Veteran - LVRC

In Part 1 Cavanna, Coppi’s blind soigneur, talked about training. In the second
part of this 1953 interview from Miroir Sprint he turns his attention to diet.
What I call living
well…
Biagio Cavanna
I’M CONSTANTLY AMAZED at the ignorance
of some Italian managers with
regard to their riders’ diet. One young
rider asked me if he should swallow
whole eggs, like he’d heard Coppi did.
His parents kept a chicken farm, he
could have all he wanted. Then he
went to his directeur sportif, said he
didn’t feel too well – and the guy told
him to go and eat plenty of eggs! You
can imagine the state his liver was in.
My advice would be: if you like eggs,
eat them when they’re fresh, but
never more than one a day, and never
eat hard-boiled eggs – they’re poison
for racing cyclists. Don’t forget: your
diet dictates your results. I’ll just give
you a few pointers on the kind of thing
to avoid.
Cooked spinach can still lie in your
stomach, undigested, four hours later,
and it can cause stomach cramps in
the later stages of a race. Dried fruit is
also harmful to bike-riders, and pork is
poison compared with ham, which is
much easier to digest. So what should
you eat? I can best answer that by
telling you what I serve the riders in
my own pension, where nobody
complains about the menu.
An hour after getting up, breakfast:
half a litre of milk with just a dash of
coffee, and 100 grammes (4 oz) of
bread. I consider all food during the
morning unnecessary, as training is
completed by midday and the riders
then sit down to the following meal:
thick soup, or a minestrone with rice
and vegetables; 250 grammes of meat,
salad (all raw salads are excellent) with
an oil and lemon dressing; 100
grammes of soft cheese, fruit according
to the season, and 200 or 300
grammes of bread. To drink, beer or
wine, but only one glass. In the
evening: vegetable soup, half a boiled
chicken, salad again, gateau, fruit or
cheese, 200-300 grammes of bread.
Mind you, during the first two
months with me, my riders aren’t too
happy with so limited a diet. Carrea
ate enough for four, and as for Filippi,
my wife recently told me, it was a real
pleasure to refill his plate. You can
reckon that it takes two months for
them – even for the gluttons – to get
used to a regular and controlled diet.
It’s interesting to add it all up. If one
of my riders eats 7.5 kg of meat a
month, that’s 90 kg a year. Chicken, at
the rate of 15 a month, is 180 per
year. Add to that 200 litres of milk,
about 70 kilos of salad, and at least
120 kilos of fruit. Now that’s what I
call living well …
As you can see, there’s nothing
magic about any of this. It’s simply a
matter of following a regular regime,
and form will come.
Incidentally, let’s consider the
nature of this ‘form’, and how you
can tell when you’ve got there.
When the rider gets back after a
training session without being aware of
any fatigue, then you can say that he’s
approaching his best condition. If, after
a 150 km ride he can run up several
flights of stairs without feeling that his
legs have turned to wood, that’s the
first sign that form isn’t far off.
When I gave Coppi a massage I
could easily tell what condition he was
in at that particular moment. When he
was in record-breaking form it was like
stroking the strings of a guitar, my
fingers sliding from one muscle to the
next. But if his form was below par, I
would be able to feel under my fingers
a thin layer of fat.
I’m often asked how Coppi maintained
his form from the start to the
end of a season. The answer’s easy:
I’ve never known a rider to be so
meticulous. During his training cycles
Fausto carefully weighed all his food
and controlled his drinks, so as to
avoid any risk of indigestion. Then,
when preparing for the world championships,
he would drink every
morning, before breakfast, a glass of
mixed vegetable juices: celery, carrots,
radish and tomato. It got to the
point where he wouldn’t sit down at
table without having done so.
These were the means by which he
maintained his form: not just relying
on his instincts to govern his training,
but by maintaining a strict system of
control throughout the year. Thus
you can avoid the discomfort of
constipation and its consequences,
and the sort of boils which force so
many riders to abandon races.
It should go without saying that
riders should be seen periodically by
the doctor. I advise all managers to
be aware of the importance for their
riders of regular bowel movements.
If the intestines – which I call ‘the
engine of the champion’ – are
working regularly, the young rider
needn’t become over-anxious about
a few results which are below what
he expected. He shouldn’t be afraid
that he’s lost form, or has been
eating too much or too little.
Everyone feels unwell from time to
time. At such times I suggest a tisane
with barley-sugar (excellent for
stomach upsets), dandelion root (for
its laxative properties), or crushed
linseed with sugar and milk. You can
boil it up for an hour, and when it’s
cooled it can be drunk during the
afternoon at the time when the rider
suffering with the stomach upset
would be thirstiest.
Another of my little secrets: in the
spring, when my riders get back
breathless from their first rides, I
have ready for them a big glass of
hot lemon juice. The warm drink
prevents irritation of the bronchii, so
avoiding coughs, and soothes the
effect of the cold air in the lungs.
Lemon juice is an ideal disinfectant,
more easily digested than milk. V
Veteran Leaguer: Winter 2002 Page 19