The act of ingesting food for most people is called eating, but for cyclists I think a more apt term is feeding.
You notice this when you sit down to eat with them. Some bicyclists are congenitally cheap (present company excepted). To the waitperson's horror, they've consumed Five loaves of bread and a quart of ketchup before the serious feeding starts. You really notice this in a group.
While most people look at the menu for taste, the cyclist tries to determine how to get the maximum amount of food for the minimum amount of money. You can see them studying the menu as if their life depended on it. And in fact, it does. A wrong choice here may result in an inadequate meal, the dreaded Calory Deficit. A cyclist does not skip meals. In fact, cyclists have been known to have extra meals. On my last tour, I got into the routine of ride for a while, have breakfast, ride some more, have breakfast #2, etc.
A cyclist at a buffet is not a pretty sight. They will select the largest plate available (maybe two). and proceed to heap mounds of food on it in a bewildering display that seems to defy gravity. In a feat of civil engineering to rival the Aswan Dam, they will shore up the lower levels with saltine crackers, creating a cantilever effect that increases the effective plate diameter by 20%. There is a splinter group that uses many small plates. These are usually neophytes, since they spend a lot of time shuttling back and forth to the trough that could otherwise be spent eating. Bicylists are one of the few people who have ever asked for a doggy bag at a buffet.
Cyclists, like dogs, have a keen sense of smell. I personally claim to be able to smell a french fried onion ring at 500 yards.
As trip leaders we are keenly aware of cyclist's nutritional requirements. The first year we led the Velo Vermont trip, the innkeepers didn't have a good grasp of the nutritional requirements of cyclists, which could be summed up as massive quantities of pasta, and prepared a rather elegant if somewhat unsubstantial meal. We were getting angry stares, and I thought it was going to be the Donner party all over again. Fortunately, we had anticipated a possible underrun in the food department and had bought a bunch of bread and cheese which served to keep the natives moderately restful, and blooshed was avoided.
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