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With the Tour de France kicking off next week and several other big road races, such as the Giro d’Italia, recently completed, I’ve been following pro cycling closely lately. I have also been thinking about what to eat before, during, and after my own long recreational bike rides (including how to fuel for my first triathlons this summer).

For Epicurious’s recent story about healthy energy food, I talked to pro athletes Dara Torres and Shawn Johnson, as well as Garmin-Slipstream Pro Cycling Team member Timmy Duggan and the team’s physiologist, Allen Lim, PhD. They let me in on how the team stays in shape for training, sprints, and grueling all-day races. Here are a few key points, below:

Carbo-Loading: “The human body is like a house,” says Lim. “You’ve got to build a foundation and the basic foundation is carbohydrates, primarily in the form of rice, potatoes, and oats. Carbohydrates in this form give athletes energy and lean vitamins. Fresh fruits and vegetables are also important, and the more colors the better.” Bananas, honey, and oatmeal are good real food choices for quick energy. For short, intense events, the team downs simple sugars such as electrolyte drinks, energy gels, and energy chews (they use Clif Bar products).

Read more of the article.

Like several of you, I’ve been anxiously sitting in front of my computer reading live updates on Gent-Wevelgem, and watching the TV coverage of Pais Vasco, looking for blue and orange argyle. On one hand, I could be upset and gloomy about not racing too, but that does no good at all. Given the hand I’m dealt, the most productive thing is to cheer on the guys from the couch while doing as many isometric exercises as I can.

Instead of focusing on doing so many intervals at x watts and y hours on the bike, I’m finding that lifting my leg using my hip-flexor is my new challenge. I’ve started rehab in town and am seeing some rapid progress since leaving the hospital last week. At rehab, I’m using a Compex E-stim machine to work on contracting my quad and increase circulation. I can put a little weight on my right leg and move it around without using my hands. I’m moving around well now. I just have to allow a few extra minutes.

Lucky for me, one of our sponsors has a product that was invaluable to me the past couple of days. The NormaTec MVP is a compression device for the entire leg. Also known amongst our team as “Space Legs,” it consists of two full leg boots that are inflated by a pneumatic pump. Just like a massage, it promotes circulation and flushes out inflammation. On Wednesday, my right leg was so swollen I could barely fit on my jeans and it hurt if I stood vertical for more than a few minutes. The pain was not coming from my hip, but from the pressure throughout my leg. After using it on Thursday, my right leg is nearly back to the same size as the left and the inflammation is localized just to the site of surgery. I’ve also been wearing 2XU compression socks during the day to help with circulation. In short, I feel incredible today in comparison to two days ago.

I just hope to keep up the rapid progress over the next weeks. Getting back on the trainer will be a big milestone. In the meantime, join me in cheering on the crews at Pais Vasco and Roubaix!

Thanks for reading,

Blake

Provided courtesy of Saris Cycling Group

My older brother and his wife are going to have a baby in three weeks. It will be their first child — the first of our family’s next generation. Between baby showers and trips to ‘Babies R Us,’ I’ve been taking every opportunity to make fun of him, razing him that he’s not going to have enough time to make it to ‘Bed Bath and Beyond’ before he has to convert his “man office” into the new “baby room,” pulling down in the process all the plaques, awards, and pictures that have marked his well traveled career as a military helicopter pilot.

But, as I run amuck Peter Pan style all over France and as facetious as I am with my brother about becoming a parent, I can’t help and also take pause at the fear, hope, and simple possibility that exists as he and his wife settle into this next major phase of their lives — a phase where the medallions of his youth are being cashed in for real adulthood. Beyond the Tour, it’s been the first and last thing on my mind each day.

So when a reporter asked me, almost cynically, about how Christian has transformed from a domestique to one of the top riders at this year’s Tour, I simply asked, “Do you have kids?” When he replied that he did, I then asked him how he made that transformation. How did he grow from a child to man, son to father, follower to leader. He got the point immediately.

