Ollie: Sports nutrition. It hasn't always been about energy gels, bars, and electrolytes. Oh,
no. It's come a long way. A seriously long way, and you won't believe some of the crazy stuff that
athletes used to fuel themselves with in races such as the Tour de France 100 years ago. In this
vid, it's time for Retro versus Modern nutrition. [music]
Morning. Let's start with the beginning of the day and breakfast. Now, one of the most
popular breakfasts for cyclists in the world right now is a massive bowl of porridge. Many
of the world's top cyclists will eat a bowl of porridge before setting out on a ride or race,
or something similar such as muesli, or if you're in America, oatmeal,
or other grains, quinoa, if you're feeling particularly middle class, or perhaps some
rice and omelets are a popular choice too. Generally speaking, riders will consume
something that's high in carbohydrate with some healthy fats and some protein in there, too.
I'm all about porridge. It's my personal favorite thing to eat before a ride, and you can keep it
interesting by mixing it up with some banging toppings and get some micronutrients as well.
Nice. Of course, I'll be washing this down with a nice cup of coffee. Very popular these days.
Let's roll back the clock and see what the cyclists used to eat in the retro days.
My retro kit complete with my tub wrapped over my shoulders. Now, the first thing I can do is,
get rid of the cup of coffee because coffee wasn't widely drunk pre-race until around 1985 when the
first studies were published demonstrating it to be an ergogenic aid. Let me get rid of that, the
banana. Because meat was key. Meat was thought to give you energy, and you can see why they thought
that. Lions and cheetahs eat almost exclusively meat, and a lot of it. They're pretty fast.
Consequently, into the '60s, riders such as Eddy Merckx would regularly have light breakfast of
cheese and ham, and then would follow that up with a slightly more substantial breakfast of
steaks. Not just one steak either, as many as six. Merckx wasn't alone either. It would have
been common for cyclists up until the 1960s to eat something like this for breakfast. Probably
also accompany it with a nice glass of red. In the early days of the Tour de France, in the
early 1900s, riders drank a ridiculous amount of alcohol before, during, and after a stage.
By the way, if you think that this plate looks rather bare apart from the steak on it,
that's deliberate because it was thought that any accompanying seasoning or sauces that could
be added to your stake would irritate the vital organs, and so they were avoided. It doesn't end
there though, because cyclists used to also have a pre-race cigarette to help warm up the lungs.
I'm not going to indulge in a pre-race cigarette because I only smoke when I'm on fire.
Heading out on our ride in the present day, what are we going to take? Pro cyclists in the modern
era will typically have bidons or water bottles filled with water to stay hydrated, but perhaps
also some electrolyte in there as well to help replenish the minerals you lose from sweat,
and carbohydrate-based energy powders as well to keep the glycogen level stopped up
as you're burning through it. We'll also have a combination of probably bars, energy bars,
bananas still remain common, and flapjacks and rice cakes are very popular amongst
the pro peloton, again, to keep those glycogen levels topped up as you're burning through it.
Then further on into a race, riders will often consume gels as they're a very fast
and quick-release source of carbohydrate, and caffeine gels as well to give you that extra
ergogenic boost deeper into a race. I'm going to head out on a ride with a musette filled with
retro goodies to demonstrate just how different they used to fuel back in the day.
I'm now out on my ride and I've got my musette, my nose bag full of my retro tasty treats, but I'm
not allowed to start tucking into it yet, I've got to wait until at least 100 kilometers into
my ride. Why? Because that's the way they used to do it back then. The reason for this, it was just
de rigueur. That was just the kind of way they decided they did it. There wasn't a scientific
rationale behind it really. Modern science has taught us that we can fuel while on the bike
in much more effective ways than that. Riders who are doing the Tour de France in the modern era,
they'll typically be eating 20 grams of carbohydrates
every 20 minutes, little and often to keep the glycogen stores topped up.
The reason we know this, the reason why they do this is because a lot of top athletes, they do
physiological studies, gas exchange experiments in labs which can actually measure the amount
of CO2 they're breathing out and the amount of oxygen they're taking in, and therefore calculate,
based on the intensity of the exercise, the exact amount of carbohydrate they're burning through.
Modern riders will typically get their carbohydrate from a combination of sources through
energy powders dissolved in drinks, rice cakes are really popular, little panini sandwiches,
and also gels and bars. I'm going to pull over at the side of the road now so I can
show you what I've got in my retro bag. First up, in my bag of goodies in this foil packaging here,
I've got something that was very popular in early editions of the Tour de France, the lamb chop.
I've got four of these bad boys wrapped up here in tin foil. They probably would have used muslin or
something similar to wrap theirs. There you go. They're not raw, they are cooked. Be interesting
seeing how I get on eating those on the bike in a sec. I haven't just got my lamb chops.
I've also got a steak as well. Again, very popular food right up until the 1960s, riders
loved eating steak. Also got a banana in here. Riders were photographed eating bananas in 1926,
and they remain a popular food by riders now. Some things, they don't change. Also,
the little ham and cheese paninis I've got in here. I'm just going to find those. Here it is.
This is a little brioche roll that I've simply wrapped up and filled with ham and cheese. Now,
this is actually something that, again, riders still do eat today, but were still popular 60,
70 years ago. You're probably wondering what am I going to drink.
[laughs] I'm getting onto my favorite part. I'm going to save that surprise for later. [laughs]
Let's see how I get on eating a steak. I'm riding along.
