What Do Pro Cyclists Eat? I asked Ben O’Connor, Jack Haig & Mike Woods for their advice…

I asked three of the world's best cyclists what they eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while training and racing. A pro cyclist insight with Ben O'Connor, Jack Haig, and Mike Woods.

00:00 Intro
01:40 What I eat for breakfast
02:33 What Mike eats before riding
03:55 What Ben eats before training
06:40 What Jack eats before riding
08:10 Explaining my training ride & fuelling
09:05 What Ben eats during training
14:30 Mike's Grand Tour diet (Vuelta Espana)
17:50 Jack's post-ride routine
19:00 Ben's post-ride lunch
27:05 Ben's final thoughts

This ride was filmed in Andorra, where many professional cyclists live and train. Riders like Magnus Cort, James Knox, Pavel Sivakov, Luke Durbridge, Mark Donovan, Sepp Kuss, Robert Gesink, Julian Alaphilippe, Carlos Verona, George Bennett and others use the mountains of Andorra to train with teams such INEOS-Grenadiers, Jumbo Visma, UAE Team Emirates, EF-Education Pro Cycling.

[CycoWarriorx]

Wow… none of them said a breakfast burrito with jalapeños… what hell… clearly I’ve been doing this wrong… 😆🍻

[antoniocasablancasvilanova]

Arguably the best "what pros eat" video; direct from your pros friends. What a treat! Very informative. Cards on the table. Graçies once more!

[samm]

Mate this is gold. As a runner transitioning into cycling, it's interesting to hear Mike's take on his experience in particular. Thanks for taking the time to put this together - best vid you've put out to date.

[LouieBaLLz]

As. a person who started cycling about 2 years ago as a way to lose weight and become active again, this video is a goldmine of info. I feel into the "keto low carb" lifestyle. While it did help me get ffrom 305lbs to about 230lbs currently, I did plateau. I felt weak and burned out on hard efforts. I decided to change my diet back to a more "traditional" way of eating about 2 months ago. I struggled with how, when, and what to eat, and this video helps answer some of those questions. Thank you for sharing this.

[Panaman]

Hey Tristan,
This was an excellent, thorough, personal & especifically rich video! Thank you, Ben, Jack & Mike for their awesome participation & support! Wish to see more of these Vids! Take care! & stay awesome, James

[chrisdeery]

You just get better and better Tristan and are by far the best on YouTube. I like to watch 10 min videos of anyone else but I am always delighted when you do longer videos because the content is awesome.

[rbonn]

This was fascinating. So relaxed and informative, a day in the eating life of a cycling professional.

[petergaskill]

This is the sort of top content that only you could create. Fantastic vlog; thanks so much!

[DurianriderCyclingTips]

It is good Mike was objective with his sugar intake numbers. 60g an hour is pretty low sugar intake per hour if you want to feel fresh and vital when you come home. 100-150g of sugar per hour is best for recovery and coming home like you can still function around the house or at work.

[stich]

Your intro makes it sound like you listen to the science of ultra podcast! Great video, thanks.

[stvaldr]

I just discovered and joined the channel today, and I have got to say your videos are well done and educational. This is my fourth or fifth video of the day (recouping from a small injury) and I have enjoyed and learned from everyone.

[mghallock]

A lot of good advice here. I did a 200 mile road race this summer in Sweden and I really had to educate myself more about how much to eat while riding — it's one thing to ride 2-3 hours and come up a little short on fuel, it's another to be out there 4+ hours and not eating enough. It really catches up to you.

If you train with a power meter, you can actually get a pretty good starting point. Take how many kilojules / calories you've burned in a given ride, divide it by the time you road, and multiply by 20% for lower intensity efforts, 30% for higher intensity efforts and you'll find out how many calories an hour you need to be replenishing. For a lot of people, this will end up somewhere between 180-225 calories an hour. Pro-level riders have trained their bodies to ingest more carbohydrates than us mere mortals can.

[antspage]

love this content mate... love the nutrition part of it makes a big difference when you get it right !

[timothysmith]

You’re an incredible content creator! Keep it coming!!!

[manusudan]

Best video and quality content, No BS...amazing real content.

[brianpickering]

As usual really enjoyed the video but this one very informative I've a 100 mile club ride this Sunday and I will not be running on empty like I did last week on our climbing ride I had severe cramps and had to bail out on the way back home, keep up the great videos Tristram looking forward to the next one...

Brian..

[simong]

Totally agree with the general sentiment that this is one of your best videos to date and not just the 3 pro's views on nutrition but your also plus the thoughts behind you training ride. It is nice to hear whilst not a pro but a strong and quality rider's reason behind his rides and what you were trying to achieve. Not easy to get regular access to pro riders but this is the direction your regular videos should go - my humble opinion . Nothing more.
You have personality for this line of work. Tx.

[scugno]

Good one. Grab a jumbo visma rider next so I can learn more about how there using ketones 🙏🏼 keep the videos coming! 🥳

[jasonhopkins]

This was absolutely fantastic 10/10, thanks for doing this. It’s so good when you learn something new and some confirmation of what you are doing is on the right track. Best thing I’ve watched in a while.

[Izumek]

I had to go back to this after the phenomenal ride from Mike Woods on this years TDF. What a legend!