S13 Ep84: KM0: The Great French Cook-Off with EF Pro Cycling Chef Owen Blandy

On the evening of the first Tour de France rest day, Lionel Birnie and Graham Willgoss headed to the EF Education-Easy Post team hotel on the outskirts of town for dinner.

There, they met the team's chef, Owen Blandy, a  keen amateur racer who quit his job in finance to pursue a dream, combining his love of cycling with a passion for cooking. For Owen, preparing the meals for the riders is an ever-changing challenge. First there's the sheer logistics of driving a catering truck that wouldn't look out of place at a street food festival around France, sourcing the ingredients and designing a menu that not only tastes great but gives the riders the right balance of nutrition to perform at their best in the most demanding race in the world.

With Ben Healy in the yellow jersey it was a busy day for everyone on the team and while there was not necessarily any extra pressure on evening meal service, there was an additional sense of pride in fuelling the race leader.

Forget The Great British Bake-Off, this is the Great French Cook-Off... how does a team chef prepare the food for riders tackling 3,500 kilometres and, most importantly, what does it taste like? Normally Owen's food is reserved exclusively for the riders – the team staff usually have whatever's on the hotel menu but they hover around after the riders have eaten to see if there's any leftovers. So, we felt very lucky to get a taste of Owen's food and the chance to eat a meal fit for the maillot jaune.

Then Lionel and Graham turn cookery contest judges and, as you can see from our episode artwork, Owen earned a handshake from Graham in the style of the Bake-Off judge Paul Hollywood.

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