Hundreds of kilos of pasta, thousands of bananas and a tonne of beef – what it takes to feed to Tour Down Under cyclists

WHAT does it take to feed the cyclists competing in the Santos Tour Down Under? The Hilton Adelaide kitchen staff tell us just how much food they have to cook to fuel some of the world’s best riders.

DIG IN: Team Katusha-Alpecin cyclist Mads Wurtz Schmidt with pasta at the Hilton Adelaide. Picture: TAIT SCHMAAL

CYCLING hundreds of kilometres at a gut-busting pace is hungry work.

Just ask the professional riders preparing to push their bodies to the limit in Stage 1 of the Santos Tour Down Under today.

The elite athletes – and the chefs cooking for them – take their diet very seriously and,
as TDU race director Mike Turtur will tell you, they “eat like horses”.

“There is nothing of them but they can put it away,” he said.

About 350 people – including the men’s cycling teams, event staff and media – will stay at the Hilton Adelaide during the tour.

The hotel’s sous chef Lee Spackman said it was a busy time for kitchen staff, who will serve more than 11,500 meals and produce 2000-plus packaged lunches while the riders are here for the event.

Mr Spackman said the cyclists and their support staff would eat hundreds of kilograms of pasta and tomato sauce, as well as a tonne of beef and 800kg of both fish and chicken.

He said a whopping 670kg of pasta had already been ordered “and I will be looking to adjust that”.

“There is some pretty serious carb loading happening ... but the dietary intake of them has become a lot more specialised over the years,” he said.

Each day, one chef is allocated to prepare hundreds of eggs, a job which takes eight hours to complete.

The pastry kitchen is used to prepare fruit, cheese and meat for three sittings. It’s a job that takes three chefs 24 hours of combined labour each day.

Danish cyclist Mads Würtz Schmidt, of Team Katusha-Alpecin, said when it came to his diet during a tour he was “kind of a basics guy”.

“I eat the pasta, tomato sauce and have some chicken or fish and then I’m happy,” he said. “I just eat until I’m full, until I feel good. It is more about the feeling for me.”

He said during a pro tour, breakfast was a large meal eaten at least three hours before each race.

“I usually eat a big portion of porridge, then I have a bit of bread, some eggs (two or three), get some olive oil or half an avocado for the fat and that is it,” he said.

“Some riders take out the yolk because it is rich in fat... normally I don’t take out the yolk because I have an idea that you have to eat the full egg to gain more from the protein.

“Dinner is usually a big load of pasta (or) a big load of rice (and) some chicken or some beef.”

The 23-year-old, racing in the TDU for the first time this year, said he was loving Adelaide. “I’ve been koala spotting quite a lot,” he said. “The Hills are amazing to ride.”

RIDERS AT THE HILTON WILL EAT...

• 8000 bread rolls
• 670kg of pasta
• 400L pasta sauce
• 8400 eggs
• 3000 bananas
• 3000 tubs of yoghurt
• 1.6 tonne fish and chicken
• 400kg lamb
• 1.2 tonne watermelon
• Tonne of salad and veg
• 5000 bottles of orange juice
• 17,160 bottles of water

Originally published as Hundreds of kilos of pasta, thousands of bananas and a tonne of beef – what it takes to feed to Tour Down Under cyclists