This is really not what you want to be eating. This isn't sitting in my stomach,
feel quite heavy. Just weird as well having a cold steak.
Something else not to underestimate is the convenience of modern packaging. Things such
as gels and bars are so much more convenient to have in your pocket than a steak. Also, the modern
water bottle, the ergonomics of the modern water bottle with cap that can be pulled open with your
mouth, and they can easily be passed from a team car to a rider or from one rider to the other,
and they slot seamlessly into a modern cage. Again, as a functional tool to deliver
carbohydrates and fuel to the riders, they're so much better than what they had back in the
day which usually have to be unscrewed, making it much more difficult for riders to drink.
I'm going to put this stake back in the bag. I'll save the rest for later. Talking of hydration,
the effects of it weren't properly understood back in the day. That leads me on to the next
thing I'm going to show you, which is, what riders used to drink a lot of.
Who needs sports drinks? From 1900s to 1960, it was really common for riders in the Tour de France
to consume alcohol during the race, everything from wine, brandy, champagne and beer, were all
common place. The riders drank alcohol for a combination of hydration and, let's be honest,
probably fun. Now, in the 1935 Tour de France, pretty much the entire peloton stopped on stage 17
so they can share a cheeky libation with a local village and get boozed. One of the only riders who
didn't partake in the beer drinking, actually went on to win that stage, Julien Moineau. I wonder
if that was a coincidence. Another reason why alcohol was popular is because water sanitation
in the early 1900s wasn't what it is now, and there are a lot of water-borne diseases, and it
was often deemed safer to be drinking alcohol than water from random fountains and streams and places
along the route. I'll tell you what, I do think these lads were onto something actually.
The benefits of consuming carbohydrates as fuel in endurance events wasn't very well understood
and wasn't studied until 1939, but perhaps unknowingly, a lot of the more successful riders
were actually consuming, by fault or perhaps deliberately, a large amount of carbohydrate.
For example, Henri Cornet, the winner of the 1904 Tour de France, his daily diet
consisted of 1.5 kilos of rice pudding and 11 liters of hot chocolate. That's a lot of carbs.
Not much variety, but a lot of carbs. In early editions of the race, riders
didn't have teams, so it was actually common for them to scavenge for food on route, but later on,
even as far into the '60s, it was still considered de rigueur for riders to scavenge food by raiding
cafes and shops along the route. This is something that's depicted in the famous film, Stars and
the Water Carriers about the Giro d'Italia, the domestiques would get off their bikes, run into
a cafe and grab whatever they could, and then ride back up to the team leaders, such as Eddy Merckx,
and then give them a bottle of water or a baguette, or whatever they've managed to find.
A rider like Henri Cornet though wouldn't have had a musette bag like this to store his
rice pudding and hot chocolate in, that's because musettes only came into being around the 1920s,
around the time World War 1, and they're very similar to the food bags and musette bags that
were given to troops during the First World War. Something pretty cool is that the humble musette
bag, as a device for delivering food to riders on the go,
remains to this day, it's still a tradition in the sport that we see used in today's Tour de France,
it's simple, but very effective. It means riders can grab a bag full of food on the go without
stopping and just simply loop it around their body and get what they need from it.
Post-ride or race cyclists will replenish their glycogen stores, unfortunately not with that,
and also consume some protein as well to help repair and rebuild their bodies. This
is typically done with a combination of sports nutrition specific products such as this, but also
real food. Back in the Merckx era and also the days before that,
post-race or ride, it would be, you guessed it, more steak and some red wine as well.
Oh, great. This would also be accompanied this time with a massive portion of pasta. Those guys
were absolutely living the dream. Weren't they amazing? Not all riders did this. As
we mentioned earlier, Henry Cornet and his diet. A notable exception, in this case, would be the
great Fausto Coppi, known as the "Champion of champions." Fausto Coppi won pretty much
everything in the 1950s. His diet was said to be very different from his peers. He's said to have
abstained from red meat and alcohol, and even experimented with vegetarian diets. Coppi was
also the first big advocate in the peloton of a high carbohydrate diet while his rivals were
busy chomping down on steaks for breakfast and having a pre-ride cigarette to warm up
their lungs and chugging "Binda Zabaione," which is 20 beaten egg yolks mixed with some sugar,
basically egg custard roll. He was eating a diet of whole grains and lots of carbs.
Even had carbs throughout the race, which was rather radical at the time, so you'd have little
bits of fruit here and there, and also little sandwiches, little brioches and stuff to keep his
carbohydrates up, keep his energy levels going throughout the day. It's widely thought that
Coppi's high-carbohydrate diet helped him push harder throughout the race and avoid bonking
unlike his carnivorous rivals. At that time, his diet was revolutionary and radical.
Modern sports nutrition, as we know it today, really started to take off
in the 1980s, thanks to companies such as Enervit with its revolutionary protein bars
at the time. They helped fuel riders such as the great Francesco Moser to feats such as the
our record. Now, riders like Moser used a combination of science, technology and
nutrition to beat the feats of Eddie Merckx and the previous generation and their long-standing
records, and by taking this scientific and more modern approach. The world took notice.
Anyway, I hope you found this look at retro nutrition interesting. I love history. It's great.
In all likelihood, someone's probably going to watch this video in 100 years' time
and think, "God, I can't believe he ate porridge for breakfast. What an idiot."
Whatever. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed it. If you have, give it a thumbs up. Also, just like comment
down below in that. See you in the next one. Bye. [00:16:26] [END OF AUDIO]