Good Lifestyle

Imagine that you start pedaling from thebeginning of stage 17 ofTour de France this year. First, you would have a bike about 70 miles (112 km) with a gradual increase in elevation of about 1,300 feet (400 m). But you still have reached the fun part: theHautes-Pyrenees Mountains. Over the next 40 miles (64 km), you should climb threemountain peaks with a net increase of a mile (1.6 km) in elevation. In addition to the first day of my life, I could not even finish the scene 17 - much less to do it in anything at a distance from about five hours, the winner will take to finish the trip. And step 17 is only one of the 21 steps that must be completed within 23 days of the visit.

I am a sports physicistand I haveModelized the Tour de France For nearly two decades using field data, such as what I described for Phase 17 - and the laws of physics. But I still can not understand the physical abilities needed to complete the world's most famous bike race. Only an elite few human beings is able to complete a stage of the Tour de France at a time measured in hours instead of days instead of days. The reason they are able to do what the rest of us can only dream is that these athletes can produce enormous amounts of power. Power is the rate at which cyclists burn the energy and energy they burn come from the food they eat.And during the Tour de France, the winning cyclist will burn the equivalent of about 210 major Mac.

Cycling is a game of watts

To make a bike movement, a runner of the Tour de France transfers the energy of his muscles, through the bike and the wheels that push back on the ground. The faster jumper can extinguish energy, the greater the power. This energy transfer rate is often measured in Watts. The cyclists of the Tour de France are able to generate enormous amounts of power for incredibly long periods compared to most people.

For about 20 minutes, a recreational cyclist in shape can systematically turn off250 watts at 300 watts. Tour de France cyclists can produceMore than 400 watts for the same period. These pros are even capable ofhit 1000 watts For short time shrumming on a steep rise-pretty much enough power runmicrowave.

But not all the energy, a cyclist Tour de France puts in his bike turning into moving before. The cyclists fight the resistance to the air and the losses of friction between their wheels and the road. They get help from gravity on descents, but they have to fight gravity while climbing.

I encounter all the physics associated with the production of cyclist current as well as the effects of gravity, air resistance and frictionin my model. By using all this, I believe that a typical winner of the Tour de France must issue an average of about 325 watts at most 80 hours of the race. Remember that most recreational cyclists would be happy if they could produce 300 watts for only 20 minutes!

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So where do these cyclists get all this energy? Food, of course!

But your muscles, like any machine, can not convert 100% food energy directly into energy-muscles can be anywhere between2% effective when used for activities such as swimming and 40% effective in the heart. In my model, I use an average efficiency of 20%. Knowing this efficiency as well as the production of energy needed to win the Tour de France, I can then estimate the amount of food that the winning cyclist needs.

Top Tour de France Cyclists who complement the 21 steps burn about 120,000 calories during the race - or an average of nearly 6,000 calories per floor. On some of the most difficult mountain stages, such as this year's stadium, phase 17, runners will burn nearly 8,000 calories. To compensate for these enormous energy losses, runners eat delicious treats such asJam rollers, energy bars and quadrature of the mouth "Jels" so they do not waste energy chew.

The winner of last year, Tadej Pogačar weighs only 146 pounds. Tour de France cyclists do not have a lot of fat to burn for energy. They must continue to put food energy into their body in order to be able to extinguish energy to what seems to be a superhuman rate. So this year, while looking at a stage of the Tour de France, note how many times cyclists eat - now you know the reason for all this snacking.

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