THE BIG RIDE
We join chef and top time triallist, Alan Murchison, in his South Downs home on the launch of the second instalment of his book, TheCyclingChef
Top cycling chef Alan Murchison has just published the second instalment of his The Cycling Chef recipe collection. We learn more about it on the Winchester roads he calls home
Alan’s athletic drive and laser focus helped him win world titles in duathlon
In the opening salvo to the recently released, second instalment of his TheCyclingChef recipe series, Alan Murchison writes: “What I love about cycling is probably exactly what you love about cycling. It’s going full gas and burying myself.”
It was a line that had spooked me for some time heading into this Big Ride on Alan’s Winchester stomping ground, which I hoped would provide some context for its creation. Because, I’ll admit, ‘burying myself’ is something I certainly don’t love.
In truth, I already knew of Alan’s reputation as a ferociously competitive trainer and competitor. He’s collaborated with CyclingPlus in the past, writing recipes and performance nutrition advice, and those that have ridden with him will attest to being sucked along behind his propulsive slipstream, if you’re lucky you haven’t already been dropped. His athletic drive and laser focus, which helped him win age-group world titles in the run/bike/run sport of duathlon and ride an 18:36 10-mile time trial, was perhaps forged in the unforgiving world of high-end restaurants, where he worked as a chef for over 25 years. Now 50, he started out aged 17 working under Raymond Blanc at his renowned Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, and he held a Michelin star for over a decade. The aggregate of marginal gains in cycling was popularised by Team Sky in 2010, but, says Alan, working under the eye of the fastidious Blanc, who wouldn’t want to see so much as a grain of rice out of place, meant attention to detail has been fundamental throughout his working life.
He would leave the world of restaurants behind him having, he says, achieved everything he set out to in that world. He went on to set up his Performance Chef business up just under a decade ago, which combines his love for food and sport. Along with his partner Vicky Gill, herself a top cyclist, triathlete and the 2019 Best British All-Rounder in time trialling, with the highest average speed across the 25-, 50- and 100-mile time trials, they work alongside amateur and pro athletes, individuals and teams on their nutrition programmes.
Best of the trilogy?
I’d come to Alan’s Winchester home to ride with him and learn more about his second book, subtitled RecipesforGettingLeanandFuelling theMachine. The book is filled with tasty
recipes for cyclists, but this time comes with more of a performance nutrition bent – what to eat and how and when. Cyclists don’t focus enough on what they put into their bodies, he believes, which is at odds with how meticulous they can be with every other part of their hobby, from bikes to training.
The fact that he’s started work on a third book – “it’s my ReturnoftheJedi” – before the second was published points to how successful the first one was in 2019. It remains a best-seller in Amazon’s UK charts and, at the time of writing, it was still 48th in its Sports, Hobbies and Games chart, sandwiched in between Richard Osman and Ray Mears. It’s a well-used book in my home kitchen. These days, I am far away from being a performance-driven cyclist, which is testament to the tasty, simple recipes within, if, like me, you love to cook – and more importantly eat – good food.
“You’ll never find a bit of steamed chicken and rice in any of my books,” says Alan, who is adamant that you can create tasty, inventive meals quickly and easily without sacrificing performance, time or money.
Instead, the only thing in danger of being sacrificed today was me. Despite a busy work life at home and abroad, four kids and six rescue dogs, Alan still finds time to do 15-hour weeks on the bike, and despite it being March in a year when the pandemic, like everything else, turned time-trialling season into a void, he still looks like he could bang out a sub-20-minute 10. However, I’d be mistaken in thinking we’d be riding at the pace of the slowest – it’d be quite the opposite, in fact. I could have at least shown up with the right cleats for my pedals, and a sport drink rather than water in my bottles, which served only to remind Alan that his ride partner for the day was hopelessly out of his depth. Whether it was my lack of form or the wrong or misplaced equipment, I’d soon come to realise that excuses don’t hold much truck with a character like Alan. Before we’d even set off, he’d already sized me up as easy prey.
To give me the sniff of a chance, Alan served up the first of three recipes from the book. Later on they’d be a mid-ride energy-boosting snack and a post-ride carbs and protein hit, but to get us going was one of the three baked oats recipes in the new book. If I’d known that this, a raspberry-banana ripple flavour, was the opening recipe in the Hard Days subsection, it might have sat less well on my stomach than it did, because it was a total delight. “Baking oats brings out so much more flavour than cooking it on the hob,” he says. “And because it takes 20-25 minutes, you can whack it in the oven, forget
Despite a busy work life, four kids and six rescue dogs, Alan does 15-hour weeks on the bike
about it and use the time to get ready to ride.” Alan writes that it’s, “reminiscent of old-school ice-cream van flavours and so luxurious it almost feels like dessert.” In reality it doesn’t reach such levels of decadence, yet, with sliced banana, fresh raspberries and vanilla extract, it’s next-level oats; or several levels up from the sorry sludge retrieved from a microwave prior to a ride. Each serving gives 502kcal and a whopping great 72g of carbohydrate.
