How SANAS fuelled our classics campaigns…

WORDS: REBECCA BLAND
IMAGES: HONOR ELLIOTT

For a professional cyclist, fuelling well and having confidence in your energy stores can be the difference between getting a result, and falling behind to the broom wagon. Every cyclist from amateur level right up to the Tour de France has experienced the dreaded ‘bonk’ after not taking on enough fuel during a ride, and while it might feel like the world is ending at the time, the stakes are far higher for women in the professional peloton. 

For 2022, industry-leading sports nutrition brand SANAS came on board as a sponsor of Le Col - Wahoo and the company has made it its mission to ensure each rider on the team has the benefit of a more detailed, tailored nutrition plan. SANAS has been at the forefront of sports nutrition for over 30 years, and its current line-up of products consists of both on- and off-the-bike consumables. 

With Le Col-Wahoo riders taking on the early season classics, we felt it was important to nail the fuelling and nutritional strategies early on to maximise their potential. Here are three ways SANAS helped to optimise our fuelling for the 2022 spring classics. 

KeEPING CONTROL…

Classics racing is extremely attritional, so it’s vital the riders understand how to use the SANAS products to maximise their performance. Although every race and rider is different, a rule of thumb for our 2022 season has been to increase the riders’ carbohydrate intake to at least 60g per hour, but with many training to adapt to 90-120g per hour as a sweet spot. 

We often hear about athletes training certain muscles, whether that's through pre-ride activation, for example, of lazy glutes, or rehabbing an injured muscle, but what we often neglect to realise is that the stomach also needs to be trained. Much like you wouldn't go out and ride 200km off the back of zero training, aiming to consume 120g of carbs per hour on day one is not the best way to get your body used to the increase in fuel. Our riders have been working with SANAS to work their way up to 120g and train their stomachs to avoid acid reflux (one of the key negative symptoms of trying to take on too many carbs in an hour).

Through lower and higher intensity training sessions and races, the riders have been training their stomachs over the last couple of months to be able to successfully consume up to 120g an hour. Realistically, however, that's a lot of fuel to be had. In SANAS' and a lot of other brands' cases, it's a bottle of isotonic mix plus three products (gels, bars, fruit blocks), which means eating every 20 minutes. In hard races like the classics, that's a difficult task, with riders focusing on following wheels, chasing down moves and remaining tactically astute all while tackling cobbles and positioning ahead of pinch points. And that’s before they even think about asking a team car to navigate through the narrow roads to service riders with bottles and food. 

So to combat this, SANAS developed a drinking mix that contains 90g of carbs, significantly reducing the need to eat more on the bike, and, crucially, reducing the frequency that riders need to take their hands off the handlebars. This product is called Alphamax and uses a 2:1 glucose:fructose ratio for maximum absorption – and just one bottle an hour allows Le Col - Wahoo athletes to get 90g of carbs. SANAS has also left out any flavourings or acidifiers, effectively bringing acidity to minimum. This makes it easier to digest and means the riders can focus on the race instead of worrying about fuelling every 20 minutes. 

Products like this have great benefits during all types of races, but particularly in one-day races where pressures are high and recovery times are lower between efforts.

Loading… LOADING…

While our bodies’ in-race requirements remain similar between stage and one-day events, the riders' nutritional strategies before and after the races differ significantly.

You’ve probably heard of ‘carbo loading’ but it’s a little more complex than just eating your weight in pasta the night before an event.

Just a couple of years ago the classical way of carbo loading was still used in cycling. You would typically reduce your carbohydrate intake three to four days prior to the race, and then overcompensate with a lot of carbohydrates 48-24h before the race. In this way your internal carbohydrate stock would maximise. This was possible for one-day racing events, but not in stage races as you need to keep taking in carbohydrates every day. Recent studies have shown that the effect of eating 8 to 10g of carbohydrates per kg body weight, one or two days before your race will have practically the same effect. 

This protocol is usable in one-day races and stage races, so is used more often these days – and is the approach SANAS recommended for us through this huge spring of one-day racing.

RAPID RECOVERY

Another off-the-bike product our riders have been using this season is SANAS’ Cartiplus, a Peptan® focussed product that acts as a source of collagen peptides. These are structural proteins often found in tendons, cartilage and of course, your skin. With the classics presenting riders with such frenetic racing, keeping things rubber side down isn’t always a given. To protect the riders from further damage when crashing, SANAS provides the team with Cartiplus, – a great way to boost your recovery, as Jesse Vandenbulcke found after her crash earlier this year. 

“The speed of the recovery went a lot faster than the doctors expected. I started taking Cartiplus during training in February and I was taking it once a day, but since my crash, I've been taking one in the morning before breakfast and then one just before bedtime. It's helped me a lot with healing my skin faster, and I'm really happy we have this support in the team."

Jesse’s recovery has been impressively quick after her crash in March at Nokere Koerse saw her break two ribs and sustain injuries to her hand, knee and ankle. She has since been able to get back to fighting form and continue her spring campaign a lot faster than expected. 

Nutrition and fuelling are tricky to advise an entire team on, as each rider is completely individual and what one person might be able to tolerate could cause gastrointestinal issues for another – we can all recall a certain Giro d’Italia contender’s incident on the Stelvio a few years back. However, having a well-renowned and knowledgeable brand like SANAS on board allows the riders to take control of their nutrition strategies and remove any doubt about that aspect of riding and racing. 

If you’re interested in SANAS products, visit sanas.be for more info, and enter code LEC4596 at the checkout for a little introductory gift from us.