From Steak to 120 g/h: The History of Cycling Nutrition

There were potatoes eaten with the skin on, steak for breakfast, mountains of pasta, fruit-only diets, long rides with almost nothing in the stomach, the obsessive quest to shed every extra kilo… before arriving today at 40-gram energy gels and the famous 90, 100, or 120 grams of carbs per hour. The history of cycling nutrition is the story of a sport that has constantly sought the ideal formula—often with tremendous conviction, sometimes with very little science—and has regularly ended up doing exactly the opposite of what it recommended twenty years earlier. To tell this story, one need only look at the studies—but also listen to the veterans.

By Jeff Tatard – Photos: DR

In the beginning, cyclists didn’t “fuel up.” They ate. The first major races were so long that the primary goal wasn’t to optimize carbohydrate oxidation, but simply to avoid starving to death along the way. Bread, eggs, meat, rice, fruit, cheese, and sometimes wine or beer: the food stops resembled a picnic more than a sports nutrition aisle.

Potatoes played a huge role back then. Not because pasta didn’t exist, but because potatoes were inexpensive, readily available, nutritious, and deeply rooted in the European diet.

In Brittany, for example, Gustave—a former runner we’d met in our village of Molac—told us that he’d eat his potatoes with the skin on the night before a race. He’d save a few for the next morning, which he’d peel and then mash. Of course, he didn’t mention anything about the glycemic index or resistant starch. He had simply noticed, through experience, that he didn’t need exactly the same things the day before and the morning of the race.

Based on what we know today, that intuition wasn’t off the mark. Cooking, cooling, and mechanical processing do indeed alter the potato’s glycemic response. Hot, thoroughly mashed potatoes don’t behave exactly the same way as a cooled potato eaten whole.

Gustave hadn’t discovered the glycemic index before the researchers did. But he had done what athletes have always done: observe his body, adjust a habit, stick with what worked, and pass on the results to the next person.

For a very long time, cycling nutrition was built this way.

When Strength Tasted Like Steak

For several decades, another belief prevailed: to be strong, you had to eat “strong” food. And what could be more evocative of strength than a steak? Eddy Merckx recounted it in hindsight: we ate cheese, ham, and steak in the morning because “you had to eat steak to be strong.” The logic seems simplistic today, but it made perfect sense back then: muscle is associated with strength, meat contains protein, so eating meat must give you strength.

Henri Tatard described exactly that kind of cycling to us. In the 1970s, before certain races, he would get up around five in the morning to eat a large ribeye steak accompanied by what he described as nearly a kilo of pasta.

By today’s standards, the scene seems almost surreal. The digestive burden must have been enormous, and the ribeye steak obviously wasn’t the most immediately useful fuel before intense exertion. But behind that plate lay a very modern idea: never, ever set out on an empty stomach.

Long before that, however, a few pioneers had begun to think differently. Fausto Coppi was one of them. He had already realized that it was necessary to eat lighter meals more regularly and focus more on carbohydrates. He wasn’t yet talking about energy availability or carbohydrate periodization, but he had grasped one essential point: what gives you strength isn’t necessarily what looks like strength on your plate.

Then science took a closer look at the muscle

The major turning point came in the 1960s with Scandinavian research on muscle glycogen. Researchers demonstrated that a decrease in glycogen is accompanied by a decline in the ability to sustain prolonged exertion, whereas a high-carbohydrate diet significantly increases glycogen stores.

Today, this seems obvious. At the time, it was a revolution. The cyclist’s fuel source had just changed. For decades, the focus had been on meat. Science began to turn its attention to carbohydrates.

And as is often the case in nutrition, a relevant discovery gave rise to a much more radical practice: the famous Scandinavian food-combining diet. Several days of low-carbohydrate intake and training sessions designed to deplete reserves, followed by a massive refueling with pasta, rice, bread, or potatoes.

You suffer at first so you can refuel better later. The protocol has a solid physiological basis. But in hindsight, we know it isn’t necessary to deplete your glycogen stores so drastically to replenish them properly. Once again, a good idea had ended up becoming a religion.

Then pasta took over

Starting in the 1970s and especially in the 1980s, steak gradually lost its status as the king of fuel. Carbohydrates took over, and one food became almost the universal symbol of the endurance athlete: pasta.

Race on Sunday? Pasta on Saturday. Marathon? Pasta. Cycling event? Pasta. Tough stage? More pasta. The famous pasta party would soon become a ritual. For once, the trend had a solid foundation: carbohydrates do indeed help replenish glycogen stores. But, as always, the problem arises when a truth gradually becomes an absolute rule.

In our pockets, however, the transition is much more gradual. Bananas, gingerbread, dried fruit, and pieces of cake are still very much a part of the mix. Then came the first cereal bars, powders to mix into water bottles, and a few products specifically designed for exercise.

In some major cities, specialty health food stores—often located in downtown areas—even began offering products aimed at athletes, particularly endurance athletes. We’re still a long way from the entire aisles of gels, isotonic drinks, and recovery products that we’d come to know later, but something is changing. Runners’ food is slowly beginning to evolve into sports nutrition.