There are moments in our lives that are simply thrust upon us. As much as we might prepare for those moments, it’s not until we are in them that our strengths or weaknesses show. I always hear ‘them’ say that there’s nothing that can prepare you. That it’s so much harder than you could ever imagine. And at the same time so much better.

It’s bizarre to me that only nine months ago at our first team camp in Boulder, all we wanted was to make it to the Tour de France. At the time, I know that Christian couldn’t have been ready to lead us to a top ten finish, as our invite itself was tenuous at best. If anything, I think he was just looking forward to having a quiet season where he could rebuild and take things slowly – test the waters of leadership with a very talented but very young and blissfully ignorant group of riders and staff.

Like little children, we followed our bliss, and as our simple goal of making it and then actually racing the Tour gained more and more momentum, our team got pregnant. As much as we all take ownership in this little baby, it was really Christian who emerged as our Big Daddy. As he crossed the line atop L’Alpe d’Huez today after more than six hours of painful labor, fifteen thousand feet of climbing, and one of the most exciting yet slowest ascents up to L’Alpe d’Huez in more than a decade, I felt more than just proud. I felt scared, excited, and a whole new sense of responsibility for the future.

A new era in professional cycling is upon us. It’s an era where guys like Christian can actually start dreaming and believing again. But like all new generations, there will always be a few snakes, just as prone to the mistakes of the past. In the end, I can only believe that our unconditional love for this sport will give us the strength and patience to keep us all on the right track. I guess it only gets more complicated from here. And I guess that’s just fine with me. Cause even though I don’t have my own kids, I’m finally starting to understand what George Norlin meant when he took inspiration from Cicero and stated, “who knows only his generation, remains always a child.” It was a sentiment that later inspired George Santayana to write,“those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The past is still very fresh in my mind – in all of our minds – and more than ever, I’m just glad that Peter Pan is finally growing up.

From the article: “Post-stage on the team bus, which also has its own refrigerator, riders snack on white rice and eggs drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (which Mr. Lim says helps speed the rate the body is able to absorb precious energy stores) and also light, fresh dishes such as cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto or mozzarella and tomato caprese salad. ‘Christian always eats a big plate of rice with honey and Siracha hot sauce, and eggs,’ says Mr. Lim. In addition, riders drink a protein and carbohydrate shake, and a Clif electrolyte drink mixed with extra salt and potassium. ‘Fluid is huge,’ says Mr. Lim. ‘We make them drink a mandatory amount of 1.5 liters in the first hour off the bike.’ ”

Through word of mouth and some strong personal testimonials, we heard of a device being used by groups like the Navy SEALs, University of Florida and the Pittsburgh Pirates as a recovery tool and as a treatment for both acute injuries and post-operative rehabilitation. That device was the NormaTec MVP – a machine designed to externally compress the limbs in a way that mimics normal physiology with roots as a clinical treatment for patients with circulatory diseases stemming from diabetes to cancer. Although, our athlete’s aren’t sick, the inflammation, edema, and micro trauma normally caused by intense training and competition, though not nearly as severe, isn’t that different from cancer patients with Lymphedema or diabetics with chronic wounds that won’t heal. After speaking to Dr. Laura Jacobs, a rehabilitation physician and PhD bioengineer who invented the NormaTec, I was more than impressed with the extensive clinical evidence demonstrating that it was a viable way to treat those with disease and theoretically athletic performance.

On a certain level it would have been good enough to go with that assumption alone — that if the NormaTec could help with disease that it could also help with performance. And as athletes, we were all familiar with the benefits of the basic paradigm of RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression – static or simple intermittent, and Elevation) for treating injuries and enhancing daily recovery. But in the end, what convinced us to test the unit for ourselves were two ideas presented by Dr. Jacobs. The first was that the static compression often seen with leg wraps, compression stockings or tights didn’t mimic the circulatory response seen by a normally contracting muscle. The second was that despite the anti-inflammatory effect of icing, the reduction of blood flow caused by ice actually impaired blood flow and healing. Ultimately, the NormaTec did mimic normal physiology through a dynamic waveform of compression and it was obviously effective at reducing the edema and inflammation caused by injury or disease.

