Chris Froome, on Tour road to emaciated.

//Chris Froome, on Tour road to emaciated.

Chris Froome, on Tour road to emaciated.

Am I fat? No, you are not.

He’s almost hit that emaciated, just back from Buchenwald concentration camp, scary skeleton weight. Still a few celery sticks to cut from the diet before Le Grand Shindig. Be still, my rumbling, empty stomach.

Yes, defending Tour champion Chris Froome looks ready to win his third edition of the biggest bike race in the world. He’s done his homework — as he liked to say. Part of the homework being to barely touch any food on his plate.

The team Sky captain is heading towards that insane power-to-weigh ratio that critics like Anton Vayer will claim is inhuman and suspicious and you know, kinda unattractive. Chris “Bones” Froome, he drop the weight, he drops everyone in the mountains.

That’s except for Nairo Quintana who is so short he weighs next to nothing just based on the measuring stick. No plate of Colombian empanadas for him. Not in June, right before July. You ride in the thin air and you gotta be thin yourself.

Who else is Froome thin? Alberto Contador is looking pretty trim and Robert Gesink always looks like he skips dinner altogether. Tejay van Garderen is tall and lean but he still looks like a human — which means he might need to go even deeper into starvation mode.

Alberto Contador is all leaned out and once he got a look at Froome at the Dauphinê, he threw out the rest of the food in his refrigerator. Eat the same thing as his beloved goldfinches and canaries — you wanna fly, you gotta get scrawny — nothing but water and seeds and interval training.

Our theory is that these guys like the high altitude camps for the high altitude and the limited food options way up there in the mountains. They’re far from the distractions of food — they can barely get one delivery a week up there. It’s portion control based on altitude.

Suffering is the holy grail of the sport. Suffer in the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner table. This takes incredible will and disciple and making sure there are no forks or spoons in the vicinity.

Yes, once Froome hits his Tour weight he is genuinely terrifying. Not just in a sports performance way, but in an OMG, you look like Michael Rasmussen versions 2.o, all skin, bone, prison buzz cut. Lots of these guys are bald because they do have any surplus nutrients to grow hair.

The Chris Froome diet book is not one you want to read. It’s a thin book, small portions, tiny plates. But no question, Froome looks ready. It’s not a good look but it is highly effective.

 

 

 

By |2019-02-03T15:45:15-08:00June 14th, 2016|Uncategorized|3 Comments

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3 Comments

  1. The SuperStorm June 16, 2016 at 4:54 pm - Reply

    The Broome wagon does look emaciated indeed, like a rabid dog.
    Besides the benefit of altitude training, blood that is oxygenated can be pulled and stored for a little recovery later in Le Tour.
    Brailsford and his boys know what they’re doing.

    My all time lowest racing weight was 178 back in 1982 before National Team selections.
    Didn’t make it then or now. Just too heavy in the legs. But, the power to weight ratio was “yuuuuuge” to quote the Donald. I had massive power back then to just out-run the competition on the flats, just couldn’t climb. So no races with climbing did I enter.

    It amazes me how Indurain, Andre ‘The Giant” Greipel, Marcel “Marceau” Kittel and many other “big” guys can climb at all, much less one of them managed to win LeTour 5 times in a row. Hmm.
    He was never emaciated or looked like a refugee.
    Something wrong with that picture.

    • walshworld June 17, 2016 at 10:19 am - Reply

      Super, scientific starvation has come along way since 1982! I’m actually a but repulsed when I look at how emaciated Froome looks. It’s just an ugly reminder of the inhuman things to have to do to win the TDF. Then again as Tejay has said, what we do to our bodies isn’t too natural either. Matt

  2. Anon June 27, 2016 at 8:35 am - Reply

    Yep lets have that first line removed, not the best taste aye : /

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