The thing about poridge is not the number of calories but its effect on the body. The complex carbs are easily aborbed and dont cause blood glucose spikes. A full english will contain more calories but is harder to digest so if you eat it and then exercise those calories will not ge absorbed as blood is diverted away frombthe digestive system. If as you assert you leave it 2 hours it makes no difference because the products will have been absorbed and stored as fat. You only need enough calories to ensure you glycogen stores are full. If you ate well the night before this isnt much of an issue.
By all means have a full english if you like them but it doesnt help your bike riding.

Porridge fans, next time you make it weigh your measure of oats and do the maths. Swells up hugely on cooking. A standard measure of oats is about the same calorie-wise as a couple of slices of bread. Bare. Not much of a hearty breakfast for a long ride. A good breakfast on a cold morning when you don’t want to eat too much but don’t want to feel hungry before going out.

Of course you can stuff your porridge full of sugar and fat in various ways to get in more calories. But a bowl of granola is probably a better starting point for that, and neither of them would hold a candle to a cooked breakfast.

The porridge isn’t eaten to be a massive calorie source, if you know you are going on a long ride you should have topped off glycogen stores the day before.
What the porridge does do is provide a slow steady release of energy between breakfast and the start of your event. You just need to eat enough to replace what you lost overnight and cover energy expenditure between breakfast and ride starting. Once you are on the move its irrelevant how much you ate for breakfast as your body will only absorb ~300kcal/hr and you’ll be taking that on from your preferred source of bars/gels/energy drink etc.

Personally given the choice I like a continental breakfast of a couple of small crusty rolls, one with cheese/ham, the other with honey. If that’s not available a small bowl of porridge and a slice of toast. If its more than 2hrs from breakfast to the start then a small breakfast bar type thing 30mins before the start too.

Porridge for me too: One 100ml cup, with coconut milk, cinnamon, fresh ginger and 1 banana. I then add a few scoops of plain, natural yogurt after cooking.

Last Saturday I did a road version of the c2c (Southport to Scarborough – 145 miles) and I got my intake spot on – having previously had terrible riding/food experiences.

I learnt over previous rides what not to eat or do. 2 weeks before on an 80 mile sportive I ate too much and hit the wall for 30 miles whilst my body tried to digest the food. Little and often is the way for me personally.

I now work on Carb intake numbers…and stuff that I can happily eat all day. General rule is 1g of carb/hour/kg of body weight.

Had porridge with dried fruit and nuts for breakfast (not a massive portion – apx 80g of carbs). Then 20g of carbs every 15 mins for the entire ride – that’s one lunch box size malt loaf, a small flapjack, a fruit and seed bar etc etc.

I had a food bag strapped to my top tube – easy to grab food.

Worked a treat and I reckon I could have gone on for over 200 miles that day.

Well, the OP was asking about breakfast before a big challenging ride, it seems reasonable to think he was talking about a substantial calorie source. As I said, a full english works for me. I would however also advise eating well the night before.

For a running marathon (say 9am start) I have a big dinner and then a more normal cereal/yoghurt/banana breakfast. I wouldn’t fancy a running race on a full english, but long bike rides are usually a rather lower intensity (for a rather longer time).

100ml of rolled oats is around 150 cal, equivalent to maybe 10 mins of riding (ballpark).

Well, the OP was asking about breakfast before a big challenging ride, it seems reasonable to think he was talking about a substantial calorie source. As I said, a full english works for me. I would however also advise eating well the night before.

At some point it’s better to work out what the real question is. If I’ve had a good feed the night before I can easily go without breakfast before a ride. There is some really good science written about it, worth a read. As with most what…. Threads there is a lot of what I do responses.

Well, the OP was asking about breakfast before a big challenging ride, it seems reasonable to think he was talking about a substantial calorie source. As I said, a full english works for me. I would however also advise eating well the night before.

Its reasonable to think he was talking about fuelling his ride. Equating this to a substantial calorie source and recommending a pile of hard to digest protein and fat is likely to make his challenging ride substantially more difficult.

……but long bike rides are usually a rather lower intensity (for a rather longer time).

100ml of rolled oats is around 150 cal, equivalent to maybe 10 mins of riding (ballpark).

Now there’s some spectacularly faulty logic.
For a long lower intensity ride you are going to be burning a 75/25 fat/carb ratio, but lets be generous and say you meant a moderate intensity ride with a 50/50 ratio.

