Today with a big healthy breakfast and all the energy products my input until the end of a ride was 1700cals. Now, my garmin tells me the ride took 2700 cals. Vis a vis i had a mile bonk 10miles from the end.

But this was me eating every hour on the hour and swigging a high 5 4:1 drink in between. To get 2700 into me I’d be eating all the time.

Surely that’s not right? What to do/what have I done wrong?

Surely that’s not right? What to do?

Its about right. just eat, eat and eat some more. energy dense is your friend. obviously hard excercise and eating can be an issue, only you really know what your body can tolerate.

don’t trust the garmin numbers as non of calorie calcs are perfect.

what you ate yesterday would fuel you today, shirley?

not what you are eating on the ride.

Depends how hard he was exercising and how long. Also perceived bonk versus maybe fatigue if ride was really hard.

I’d did eat well yesterday – I follow a clean diet and yesterday was 3100 cals including water with zipvit tab to be sure hydration. No booze for a week prior.

I will state that I am carrying /recovering from an LRT infection. Maybe it was that that’s the issue.

Rone – not my fastest – 112k in 4.20 with 1100m climbed. 14mph average headwind on the way out though (2.30 out, 1.50 back).

I will state that I am carrying /recovering from an LRT infection. Maybe it was that that’s the issue.

where my money would go. i had a cold on wednesday and fell apart on a road ride friday. just nothing in the tank, and this was a route i’d done previously with no significant climbing and not even all that far. no other significant factors that i can think of apart from my ( very slight ) illness. had to stop for chocolate on the last few k home, by the time i’d got back i couldn’t feel hands or feet properly, and could have cheerfully gone to bed for a snooze after showering. 😯
still not quite right but i’m taking it a little easy now.
first time i’ve ever been like that.

My personal view is that it’s not just about eating something while riding but also about eating properly between rides, getting plenty of water (on and off the bike), decent sleep and then recovery from the previous ride.

I went out yesterday after a medium sized bowl of porridge and did a 3399 calories ride. I had no food on route and just plain water. No hint of bonk, just tired but 50miles with 4000ft of climbing is going to do that. I drink plenty of water every day, and the day before I had 3 decent meals (no idea on calorie count though) and got a good nights sleep.

I would put down what happened to you as just one of those days or like you mention about recovering from illness. That seems like the most likely to me.

Sounds more like the illness is to blame, a 1,000cal deficit shouldn’t cause a bonk, I would guess about 3,000-3,500 is required for it to happen to me. Would you normally bonk at 1,000?

Plenty hard enough ride.

I’d go with the others area and put it down to your recovery.

I went rubbish on my bike for nearly 18months, never knew why , felt dizzy, underpowered, weak etc, tired. I had plenty of tests and nothing came back. All of a sudden I felt normal again.

Was having an off-year, so almost certainly a bad ride can pop up for no reason. As I’ve got older I need less and less food on the bike and very rarely suffer from bonk or lack of feeding but I do have good days and bad days for no real reason.

Garmin heavily overestimate calorie consumption so definitely do not use this to judge what you should or shouldn’t eat!

Illness, not enough conditioning, lack of sleep, poor choice of meal/ water consumption in the days leading up to the ride, lack of sleep and any other number of factors will have caused the struggle.

I am not a physiologist but I seem to recall the average sized person can only process 60g of carbohydrate an hour (3 gels or 500ml of energy drink usually) during exercise so eating more than this is no help. I would imagine this is a far larger factor in determining eating during a ride than trying to count calories which should be replaced after the ride. Happy for someone more sciencey to explain this better!

Experience is your friend.

I can ride 50-60 odd miles before thinking ‘Hmmm, bit hungry now, might wait ’til I get home’.

…and unless it’s really hot I usually forget to drink much.

It will come, don’t sweat about it.

Weren’t you training hard a little while back?

I started to listen to what people said I should be eating and drinking, All that did was lighten my wallet.
So I’ve gone back to what I know works for me, with the emphasis on me.

Porridge early. Ride up to 70 miles, no food and 500ml of water unless its warm, then I’ll use electolyte. Just trained all bank Holiday like that and feel great. I’m a strong believer of eating well beforehand.

Today was a hard day, cold and very windy.

I was oldgit, but “training” in the sense of riding as much as possible. Starting next weekend (I’m away for work in between) I’m starting 4 x 4×2 intervals in the week lunch times x 2 and z2 long ride at the weekend.

Your latter statement was correct. I’ve done the maths now – 14.2mph average out into the wind until the halfway feed station, then 19.1 average on the way back (includes a 3 mile cat 4 as well) so you can see how the wind affected things.

I’m doing 132k BORS in May (mtb) hence the op – I’d like to survive it.

electolyte

I know what you meant but I can’t help but think how well this new word describes how we ended-up with this bleedin’ coalition…

🙂

I don’t mind admitting that I found that ride pretty hard going. A few of my mates where starting to feel it towards the end, moaning and swearing.
I did that on jam sandwiches and nanas, and topped up with their water, I don’t recall food being on offer.

Good luck with it.