Updated August 31, 2025 12:12AM
Rethinking Watts per Kilo: How Pro Cycling is Fighting its History of Hunger
‘There are always riders who want to be lighter than we advise': Teams strive to save riders from themselves in the chase for race-weight and shift the focus to raw power.
(Photo: Gruber Images / Velo)
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and her dramatic weight loss became the hottest potato of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
But don’t think that’s the norm.
Ferrand-Prévot’s extreme “cut” is an outlier in a peloton that’s racing to rethink the watts per kilo equation.
“Our main focus is always on lifting watts. That’s always the first priority, especially the way racing is now,” Søren Lavrsen told Velo.
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Lavrsen works as head of nutrition at Ferrand-Prévot’s Visma-Lease a Bike super team.
The likes of Jonas Vingegaard, Marianne Vos, Wout van Aert, and Matteo Jorgenson all fall under his cross-gender umbrella.
Lavrsen explained to Velo that after decades of depletion, the peloton is coming to learn that lighter isn’t always better.
“Cycling is so hard now that power is the most important, for performance but also for health,” Lavrsen said on a recent video call.
“We do everything we can to raise a rider’s level as high as possible first. It’s only once we’ve done all we can do there that we look at weight,” he said.
“I think this is different from years before. The ideas about reaching potential are different.”
Watts come before weight in the hyper-power peloton
Ferrand-Prévot’s weight became a lead headline of the Tour de France Femmes.
Her razor-thin climbing limbs provoked a worldwide conversation about rider health, both in the men’s and women’s peloton.
Yet the 33-year-old wasn’t subject to a brutal starvation diet or a dangerous dehydration a la boxing.
Lavresen echoed PFP’s defense that her “weight loss was controlled and intelligent. It was not a disease.”
Speaking with Velo soon after the Tour de France Femmes, Lavrsen said it was the final step in a performance puzzle for an athlete who topped out her short-term physiological potential.
“With Pauline and all our riders, it’s not just about being the lightest,” he said.
“This is about being a sustainable weight and not getting sick. A happy, healthy athlete is a thriving athlete.”
This wattage-first mindset is one of the ultimate symptoms of modern racing.
Riders like Tadej Pogačar, Mathieu van der Poel, and PFP [yes, PFP – remember her bullish win at Paris-Roubaix] rule the extra-aggressive post-pandemic peloton with raw, relentless power.
‘If we have to choose, we prefer riders be heavier but powerful and healthy’
Lavrsen cited Norwegian triathletes as something of an inspiration for his nutritional philosophies.
Barrel-chested Iron Men athletes like Kristian Blummenfelt don’t sweat over the bathroom scales. They think of a pipeline of raw watts while they scarf vast quantities of carbs.
Olav Aleksandr Bu is head of performance at Uno-X Mobility and a long-time mentor to Blummenfelt.
The visionary trainer believes the peloton could gain weight in a future of high-carb fueling and gravity surpassing watts.
Also read: ‘Athlete weight is going to increase’
James Moran works alongside Bu as head nutritionist for the men’s and women’s teams at Uno-X. He echoed Lavrsen’s thinking.
“You can be as light as possible, and have a super power to weight ratio,” Moran told Velo. “But if you’re unable to produce those numbers or train properly because you’re getting sick a lot or not recovering, then it’s pointless.
“If we have to choose, we prefer riders to be a little heavier but powerful and healthy to train and to race,” Moran said.
Moran and Bu’s team is an extreme outlier of the “more is more” mindset – just look at the headlines Jonas Abrahamasen harvested with his 20kg “bulk.”
Nonetheless, the the Scandi squad’s mindset embodies a new way of thinking about watts per kilo – one that’s suited to the wild performances of the Pogačar-Prévot era.
Forgoing Froome-era fueling
Moran highlighted how pushing the line of leanness is rarely an option in today’s super-power peloton. A transformation like Ferrand-Prévot’s might not be seen again for many years.
In 2025, running the gauge into the red is self-sabotage.
“I’ve had riders say, ‘I need to be lighter. I’m too big.’ I ask them: ‘Too big for what? Why do you need to be lighter?’” Moran said on a WhatsApp call.
Moran highlighted how riders reach for examples that are no longer valid.
“When Chris Froome was dominant in grand tours, he had a very unique body composition. But people still look at those images and think they need to be that way to win,” he said.
“Racing isn’t the same now, though. The modern Tour de France is like 21 one-day classics,” Moran continued.
“There’s absolutely no way you can go into it with low energy availability, or trying to manipulate weight like when Froome was winning. Team Sky famously had Froome in deficit on some race-days. You just can’t do that now.”
Cycling is still haunted by a history of hunger
Like Moran said, pro cycling is a different sport from when Froome ruled.
The “carbohydrate revolution” embodies a science-backed approach to nutrition and training that’s made the men’s and women’s WorldTour like Formula 1 on two wheels.