So to burn 150kcal of carbs in 10 mins you need to be burning 300kcal total per 10mins. Which in turn gives a total of 1800kcal/hr.
Total calorie burn can be very well approximated by power output x4.
So your moderate intensity ride is producing 450W – why are you posting on here and not smashing the hour record or TDF.

I’m no nutritionalist but what I’ve found / learned so far from longer rides and riding fasted a lot is,

A big bowl of porrige is too much carbs and causes insulin spikes and drops

Toast and egg x 2 or 3 is good, Scandinavian dark bread with eggs is even better

You can top up by ‘carb loading’ but your body only stores carbs as glycogen for ~8hrs (varies by individual I guess?) before beginning to process it as fat reserves – so much beyond 8, maybe 10hrs after fully digested it’s just making you fatter

Your dinner the night before and eating well along the way is more important than your breakfast

Avoid anything with more than 10% fat, it just blocks digestion for too long

Cold ravioli and rice pudding from the cans is the road food of heroes – always carry a spork : )

Not to sound like the converted but the intro to the feedzone books are really good at explaining this stuff.

Few days ago I went for a ride after having a quite big plate with pasta with rich bolognese sauce.

I normally have some snack during a ride, this time I didn’t even think about eating! The “ride” included: getting the bike/gear ready, 1 hour drive, 2.5 hrs riding, 1 hour drive back, unpacking/unloading… And I didn’t even want anything for dinner. Seems to work well for me!

Does anyone else have their oats cold, or just me?

I think I’m weird – the colder the better imo!

How I plan my long cycles is by shady calculations:

150g of oats is circa 550 calories, protein powder +100, raisins +100 and 200ml soya milk +70 = 820 calories. This combo sees me good for 60 miles before I become hungry.

These have me at about 15 calories per mile and 15ml of water per mile (my normal water consumption is crica 10ml/mile but I give myself contingency). Of course the water calculation doesn’t stop me brimming both water bottles, but does help me decide what size bottle to take out with me…

Suddenly long distance road cycling becomes even more nerdy.

Does anyone else have their oats cold, or just me?

Yup, I don’t really like “porridge” but prefer cold Oats with milk and occasionally a small topping of brown sugar.

Pizza the night before.

If its good enough for the Brownlee brothers…

Yes! If ever there was a ringing endorsement to eat more pizza 😀

Peanut butter on toast and a good cup of coffee. works for me 🙂

A big bowl of porrige is too much carbs

100g porridge is about 60g of carbs, that doesn’t seem like “too much” ?

Another vote for cold oats.

spinach with poached eggs for breakfast and drink lots of cherry juice leading up to the event too. You’ll be a flyer 🙂

and remember to wash it all down with chocolate milk. Loads of chocolate milk.
And then start refueling within 15 minutes of starting the ride.

Just to set the record straight, rockape, here I am at 17 at the bottom right, trying not to look to smug after my team won the Newquay Junior Gig Rowing Championships 🙂

Risotto the night before and three weetabix on the day. Two hrs before riding.

Pre race I eat cold brown rice, tuna and Lee and Perrin’s Worcester sauce. Again two hrs before any intense effort.

During a ride I rotate a SIS gel and something to chew on every 30-40 minutes.

Eating too much before starting is a recipe for stomach cramp.

My usual routine before the Sunday Club run (anywhere from 80-140 miles) starts with a huge pizza on Sat night. For breakfast I have a tin of Ambrosia rice pudding with a generous blob of jam in. I’m then straight on the bike and heading for the meeting spot ready for an 8.00am start. We always ride to a café and I always have the same meal: beans on toast with two poached/scrambled eggs on top and a tin of Coke. I never feel the need to nibble on snacks in either direction, and I’m generally on the rivet for the whole ride. This week’s was a particularly hard ride though (Huddersfield -Knaresborough-Huddersfield, 100.2 miles in 4h 57m) so I did resort to a gel to help me up the last 2/3 mile climb home.

So, Gofaster, according to Yahoo you’re three times above the accepted dose.

Weetabix = super power up
if you have too much Weetabix, youre going to be too powerful for your own good!
a bit of a smack might turn into a hulk smash
a light punch could become a falcon punch
bit of a rage = OVER 9000!
Weetabix is hefty stuff. eat it wisely
;D

No wonder you were full of rowing win…

https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110322041840AA7FsId

Edit : I had to Google Falcon punch