fig. 43.1Daily energy
expenditure () and energy intake
() as measured in a cyclist
during the Tour de France. The
profile of the race as well as the
length of the stages are indicated
at the bottom of this figure. r, days
of rest. From Saris et al. (1989).