Also read: Why the peloton is turning away from Froome-era fueling
Demi Vollering said during the Tour de France Femmes she refuses to chase a damaging dream-weight. She favors strength and sustainability instead.
Likewise, Vingegaard revealed he was heavier and more explosive than ever before at the men’s Tour.
But sadly, depletion diets and starvation rides are still only a decade away.
Tales of old-school staffers “fat shaming” and pinching at rounded glutes or hips are becoming rare, but not totally obsolete. And what we’re told by team nutritionists and trainers must also be taken with a pinch of media-pleasing salt.
‘Riders appear to eat well during races, but many starve themselves in private’
Cédrine Kerbaol, Clara Koppenburg, and Veronica Ewers recently spoke out on how riders can’t escape the thinking that lighter might mean faster.
Anonymous female and male pros wrote similar in must-read columns on the Domestique website.
“It’s almost become a place for eating disorders to be acknowledged as normal or just the life of a cyclist,” the female rider wrote on Domestique.
It’s a column that makes it brutally clear that cycling is cursed by watts per kilo.
“Riders appear to eat well during races, but many starve themselves in private,” they wrote. “Some weigh themselves morning and night, chasing numbers that fluctuate naturally.
Teams are painfully aware that no rider wants to carry extra kilos over the 20km climbs of the Tour de France.
Lidl-Trek nutritionist Stephanie Scheirlynck told Velo how her team tries to save riders from themselves.
“We have to set limits for minimal body fat percentage and weight for each rider when we work on composition goals,” she said. “That’s based on where the riders are now, their history, and their natural body shape.
“But there are always riders, men and women, who think lighter than we advise will be better. Or those who want to push the line from ‘normal’ to see what it will achieve,” Scheirlynck said.
Treading the tightrope of ‘race weight’ and sustainable performance
Scheirlynck works across Lidl-Trek’s men’s and women’s teams.
She explained how the peloton is undergoing a re-education.
The lesson? That extreme race weight will only work for so long.
Relative energy deficiency in sport [RED-S] impacts physical, hormonal, and mental health and can be a gateway to more entrenched disordered behaviors.
“Weight will always be part of performance. There’s no escaping that,” Scheirlynck told Velo. “And of course, professional athletes always want to push the limits. That’s how they got to where they are.
“That’s why we try to set limits. And we have to help riders understand that dropping below those can have impacts for health.”
It’s now the norm for teams to employ a whole brigade of nutritionists, team chefs, and clued-up coaches who reinforce those messages.
Shortcutting the w/kg equation
However, gravity’s pull will always remain strong.
“Riders still see cutting the diet as just a ‘thing’ they have to do,” Scheirlynck said. “It can be hard to change the mindset.”
Shedding pounds is a quicker way to shortcut the watts per kilo equation than adding a few percent onto FTP.
“Weight is always going to be a big factor of performance, but we need to show it’s not the most important part,” Uno-X’s Moran said.
“Historically, the role of nutrition in cycling seemed to be to get riders as skinny as possible. But we know now that lighter isn’t always better. In fact, it’s often detrimental to performance,” Moran continued.
“The difference in power needed if you’re a kilo heavier isn’t that significant. But being a kilo lighter can be a real danger point.”
Inflection point at the Tour de France Femmes?
The tricky triangulation of weight, performance, and health is one of cycling’s last taboos.
But maybe the Tour de France Femmes was an inflection point.
Kerbaol, Koppenburg, and Domestique’s secret pros discussed missed periods, missed meals, and mental turmoil.
Tour de France veteran Wout Poels went on to highlight how underfueling and disordered behaviors aren’t isolated to the women’s peloton.
Insiders hope this new more open dialogue can create momentum for change.
The TCA group doubled down on its push for the UCI to take inspiration from the world of sport climbing and introduce checks for RED-S and bone density. Kerbaol created her own “f.e.e.d_powr” awareness page on Instagram.
But staffers accept it’s the employers – the teams – that should bear the duty of care to their athletes.
Forward-thinking teams like Visma-Lease a Bike, Lidl-Trek, and Uno-X Mobility implement regular blood testing to check for hormonal health, and use DEXA scans to check bone density and body composition.
Lidl-Trek even has an in-house psychologist to help riders address anxieties – whether they’re about body image and diet, or racing, training, and relationships.
‘When the margins are so small, riders will do whatever it takes’
But it’s not a level playing field.
“Luxuries” like repeat DEXA scans and psychologists aren’t available to minnow teams struggling to meet the payroll.
And more to the point, they won’t erase the fact that cycling is a power sport anchored by gravity.
“It feels like when the margins are as small as now, riders will do whatever it takes,” Visma-Lease a Bike nutritionist Lavrsen admitted.
Chasing race weight will forever be one of cycling’s high-performance highwires.
The sport is scrambling to install some safety nets.