People aren’t yet systematically talking about grams of carbohydrates per hour. People still ate a banana or a slice of gingerbread because they knew it went down easily. But, little by little, they also began to measure, compare, and formulate. Calories entered the vocabulary. Then, later on, carbohydrates would become the central focus of fueling.

The Day Fat Became the Enemy

In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was no longer enough to eat plenty of carbohydrates. You also had to cut out almost everything else—especially fats.

Oil came under suspicion. Butter even more so. People trimmed the fat off meat, chose low-fat products, cooked without fat, and some athletes even came to believe that a spoonful of olive oil could ruin a week of training. The message is simple: the fat you eat will inevitably end up as the fat you carry. Of course, physiology is much less simplistic than that.

But for several years, the cycling world would operate under the belief that a good athlete’s diet must be very high in carbohydrates, very low in fat, and—incidentally—allow one to stay as light as possible.

In hindsight, the pendulum had swung too far. Fats are essential for hormonal function, cell membranes, the absorption of certain vitamins, and the intake of essential fatty acids. Excessive, chronic restriction is therefore far from harmless. And once again, a few years later, cycling would take almost exactly the opposite approach.

When Weight Becomes Almost as Important as Watts

In the 1990s and 2000s, another number took center stage: weight. The logic was relentless. On climbs, at equal power output, fewer kilograms meant a better watts-per-kilogram ratio. And when gaining ten watts wasn’t easy, losing two kilograms seemed much simpler. That’s when cycling entered a more ambiguous era. Riders kept a close eye on skin folds, their cheeks, and the slightest weight fluctuation. A good climber had to be lean. Then very lean. Then, sometimes, too lean.

Nico Mattan once told us an anecdote that perfectly sums up that era. In the 2000s, a week before the World Championships, he set out on an eight-hour bike ride with just an apple in his stomach. Eight hours. One apple.

Of course, he wasn’t telling us this as a recommendation. He was simply describing a time in cycling when being able to ride for a long time on very little was almost considered a virtue.

From our current perspective, the image is fascinating. An apple provides a few dozen grams of carbohydrates. A modern rider engaged in eight hours of sustained training could consume several hundred grams today. In between, the human body has hardly changed at all. It’s our understanding of what it needed that has changed.

Riding on an empty stomach became almost a virtue

In the early 2000s and then in the 2010s, this approach even gained a new scientific veneer. Since the body possesses immense fat reserves, why not teach it to use them more effectively? Fasting workouts, low-carb training, and sessions performed with low glycogen stores became increasingly popular. The idea isn’t absurd. The availability of carbohydrates can indeed alter certain responses to training. The problem arises when this occasional strategy becomes a general philosophy.

Training on an empty stomach then becomes a sign of dedication. Coming home completely drained almost becomes proof that the session worked. And the old sports mindset resurfaces: if a little restriction can be helpful, more must surely be even better. Obviously, no. Training occasionally with low carbohydrate availability is not the same as training constantly while undernourished.

Starting in the 2010s, fats gradually made a comeback on our plates. Olive oil, avocados, nuts, and fatty fish regained their reputation. Then some took the reasoning much further with low-carb, high-fat diets, ketosis, and the idea that cyclists should be transformed into formidable fat-burning machines. After initially trying to banish fat, we sometimes ended up wanting to make it our primary fuel. Once again, the pendulum swung back in the opposite direction.

Black grapes, fruit days, and all the little “sciences” of the peloton

There’s also another story to tell, one that’s much less academic: the story of beliefs passed down by word of mouth. “Acidic” foods. Foods “bad for the liver.” Days consisting solely of fruit. Seasonal cleanses. The famous black grapes that some riders used to “cleanse” the body.

Scientifically speaking, the concept of detox applied in this way doesn’t make much sense. The liver and kidneys don’t wait for a week of grapes to do their job. But it would be missing the point to simply smile it off.

Above all, these practices remind us that before nutritionists and scientific publications, cycling had its own body of knowledge: the craft. Some of it was right. Some of it was wrong. And certain empirical observations would not be explained until several decades later.

Then sugar found a second entry point

Around the turn of the 2000s and then the 2010s, another major shift took place. For a long time, about 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour was considered a sort of practical ceiling when relying primarily on glucose or maltodextrin.

Then researchers tapped into a very interesting characteristic of our intestines: glucose and fructose don’t use exactly the same transporters. In other words, rather than sending all carbohydrates through the same door, a second one was opened: glucose + fructose. Oxidation rates increase, and recommendations begin to approach 90 g/h during long-duration efforts.

Another idea emerged at the same time: the gut also trains. The modern cyclist therefore no longer trains just their legs, heart, or VO₂max. They also train their ability to absorb large amounts of carbohydrates while the rest of their body is working at full capacity. And that’s when nutrition truly becomes a sports skill.

