Fuelling the Tour de France: We compare the calorie burn to a Wimbledon final, a World Cup game, and a Big Mac

Keeping fed is a major part of the battle for teams and riders at the Tour de France. Riding for hours day after day requires a lot of energy. Fuelling needs for a Tour de France stage aren’t exceptional for athletes though; what is, is the three week duration for which riders need to keep this up.

To estimate just how many calories a cyclist in the Tour de France needs each stage above their basal level, we’ve totalled up the calorie estimates for each stage of the 2025 Tour for a couple of riders who share their Strava files online.

Sepp Kuss finished 17th in 2025, 1 hour 20 behind Tour winner Tadej Pogačar and posted his full set of Strava files for every stage. Matej Mohorič, who finished 126th, 5 hours 10 minutes behind Pogačar, posted stats for every stage except stage 7. We’ve taken Kuss’s Strava calorie count for Mohorič too for that stage.

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Totalling their calorie burn estimates on Strava, Kuss expended 79,170 calories, while Mohorič burned 84,762 calories. Mohorič’s published weight is 70kg, whereas Kuss’s is 61kg, so you’d expect the larger man to burn more calories. That was true on almost every stage and particularly pronounced on mountain stages. For both riders, Strava shows the lowest calorie expenditure, averaging 673 calories, on the 10.9km uphill time trial from Loudenvielle to Peyragudes on stage 13 though.

Remco Evenepoel’s numbers on Strava were consistent with those of Kuss and Mohorič for road stages up until stage 12 – he abandoned the race on stage 14 after his poor result in the stage 13 time trial and didn’t publicly post his stats for the stage 5 time trial, which he won.

Pogačar too posts some of his racing to Strava, but Strava’s estimated calorie output is only around two-thirds that of Evenepoel, Kuss and Mohorič. Make of that what you will, but it’s likely he’s spoofed some of the data to hide the real numbers. According to Strava, it “uses your power output and a human-efficiency coefficient to estimate calories”, so it would be relatively easy to scale down power numbers before posting to Strava.

What does that mean in real terms?

“When a craving hits for those two all-beef patties it’s time to stop thinking about what’s on a Big Mac and take a bite”, according to McDonalds. At 580 calories per Big Mac in the US, one of its prize hamburgers might go some way to filling the energy needs of Kuss and Mohorič.

They’d have to stuff down quite a few to fuel their Tours de France though; around 140, of which ten would be needed to fuel the toughest stage in 2025, stage 18 from Vif to Col de la Loze with 5,642m of climbing, when they averaged just over 6,000 calories.

That’s in addition to their basal metabolism, so the actual number of Big Macs they’d need to keep fuelled for three weeks of racing would be significantly greater.

You’d soon get bored with eating solely Big Macs every day and the 34g of fat per burger isn’t ideal. In practice, pro teams take great care to provide riders with a balanced and diverse diet, to avoid food fatigue when eating to fuel such a high sustained energy output.

Teams travel with a nutritionist and a mobile kitchen staffed by one or more chefs to source fresh food at local supermarkets during the race and prepare the riders’ meals.

Numbers of gels and energy drinks consumed during a stage are tallied and pre- and post-race food requirements are calculated down to the gram to ensure that each individual rider stays optimally fuelled.

How does a Tour de France rider’s energy output compare with other athletes?

Strava data for Kuss and Mohorič suggests they averaged around 4,000 calories per stage to reach their 80,000 calories total for the race. How does that compare with other elite sports?

World Cup soccer players

It’s estimated that a pro soccer player will burn around 1,500 calories in a 90 minute match, for the outfield players at least. Over the eight games played in the World Cup by a team reaching the final four, that would equate to 12,000 calories in total over the five week duration of the tournament.

Tennis players

It’s estimated that a male pro tennis player burns just shy of 1,000 calories during a 90 minute match and a female player around 700 calories. It is worth bearing in mind though that the average Wimbledon final was 2h45m-3hrs for a men's singles best of five sets match, and 1h20m-1h45m for the women, who play best of three sets.

A 2021 study, using doubly-labelled water to assess energy needs (a method involving drinking water where the oxygen and hydrogen have been replaced with uncommon isotopes, and excretions then measured to assess metabolic rate), assessed the total energy expenditure (so the energy needed for play plus their basal energy expenditure) of a male and female pro tennis player over a 17 day period, including Wimbledon. It calculated that the male player averaged 5,520 calories per day and that he ran over 10km during 734 minutes of play across five matches.

The female player burned 3,824 calories per day, running 7.3km during five matches with a total of 519 minutes of play.

Marathon runners

Estimates suggest that it requires over 2,600 calories to run a marathon. When Sabastian Sawe ran the first sub-two hour marathon in London in April 2026, Maurten, which provided his in-race fuel, states that he consumed 115g of carbs per hour, so 230g in total, which equates to around 1,000 calories.

That figure was based on meticulous pre-race testing, including using doubly-labelled water to assess Sawe’s energy expenditure and feeding him carbon-13 labelled sugars (sugars where the standard carbon-12 has been replaced with the uncommon carbon-13 isotope) to measure his carbohydrate uptake. The balance of his energy needs would come from his internal glycogen and fat stores.

Ultramarathon runners

Ultramarathon runners have similar energy expenditure to marathon runners, just for longer durations. A recent study calculated total energy expenditure for two runners in the 161km Wasatch Front mountain ultramarathon at over 15,000 calories over 32.8 hours, or over 11,000 calories per day. One reported drinking 15.7 litres and the other 21.8 litres of fluid over the course of the race.

The study concluded that the runners only consumed around half the energy they expended, with the rest coming from their pre-race glycogen and fat reserves. The runners consumed around 20,000 excess calories and up to 40 litres of water in the seven day period after the race as they recovered.

Triathletes

It’s calculated that Ironman triathletes burn between 8,000 and 10,000 calories during an event. According to the Pyrenean Performance Lab, citing a study back in 2002, this comprises around 750 calories for the swim, 5,000 calories for the cycling and 3,500 calories for the run leg.

The 2002 study indicated that triathletes only managed to consume around 38% of this (3,500 calories) during the event itself, the majority (70%) during the bike leg. This resulted in a 5,800 calorie energy deficit at the end of the event.

Feeding strategies have probably got more clever since 2002. Training the gut to absorb a greater carb volume and optimised carb ratios in sports nutrition products are major levers of higher fuelling ratios. While it used to be thought that 60g of carbs per hour was the maximum that could be ingested, 120g or more is now often reported. Cameron Wurf claimed to have consumed around 200g per hour during his fastest-ever bike leg at an event last year.

And the rest

High altitude mountaineering is also energy-intensive, with estimates ranging between 6,000 and 10,000 calories per day. Climbers usually lose weight, with a study finding two-thirds of this to be due to fat loss. Appetite is suppressed at high altitude, everything you eat has to be carried on your back – or your sherpa’s – plus you have to melt snow for hours to drink.

And share a thought for those looking to ride the 4,300km Tour Divide from Canada to the Mexican border. Frenchman Victor Bosoni recently completed the challenge in just over 11 days, setting an FKT on his Factor Sarana. We don’t have his stats, but a post from Reserve wheels covering its ambassador Max Riese’s 2025 Tour Divide reports that he burned 113,000 calories over 14 days.

As a self-supported race, nutrition is whatever you can find in gas stations in the sparsely populated hinterland en route. It probably makes that Big Mac a dream meal.