In a mobile kitchen specially equipped for and dedicated to competitions, three Elior chefs will cook the cyclists’ meals, at the rate of the various stages. As a professional cyclist complete the equivalent of a marathon per day, it will be essential for Elior to cook meals that meet the needs of such intense physical effort. A good nutrition has a decisive impact on the performance of the cyclist. In line with the team’s doctors and sport nutritionist, Elior chefs and nutrition teams have therefore elaborated a plan of menus that addresses highly specific nutritional needs, focusing specifically on portion control, the nutritional balance and the variety of products for all four meals that punctate a cyclist’s day: breakfast, in-race snack, post-race recovery snack and lastly dinner.
We have worked on custom-made menus in close ties with medical teams and the team’s performance manager. Our challenge is to cook balanced meals respecting each and every cyclist’s nutritional programme: caloric intake, work on satiation, digestibility, recovery and hydration.
— Véronique Mourier, Elior France Nutrition Manager
The other challenge for the chefs and the Elior nutrition team: suggest every day to the Total Direct Energie Team cyclists with regional and responsible recipes, made up of local products selected in the different terroirs spotlighted by this major race layout. Elior will be serving as a representative example a pepper and courgette gazpacho in Nice (31 August), tabouleh with fresh vegetables, salmon, Roquefort and seed mixture in Millau (4 September), a potatoes with Cantal cheese in a sport version “truffade du sportif” in Auvergne (11 September) and Comtoise-styled chicken in Bourg en Bresse (18 September).
We have imagined recipes using the local specialities of the various regions crossed by the race. The local product card must be played while proposing meals that provide cyclist’s daily required caloric intake - between 2,000 and 3,000 per day. We immersed ourselves in the cyclists’ lives for several weeks to serve them meals that are fully adapted to their diets and which are also true moments of pleasure and sharing.
— Yann Lous, Elior dedicated cyclist chef