When I’ve been out on the bike at the weekends recently I’ve been finding I can’t push much beyond 3-4 hours. I feel fine up to this point climbing/descending etc, but after three hours I can’t climb anything without getting massive lactic acid burn in my legs. I can keep pedalling on the flat and downhill is no problem (standing and handling on technical descents is fine). Same story when out on my road bike, hit three hours and my legs start to go. I also start to get cold about the same time, but I’m not sure if this is a cause or effect – get cold, blood doesn’t go to muscles so much, get pain or get pain, can’t work muscles as hard, get cold….

I want to get this sorted as I’m planning on doing the Tour de Ben in September and know I will die about half way round unless I fix this! My question is if there’s anything I can do nutrition/warm up wise to delay the onset of this, or is it just a case of MTFU and exercise more/longer periods? I haven’t really been getting the chance to do much during the week recently but will make the effort to get out in the evenings if that’s what’s required.

I’ve tried googling but just get info about post activity muscle soreness, but I don’t get any of that either after my ride or the next day. Prior to this most of my riding has been no more than 2.5hours round cannock or the local bridleways.

Apologies for a slightly rambling post, I suspect the answer will be MTFU!

You’ve mention nutriton in the heading, but not told us what you are eating in your post so I presume you aren’t eating enough.

Get some cake into you.

Are you eating anything?

Good point!

I normally eat a normal breakfast of cereal, and then have a couple of biscuit type bars for half way round. I’m also trying to lose a bit of weight so have been avoiding eating too much as I want my body to burn fat, possibly the wrong decision?

If I do need to be eating more, what sort of things should I be eating and when?

Cheers

If I do need to be eating more, what sort of things should I be eating and when?

sounds like you do need to eat more

You will get different opinions on this but IMO carbs – long and short acting

+1 TJ.

Cheapo cereal bar will be fine.

APF

Prior to this most of my riding has been no more than 2.5hours round cannock or the local bridleways.

It’s not really surprising that you get tired after doing 50% extra riding compared to what you’re used to. You’re not all that fit, and you’re trying to build up quite suddenly from the sound of it.

It is quite cold right now, which does make things harder (my gears froze and my water turned into a slush puppy on my ride in!), but really, you’re pushing yourself to do longer distances without much training, and getting tired. The cold is because you run out of energy, and feel the cold more.

I always find there is a massive difference between people who commute and people who don’t on our rides, so I bet you’re right, you’d find a big difference if you managed a couple of weekday rides as well as the weekend rides.

What you’re feeling might well be ‘bonking’ – when your body runs out of energy – if you normally do a couple of hours riding, you don’t really need food or drink, whereas when you get past that eating something really makes a big difference. I find a soreen malt loaf, stuck in my jersey pocket is pretty good for that – you can just grab it out and bite off a chunk every so often. If you regularly eat, then you shouldn’t run out of energy too badly. You also need to be careful about how much you’re drinking, but at this time of year it is hard not to drink enough – that is more of a summer thing.

Oh and it is worth having something very sugary like a pack of skittles or haribo in your bag, just in case you do bonk – I did 30 miles off road once on skittles after completely running out of energy. Just eat one or two every couple of minutes and you can get yourself back alive pretty quick. Combine them with malt loaf or similar, and you can get back to full power (energy bars work okay too, but are super expensive).

The other thing worth doing, right now whilst you’re inexperienced at doing any long rides, is to plan a pub / cafe stop. Doing two 2.5 hour rides with a cafe stop in the middle for a decent meal is a lot easier than doing a 5 hour ride without big breaks, but is a very good way to train towards it.

Try some Jaffa cakes, aside from slowish release energy (spong and jelly) they taste great, when my kids swam competitively the GB level coach always recommended them between races on a long day of competition. I’m a big fan of malt loaf, lots of butter although I have to say I think the benefit is mostly motivational. I’ve never tried the Gel type stuff and am in no rush to do so.

Stick some maltodextrin & fructose in your drink, 2:1 tablespoons or greater if cold like now. Pinch of salt / electrolyte, small amount of juice to taste. Rocket fuel.

Thanks for the advice so far. Sounds like part of the problem is needing to eat more, I suppose my body can’t convert long term stores [cough] fat [/cough] quickly enough when climbing. I don’t feel ill or anything like that just that my legs have nothing left to give.

I certainly felt quicker when I was commuting 2-3 time a week on the bike, unfortunately a new job has made it difficult to do that any more, so might have to be more evenings out.

Like the sound of soreen and jaffa cakes as fuel!

You need to get used to riding further, both fitness and knowing your pace. You also need to fuel yourself.

Getting used to riding distances takes time, if you are going for a one off and don’t have time to build up gradually then just start slow. If it’s a 6 hour ride and you normally ride for 3 then start at a pace you feel is way too slow. If you find you have been going too slow then sprint for the last hour, you won’t be able to 😉 !

I don’t know if this is still upto date but you burn something like 500 calories an hour but can only take in 200. You need to start eating the moment you start pedaling if you are not going to crash and burn by the end. I normally eat something at 30 minutes into a ride (only racing/very long 6hr+ rides) and then every 45minutes to an hour from then on.

I personally like (and it is important that you like it as you won’t feel like eating later on) peanut butter sarnies, cereal bars, bananas, fig rolls, wine gums, pork pies (not great but soooo nice), occasional chocolate bar, buscuits, mini cheddars, some energy bars, some gels etc.

I also have two bottles, one water and one sports drink (Torq).

Again, I found I didn’t get on with some foods when doing long rides. Drinking nothing but SIS made me feel terrible. Torq I find more appealing. I couldn’t do gels alone and I couldn’t handle nothing but sweet food (hence the pork pies, mini cheddars).

So, ride slower and eat more.

Things before the ride include a good nights sleep, don’t start dehydrated, don’t eat a massive meal the night before (graze and start a few days earlier works for me). In road rides the first hour can be a nice warmup, in mtb races the sprint is off the start line so this doesn’t work so well.

I’m not expecting to race, I’ll be happy to get round!

Cheers for the advice all.

Nathan

I wanted to lose weight so used to use an iphone calorie counter to get me to 1800-1900 cals a day. I’m very aware of nutrition and content so this was fairly well balanced or sport. Even so, I ended up out of energy and bonked badly as I forgot to ensure I was eating to ride.

Someone I know pointed to a Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculator and particularly the Harris-Benedict formulae to work out what my daily calorific value associated with my lifestyle and sport usage should be. Surprisingly it was 2750, 3 months later I am 0.25 stone heavier but did 2 x 2hr 45min off road 50k rides this weekend and even felt good after the second one yesterday. I ate 1 x granola bar at the half way point of each.

Look it up on the interweb, there’s loads of BMR calculators about to help.

Eating too little on a ride in an attempt to lose weight is probably a bad idea. You might just end up feeling depleted during the ride, then gorging on fatty comfort food after.

If you do plenty of riding, and don’t eat loads of rubbish afterwards, then the weight will come off.

As a rule of thumb, as soon as your mood changes: eat. If you start thinking, “Ugh! What’s fun about this? I can’t be bothered with all those hills! etc.” Get some food in you, and see how it miraculously becomes more fun. You’ll get that mood change and a drop in energy way before you feel “hungry”.

As others have said, you don’t need to be spending loads of money on special riding food. I rode 75 miles off-road yesterday and ate Mars, Snickers, and Sesame Snaps (about one bar per hour). The best possible nutrition? I don’t know, but it was cheap and did the job.