After 2020, the pendulum swung sharply back the other way

The 120 grams of carbohydrates per hour wasn’t, of course, invented after the pandemic. Research on glucose-fructose mixtures and high-carbohydrate intakes had existed long before. But in the early 2020s, something changed in the peloton.

What was once a cutting-edge strategy became almost commonplace. People no longer just ask, “Do you eat during the race?” They ask, “How much do you consume per hour?” 90 grams. 100. 110. And sometimes even more. The transformation is dramatic because, twenty years earlier, a good rider was sometimes the one who seemed able to ride on almost nothing.

Today, at the very highest level, the opposite is almost valued: the rider who is capable of consuming enormous amounts of energy without compromising digestion. Cyrille Saillard explained it to us very simply. Since he significantly increased his intake during races—up to about 120 grams of carbohydrates per hour—he estimates he’s gained three or four kilograms compared to some of his old habits.

Under the old cycling paradigm, that statement might almost have been seen as a tragedy. But he immediately added something far more important: he recovers much better. And that may be where the real revolution lies. Because the question is no longer just, “How much does the rider weigh today?” It becomes, “What will he be capable of producing tomorrow?”

Part of this weight fluctuation may also be linked to increased glycogen storage, which is accompanied by water. But that’s not even the main point. The main point is that cyclists are finally willing to consider weight alongside their ability to generate and sustain power.

From eight hours on an apple to 120 grams per hour

Now compare these stories side by side. Gustave and his potatoes. Henri and his ribeye steak at five in the morning. Nico and his eight hours of cycling on just one apple. Cyrille and his 120 grams of carbs per hour. At first glance, four completely different worlds. In reality, four answers to a single question: how do you give the body what it needs to go faster? Each generation answered based on the knowledge available to them. And none was entirely right. Nor entirely wrong.

Be careful, though: 120 could become our new steak

That’s probably the most important lesson from this whole story. Eating steak for breakfast seems outdated to us today. The Scandinavian food-combining diet seems extreme. Eight hours on just one apple seems almost absurd.

So we could easily decide that 120 g/h is now the new universal truth. That would be exactly the same mistake.

Recent studies show that it’s possible for some highly trained and accustomed athletes to consume more than 90 g/h. But they don’t prove that an intake of 120 g/h consistently improves performance for everyone and in every situation. 120 is not a magic number. A 55-kg runner on an easy run does not have the same needs as an 80-kg athlete competing in a five-hour race. A recovery session is not a mountain stage. A stomach that’s been trained for months is not the same as one that’s just being introduced to a new protocol the day before a competition. True modernity, then, is probably not “always more.” Rather, it’s about the right fuel, in the right amount, at the right time, for the task at hand.

And tomorrow?

Ultimately, the history of cycling nutrition isn’t really a story of a series of mistakes. It’s a story of a series of certainties. Meat. Pasta. Lean bodies. Fasting. Fats. Then sugar. Each era believed it had discovered the truth. And that’s probably what should keep us humble today.

In twenty years, a journalist might dig out our water bottles filled with 120 grams of carbohydrates, smile at some of our practices, and write that the cyclists of 2026 had already figured out a lot of things. But not everything yet. Because deep down, from Gustave and his potatoes all the way to the WorldTour nutritionists, the question has never really changed. How do we properly fuel the demands we place on the body? It simply took us more than a century to realize that before trying to make a cyclist lighter and lighter, we might need to start by ensuring they were properly nourished.

A Brief History of Cycling Nutrition 1900–1950: Eating to Keep Going Cyclists initially ate like everyone else: bread, meat, eggs, potatoes, fruit… with one simple goal: to keep going. 1950–1970: The Age of the Steak Strength tastes like meat. Steak for breakfast, large plates, and very hearty meals still dominated the diet. 1960–1980: The Discovery of Glycogen Science showed that carbohydrates are the true fuel for endurance. The Scandinavian food-combining diet and carbohydrate loading emerged. 1980–1995: The Reign of Pasta Pasta becomes the ultimate symbol of the endurance athlete. Pasta parties, heavy carb-loading, and the rise of energy drinks. 1990–2005: Fat Becomes the Enemy Oil, butter, and fats come under suspicion. The ideal athlete must eat plenty of carbohydrates, very few fats… and stay as lean as possible. 1995–2010: The tyranny of weight The watts-per-kilogram ratio takes center stage. Athletes must be lighter and lighter. Some ride for very long periods on very little food. 2005–2018: The “train low” era Rides on an empty stomach, low-carb training, and the quest to better utilize fat: cyclists sometimes learn to perform by depriving themselves. 2010–2020: Nutrition Becomes a Racing Science The widespread adoption of energy gels, precise carbohydrate counting, fueling strategies, and the famous glucose-fructose combination. 2020–2026: The 90–120 g/h Revolution The peloton realizes that riders often need to eat more during races. The goal is no longer just to finish light, but to perform better… and, above all, to recover better. Today: Fueling the Effort Required Fewer dogmas, more individualization. Proper nutrition isn’t found in steak, pasta, or a magic number—it depends on the runner, the effort, and the context.

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