THE SHORT ANSWER
Hannah Grant, pro team chef, the grand tour cookbook, has appeared on the Roadman Cycling Podcast. Here's where Grant lands on race weight. The positions below are drawn from those conversations, quoted directly.
WHO IS HANNAH GRANT?
Hannah Grant fed a WorldTour team across five seasons of Grand Tours and turned the experience into the most credible cycling-nutrition cookbook ever published. Trained at Noma, chef for Tinkoff-Saxo from 2011, Daytime Emmy winner for Eat Race Win — she is the rare voice who has cooked at fine-dining level AND fed riders racing 200km a day for three weeks. For Roadman's audience she is the practical answer to the question most amateurs avoid: what do you actually put on the plate, every day, to fuel real training without ending up fat or under-recovered?
GRANT ON RACE WEIGHT
Grant’s key positions on race weight.
- Quality cooking and performance fuelling are not in conflict — the same flavour discipline that wins Michelin stars makes athletes eat more of the right food.
- Pro-team meals are mostly real food — pasta, rice, vegetables, fish — not gel-and-bar engineering. Amateurs who copy the supplements miss the actual diet.
- Recovery food has to be appetising or it does not get eaten — the protein dose post-stage matters less than whether the rider actually finishes the plate.
- Hydration is fuelling — the saltiest pro-team meal of the day is breakfast, deliberately, to set up the day's electrolyte balance.
- Race-week kitchen logistics decide outcomes — the team that can cook fresh in a hotel kitchen at 11pm has a genuine performance edge.
IN GRANT’S OWN WORDS
Verbatim from Hannah Grant’s appearances on the podcast.
“When I talk to retired riders I always ask them what would your advice be to amateur riders and I get the same answer from all the pros and that is chill out. They say when they see these guys being so strict that it almost like you know ruins marriages in terms of diet plan like the strict exercise regimes.”
“The first thing I ask them about is what is your alcohol intake like because honestly if you want to fine-tune everything alcohol is the first thing that needs to go before you start thinking about ketones and everything.”
“Depending on the rider depending on their stomach depending on their race like physiology how big they are and you know muscle mass and so on I mean they take in between 60 to 120 grams of carbs you know per hour. It's so much food on the bike.”
HEAR IT ON THE PODCAST
Episodes where Hannah Grant covers race weight and related ground.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
What does Hannah Grant say about race weight?
Hannah Grant, pro team chef, the grand tour cookbook, has appeared on the Roadman Cycling Podcast. Here's where Grant lands on race weight. The positions below are drawn from those conversations, quoted directly.
What is Grant's main point on race weight?
Quality cooking and performance fuelling are not in conflict — the same flavour discipline that wins Michelin stars makes athletes eat more of the right food.
Which Roadman Cycling Podcast episodes cover Hannah Grant on race weight?
Grant discusses race weight in this episode: "Omerta Busted: How Pro Cyclists Lose Weight FAST | Hannah Grant".
MORE FROM GRANT
EXPLORE THE TOPIC
Cycling & Weight Loss— The Complete Guide →OTHER EXPERTS ON RACE WEIGHT