In the introduction to his book, The Cyclist's Cookbook: Food To Power Your Cycling Life, Nigel Mitchell says, 'It's more a book for cyclists who love food', which I think sums it up perfectly. Since starting to review the book it has been by my side in the kitchen and when planning my weekly food shop, which speaks volumes. Each of the recipes is presented in a simple, clean format, they're easy to follow, and generally based on a small number of ingredients.
It isn't a pure performance cookbook, but it isn't presented as such. Not that it is full of junk food – far from it – but it hits the right balance of performance and simple recipes that are tasty and adaptable, that I have been coming back to over and over. I reckon it's bang on for the majority of us amateur cyclists.
> Buy this online here
The book offers a good mixture of Nigel's background, the recipes themselves, nutritional advice and anecdotes. It contains 67 recipes spread across seven different sections, including breakfast, on-the-bike food and main meals. One little niggle is that I found the book hard to keep open on the right page while cooking – it would close very easily when left to its own devices.
The recipes are generally presented on one page, and use the same easy-to-follow format. The right hand side includes some summary information (difficulty, ingredients, nutrition) and the left hand side an introduction to the recipe and the recipe itself. And the photographs of the food are enough to make an instagrammer proud. Another small niggle – it would have been nice to have the total time it takes to make the recipe included in the summary.
I've made my way through quite a few of the recipes, and there are a few I have come back to numerous times. The homemade granola, the super porridge, the rice pudding (thanks Nigel for making it okay to eat this for breakfast, lunch or dinner), the Canarian potatoes combined with mojo sauce, the flapjacks, the recovery shake, the tomato sauce, the pizzoccheri and the porceddu. That's quite a few, now that I write them down, but the family isn't complaining, and it's still tasting awesome.
> How to eat right for sportives and long rides
A word of warning for anyone making the energy balls: while pureeing the ingredients for these I smelt a faint burning and thought it must just be my legs from an earlier interval session. Turns out dates are pretty tough to blend and my handblender spluttered and gave up. Use proper equipment, don't destroy a handblender like I did!
The recipes that have made it to the book feel well selected, and I really appreciated that it doesn't appear to be bloated with filler meals, which makes browsing the book and choosing what to cook much, much easier. I did notice that a few of the page references were a page or two out – slightly annoying but it didn't detract from the book for me.
> Fuelling for epic rides — how to get the right food to keep your energy levels up and avoid the dreaded bonk
Each recipe is graded by difficulty, from 1 being the easiest to 5 being the hardest. Difficulty is relative, but I didn't find any of the recipes in this book arduous or overly time-consuming. Which is perfect for a time-crunched cyclist: simple, quick and nutritious food.
Verdict
Simple, tasty, nutritious recipes – my new kitchen best friend
Make and model: GCN presents The Cyclist's Cookbook - Food To Power Your Cycling Life by Nigel Mitchell
Tell us what the product is for and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?
According to the blurb: "The Cyclist's Cookbook covers the fundamental principles of how to fuel your cycling – alongside insights into ingredients, cooking, equipment, and more – The Cyclist's Cookbook brings together everything that any cyclist could want: easy to make but incredibly tasty everyday meals and snacks; indulgent celebration dinners and treats; pre-ride, on the bike, and post-ride recovery food and drinks, through family favourites, time-crunched, healthy and nutritious 'fast' food – and everything in between." - and it delivers just that.
Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?
From GCN:
Pages: 244 (120gsm)
Size: 246mm (h) x 189mm (w)
Cover: Paperback
Cover Finish: 280gsm, with anti-scuff matte laminate and spot UV gloss finish
Tell us what you particularly liked about the product
Simple, clear design for the recipe pages, one to a page, and generally with a small, easy to obtain list of ingredients – and a decent crossover of ingredients between recipes. Very tasty food.
Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product
A couple of minor gripes: it can be hard to keep the book open on the right page while cooking, and there's no obvious total time for each recipe in the summary.
Did you enjoy using the product? Very much so.
Would you consider buying the product? Absolutely
Would you recommend the product to a friend? Already have.
Use this box to explain your overall score
I think it's excellent. It offers enough variety of simple, tasty and nutritious recipes that I have been using it week in, week out and can only see myself continuing to do so. It's presented very nicely, and Nigel has done a great job of condensing the recipes down to a couple of paragraphs each without losing any information.
Age: 39 Height: 5'6 Weight: 69kg
I usually ride: Felt AR3 road, Voodoo Bizango MTB My best bike is:
I've been riding for: Under 5 years I ride: Every day I would class myself as: Experienced
I regularly do the following types of riding: road racing, cyclo cross, club rides, mtb, eRacing
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That is a great idea. And surely someone will call them Arsegos.
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I think they did, from memory back in the 70s/80s... haven't seen one for years though, our current milkman uses a standard van, albeit hybrid.
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That's true enough. But doesn't address my point that the chainset you get as a replacement will not physically fit chainrings from the chain set...
In all fairness, it almost certainly NEVER happened…