With that in mind, we asked if we could test some units before the Tour at the Tour of Georgia in late April. Though we didn’t have any way of initially quantifying the effect of the NormaTec, I trusted that as elite athletes, our riders are so in tune with their bodies that if the NormaTec had any effect at all that they might feel it. And while it all seemed rationale in theory, I was completely caught off guard by how immediate and positively our guys responded to their first treatments. Not only did they feel something was happening during the treatment, they all felt “better than average” on the days after they used the NormaTec. By the time we reached the Tour of Italy, our riders demanded the NormaTec on a daily basis, coining the device their “Space Legs” because of the moon boot look of the leg appliances.

Since the Tour of Italy, the riders have developed their own protocol for the Space Legs as part of their daily recovery routine. This includes a 30 minute session 2 to 3 times a day – once in the morning, once immediately before or after massage, and once just before bed. Their use is so ubiquitous that at any given time here at the Tour you’ll find one of our riders lying in bed nicely tucked inside their NormaTec MVP.

At this point in the game, “better” is average and with two days on the podium in our first Tour de France, and as highest ranked team for the last two days, there’s no doubt in my mind that the Normatec is and will continue to play a huge role in improving the daily performance of our athletes. Riding at this level in the Tour de France is truly a dream come true, and as we make our way to Paris, we’ll be putting on our space legs every morning and night and taking in every moment of our walk on the moon.

Featured Athlete: David Millar

We slept them, we fed them, we warmed them up, we cooled them down, we fed them again, we compressed them, we drove them, we dressed them, we fed them some more, we warmed them up, we iced them down, we made them drink, and in the end, they went really fast. Best team of the day and some world-class performances by Millar, VandeVelde, and the Pate. All I can say is congrats and bravo to all of the athletes, staff, and sponsors who helped make all of this happen.

I think that we’ve proven that we are the best time trialing team in the entire world. We proved that in Georgia, at the Giro, and again today here at the Tour. For me, it’s personally gratifying as the time trial is the one thing that we can control. As they say, it’s the race of truth and something I know we are all really proud of — proud, because these performances didn’t just come out of no where.

At our first team camp in Boulder, the first major project we took on was wind tunnel testing our riders and their old and new equipment and positions at the Colorado Premiere Training Wind Tunnel in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Next were extensive position adjustments and checks with the help of Todd Carver from Retul. Then came all of the field testing with our one-of-a-kind Zipp PowerTaps, equipment modifications and design by sponsors like Felt, Oval and Giro, and some serious investment of time and resources by Pearl Izumi to help design and build the fastest speed suit in the world as well as some of the coldest ice vests in professional cycling. From that point on it was skills and drills all the time. I don’t know of another team out there that put as much time and energy into training together on the time trial bike. Then came all of the extra work by our staff and mechanics to nail down our race day routines. From the logistical madness of keeping our guys cool, to Morgan Nichols from Oval building us custom hosing to vent the fumes off our bus, to the coordination of athletes and staff to pre-ride, recon, split time, and nail down every last possible detail that could help us go faster. When I think about all that detail, it floors me.

In the end, all of the guys had nothing left to do but lay it all out there – no doubt, no remorse, no blame. For David, that amounted to an average power output of 400 Watts, with surges between 500 to 600 Watts on the numerous 20 second to 2 minute rollers that lined the course and speeds of up to 80 kph at 0 to 400 watts on the descents. Perfectly paced with just over 17 minutes below 5 watts per kg and almost 19 minutes above 5 watts per kg.

And ya, we were a bit nervous in the car today and ya, JV forgot he was on live TV when he told Robbie Ventura from Versus what was on his mind. But in the end, just because we’re a clean team, doesn’t mean we can’t talk dirty. I think with all of the hard work we’ve done this last year, we deserve at least that much.

It’s been a great start to the race, but it is only the start, and we’ve got plenty to go through before we get to Paris. Everybody is racing really well, better than we’ve raced all year. The team spirit is amazing and seeing Will attacking first and ending up almost winning really captured the gung-ho, fearless attitude we’ve been trying to develop all year.