Rolling with the punches
My body would pay back instalments on that injection of capital from the first pedal stroke, because we flew out of the traps. Given the ease at which he talked about doing a five-minute 380W effort earlier in the week with another cycling publication, the power we were putting out was a morning stroll for him. For me, it was hard just to speak, which might seem useful on such occasions as it’s my job to do the listening, yet there were times when we rode at such a tempo that I couldn’t fully hear either. My vocabulary was stripped back to monosyllabic words, like some sulky teenager.
Much of the first half of the ride was on the type of fast, rolling roads out of Winchester east towards New Alresford and beyond, that time triallists like Alan lap up, because they can ride at speed and measure their effort. The rolling sections were manageable, and I could make up for the chasm in fitness levels with momentum, but any time we hit a prolonged gradient I was left exposed. At one point, on one of the steeper ramps, he resorted to giving me the dreaded push in the lower back, which, because of social distancing rules, amounted to the closest physical contact I’ve had with another human being other than my wife for the past 12 months.
The roles are reversed for Alan when he rides with the riders of the Canyon-SRAM pro team.
He works as a chef for this women’s WorldTour outfit and travels across Europe with them at training camps and races. It’s a job he couldn’t appear more enthusiastic about. Even though the job involves the long hours of his former life in restaurant kitchens, he’s immersed in a world – of professional athletes, sport, international travel and cuisine – that continues to motivate him. The days are filled, but not so busy that he can’t jump on the bike from time to time. “I can ride with them in groups, but when the gradients get to a certain steepness, they take off and I can’t keep up,” he says.
The travel aspect to such a continental-based job is always tough, but in 2021 it’s even tougher with stultifying Covid-19 restrictions across Europe meaning a Kafka-esque routine of testing, border bureaucracy and hotel-based quarantine. But, says Alan, if it’s the price to pay for continuing work, he’s up for it.
Hey, pesto
At the foot of a vertiginous descent in the aptly named village of Steep deep in the South Downs, it was time for a refuel and the second of Alan’s creations, Cheryl’s coconut oat balls, a “magical little tasty energy ball”, he writes in the book, of oats, dates, honey, coconut and peanut butter, borrowed from a soigneur at
British Cycling. There’s little preparation needed – just combine the ingredients and roll into balls. With 22g of carbs per ball, this is pure rocket fuel and a far cheaper, tastier and just as effective option as the bars sold for a pretty penny by nutrition companies. They were also the perfect primer as we headed towards the test of Old Winchester Hill via a collection of handfuls of wild garlic leaves, a “brilliant” ingredient that grows wild in abundance in these parts, which Alan will stop and gather to later whip up into a tasty pesto or soup.
By the foothills of Old Winchester Hill I’d run out of road in faking it and resolved to ride up at my own speed. This led to me being dropped, or as I’d prefer to think, ‘extreme social distanced’. Alan was like a dog on a lead, itching to be let off, but instead he had to usher me to the summit with the promise of Alan’s Coffee van (no relation), awaiting. I asked him where his seemingly bottomless well of motivation to train comes from, particularly after a year that has robbed him of competition. Accountability is the answer.
“One of my ‘Murch-isms’ is that we, as people, only ever do two things: the stuff we enjoy, and the stuff we are held accountable for.” Whether it’s in the targets of his training, or his nutrition plan, he’ll give them to Vicky, his partner, and
Alan was like a dog on a lead, itching to be let off, but instead he had to usher me to the summit
the fact that she has them means he’s more likely to work to meet them. If you’re the only person who knows your goals, they’re easier to give up on, he believes.
The summit, which gives great views of the Isle of Wight on a clear day, gives way to a wonderfully speedy descent down to Warnford, and it’s where, with 20km still to go, I called time on my ride and jumped into photographer Joe’s car. Alan had a crucial date to keep with yet another coronavirus swab if he wanted to get out of England for the start of the next round of races in Europe and I didn’t want to hinder that.
When we got back to his house, the fact he arrived not long afterwards shows the pent-up energy he’d been desperate to unleash. It’d been a ride of just 55km for me but at such an intensity that my legs were a little wobbly. All the more reason to wolf down Alan’s final dish, served on a table made out of old pieces of Manchester velodrome track in his front garden. This sweet potato tortilla goes easy on the oil while combining with eggs and BBQ spices; 18g of protein makes it as beneficial as a recovery shake and twice as tasty. His dogs, circling the food but upholding house rules, thought so too.
Alan and I, then, won’t concur on the reasons we love cycling, but we find common ground when it comes to good food’s place within it.