Researcher: Tour de France total calories 72,000 cheeseburgers

From the article:
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BATON ROUGE, Louisiana: All of the battery-powered devices used by the
Tour de France's 1 million spectators each day do not use as much
energy as the riders need to get to the end of that day's stage, a
researcher says.

Taken all together, the riders need more than 20 million calories to
stay in the race without losing so much weight that it hurts their
performance, according to Conrad Earnest of the Louisiana State
University system's Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

"That's about the same as 72,000 cheeseburgers," Earnest, who spoke to
the tour's riders about nutrition and energy needs in London the
evening before the race began, said in a news release from the
Pennington Center.

They use about the same amount of energy as earlier riders, but
current equipment and rules let them go much faster, Earnest said.

"The first racers rode 50-pound bikes that had only one gear. The
racers could not use any assistance and did not stop at the end of
each day," Earnest said. "If their bike broke, they had to fix it or
drop out, and they had to find their own food and drink along the
way."

Today, racers train and travel in teams with large support groups who
provide snacks and meals. Earnest said each rider will need about
119,000 calories from start to finish. It is converted to energy — 250
to 300 watts per minute.

"With an estimated 1 million people lining the course each day," he
said, "that's enough power to run all their iPods, portable TVs, and
radios they bring with them to track the action — with enough left
over to cook everyone's dinner before they go home."
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Read it at
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...-de-France.php
















J. Spaceman

On Jul 28, 4:15 am, Jason Spaceman
wrote:
From the article:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana: All of the battery-powered devices used by the
Tour de France's 1 million spectators each day do not use as much
energy as the riders need to get to the end of that day's stage, a
researcher says.

Taken all together, the riders need more than 20 million calories to
stay in the race without losing so much weight that it hurts their
performance, according to Conrad Earnest of the Louisiana State
University system's Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

"That's about the same as 72,000 cheeseburgers," Earnest, who spoke to
the tour's riders about nutrition and energy needs in London the
evening before the race began, said in a news release from the
Pennington Center.

Is that calculated in Burger Royales?

They use about the same amount of energy as earlier riders, but
current equipment and rules let them go much faster, Earnest said.

"The first racers rode 50-pound bikes that had only one gear. The
racers could not use any assistance and did not stop at the end of
each day," Earnest said. "If their bike broke, they had to fix it or
drop out, and they had to find their own food and drink along the
way."

50 pound bikes? I don't think so.

R