There was another episode that day that showed how well we ride and look after each other. Anyone who watched the stage may have seen a little moment just as the peloton got split up in the crosswinds where there was a helicopter shot of three Garmin riders hovering off the back of the front peloton. This was due to a stupid momentary lapse of vigilance by me. We turned left out of a roundabout into tail/crosswind. I still can’t fathom what I was doing so far back, but I was too far back. There was a horrendous crash right next to me as we turned into it. We came sprinting out of the roundabout and had our heads down. At the last moment, I heard a yell and the guys in front of me split to either side of a central reservation. I was on the left already, so was OK, but the guy next to me had his head down sprinting as hard as he could and went straight into a road sign. He stopped dead. It was horrific and I can still picture it perfectly in my head. I don’t know how he got back up again and finished but he did. Nicki Sorenson is a hard bastard.

That crash then set cat amongst the pigeons and strung it out even more. I was feeling good and didn’t think there was any real danger. Just as I was thinking this, Danny pulls up next to me and tells me he’s going to take me up. He then sprinted for about 500m and somehow managed to move me up the line out. At this point, I realized that the shit was hitting the fan. It became more apparent as I saw Fedrigo pulling out of the line further ahead, then Cobo, then Kreuziger. This is when I knew that all hell had broken loose. When riders of that quality can’t hold the wheel, you have to face the fact that the race is ON and you’re on your own.

I could see the main peloton drifting away and knew what I had to do. I paused for a few seconds and then went as hard as I could for as long as I could. On the file downloaded from the Garmin that evening Allen Lim was able to see that I did 4.1 km in 4mins 12secs averaging 533 watts at an average speed of 58.7km/h. So if you ever wonder why it splits in a crosswind, that’s why. I was the last rider to make it across, but even that effort didn’t quite get me there. I got to within 50m of the back of the group, which was tightly packed and protected itself from the wind. And this is the worse bit, the guys at the back of the group were oblivious to the carnage behind. I, in the mean time, was dangling 50m off the back nuking from the effort and those 50m may as well have been 10km. I felt like an astronaut whose tether has been cut.

Then I saw Martijn (left) and Maggy at the back of the group and I shouted on the radio (what Maggy would later describe as screaming). I could only just get out, ‘Maggy, Martijn, LOOK BEHIND!’. The first time they didn’t turn, the second time I screamed Martijn looked behind. Without hesitating, he dropped out of the safety of the group and came back to me. At this moment, I was literally blowing up. I couldn’t even hold his wheel as he tried to accelerate me back into the group. After trying three times, he turned around and reached out his hand. It was a ballsy move as we were going very fast and it would transfer all his energy to me leaving him stranded and on his own. He did it though. I took it and he slung me as hard as he could. By this time, Maggy had dropped out of the group and was awaiting me a little further up the road. The momentum Martijn had given me allowed me to get onto the accelerating sanctuary of Maggy’s wheel and he towed me back on. The relief to find myself back in the front group was almost as strong as the few minutes of fear and pain I’d just put myself through.

I spent the next 25km disgusted at myself and much more vigilant, but it wasn’t fun. In the mean time, Will was up the road almost winning the stage clueless to the chaos behind. That’s always one of the interesting things about this race. There are so many different races and experiences being lived each day, dozens of stories and events for each and every stage. That’s what makes it what it is I suppose.

The time trial was good yesterday. I got beaten but I’m happy I was able to master the effort. I think there’s going to be a few opportunities these next two and a half weeks for me to rip up the race. The boys are firing on all cylinders and each of us is going to have our opportunity to shine. One by one you’ll see us doing what we do best. It’s hard to predict when and where, but then that would be boring, n’est pas? In the mean time, look out for the yellow numbers. We’re very proud of our yellow numbers.

“We create frames that will cut through the air faster than a standard or traditional round-tube bicycle frame,” says Bill Duehring, Felt’s president. “We calculate that, in a five-hour race, an athlete can pick up five minutes by the end of the race going the exactly same speed on the aero bike as on a standard bike. That’s a huge advantage over someone riding a bike with a round or traditional frame.”