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If you're eating enough, then it might just be a pacing thing. Dropping your average speed by 5-10% makes a massive difference to how hard it'll feel after a few hours.
E.g. I can (solo) do about 18mph at what feels like an easy cruising speed for an hour on the road (e.g. sat on the front of a brisk club run), but I'll hit a wall and get dropped out the back unceremoniously half an hour from the pub. 16mph I can ride for 2.5hours to a cafe, have a coffee then ride home again. 15mph and I can pretty much ride non stop for a hundred miles. It's just a case of being that slight increment below threshold pace. Even 18mph average feels easy and I can have a conversation, it's just not quite sustainable beyond an hour.
In the true spirit of what work for N=1
If its just a ride - i'll take on some bottle mix, gels, bars and normal food - as the pace is often more relaxed
Last week i 200km road ride was a few bars and a sandwich stop at a coop + coke. But i was hungry when i got home
If its racing - bottle mix, gels and bars only. Possibly some caffine gels - but i feel the effect the next day.
When pushing on the pcae i find it hard to stomach normal food as others have mentioned
I've also trained my gut to be able to take 7hr's of bottle mix, gels and bars with little to no normal food.
Also its the palette fatigue which can be hard to overcome... thats more mental than anything else. But it depends what your goal is.
On a silly long rides (over 10 hrs ) I now take salted peanuts as they are easy to eat and just help keep my palette.
Using cargo bib shorts with thigh pockets i can easy get the bag out for a quick handful every now and then.
If you're wanting to ride several days in a row - fuel to the end and beyond your ride.
Once you start digging a hole its very hard to come out of it fully. that 5 minutes you stop to eat can save hours later if bonk.
I have been on a learning curve on fuelling recently. I was always of the opinion that a bar every hour and plenty of fluid can keep you going. However if your calorie burn is 500-600 kcal an hour a 100kcal bar every hour isn’t going to keep you fuelled properly. So normally a cafe stop every 3-5 hours is good for a bigger top up/meal and fluids.
I recently went on a longer gravel ride starting at 8am thinking a bar every hour would keep me going until the lunch stop. Didn’t realise the cafe stop wasn’t until 7.5hrs into the ride. I had a large meal and cake. It was too late for me and the food just made me feel worse. I’m sure I would have been ok if the cafe stop had been after 4 or 5 hours. Anyway note to self pay attention to the detail.
last week I did a couple of back to back 7000/6500kcal rides. Bars on the bike every hour and a cafe stop/supermarket stop small meal every 3/4 hours worked well. That does not fully fuel you but it does stop the bonk. I lost 1kg in body weight so must have been in deficit but hopefully most of the 1kg was fat (day 3 was a 3000kcal ride so according to Garmin my daily average burn last week was 3500kcal for cycling (based on power meter not HR)
A former 12 & 24 hour racer writes...
As others have said, everyone's different. Recommendations can help, but ultimately, trial and error based on those recommendations is what will work for you.
I don't like gels and I don't like sports drinks.
What worked for me was huge quantities of cheap high sugar content foods and plain tap water.
Licorice
Marzipan
Kendal Mint Cake
Fruit Jellies
I struggle to chew when riding. Over a 12hr TT I will have porridge for breakfast, A gel every hour (always washed down with some electrolyte drink, with a double espresso gel every three hours), something a little easy like a soft fruit bar/banana/malt loaf, and something semi-liquid like sticky rice and tuna/semolina. I take on something every 20-30 minutes. I also add Bloks of multiple flavours ad libitum. Some people take carb drinks, but the problem is when you can't stomach another and need the carbs. I therefore keep my drink and food separate. Top tip is freezer bags, Bite the corner and suck out the content. Also helpful for collection on the move. For a treat, add a mini pork pie. Because savoury matters sometimes.
I'd always treat any nutrition advice that comes across with a high level of confidence with skepticism. The most cursory glance at this thread shows that how your body copes with fuelling is really personal and I sincerely doubt that even the world's experts on this really understand it.
Some advice that you might find useful is that different energy drinks can taste and feel very different so it's worth experimenting with them to find one that works for you. I spent years thinking they weren't for me (including some very acute moments of regret by the side of the road*) but then I tried a few sachets of things and found one that works for me** on longer/harder rides. Of course, what constitutes a long/hard ride is relative to you and your metabolism so don't be afraid to fuel up rides that others consider to be a cafe run if it helps you.
* One of those regrets was trying a new drink on race day while wearing a skinsuit.
** Beta Fuel if you're interested. Tastes less sweet than the others to me and sits well in my stomach. Of course YMMV
Some advice that you might find useful is that different energy drinks can taste and feel very different so it’s worth experimenting with them to find one that works for you.
Very much this.
I can really only get on with Torq stuff. Again, I've seen it so many times on ride-leading and in Sportives - people scoop up armfuls of the free gels which in some cases are not what they're used to at all!
What was interesting was riding during lockdown when nothing was open and you really had to plan food and water accordingly. I got very good at knowing where there were outdoor taps! I was restricting myself to no more than about 100km during that time, partly for the whole "stay local" stuff, partly for nutrition purposes. That said, a bar every hour on a 100km road ride would (for me) be WAY too much food.
For an equivalent 5 hour ride (80km/1200ish m up), starting about 9am, I'd have my usual alpen + banana breakfast, a flapjack and a flat white at morning coffee (11am) and a pasty or sausage roll at lunchtime(1pm ish). In between those, I'd probably have a nakd bar if I was feeling peckish.
If you've got a lot of multi day stuff coming up, it's better to start adapting to what you'll be able to get hold of rather than making up bottles of whatever from home (unless you're planning on carrying enough food, gels & powders to get you through 3-4 days of riding from the start al-la-lockdown).
For me I need to take some food with me for anything much over a 2 hr ride. Then would be looking to get the food onboard fairly early, so if I have had a good breakfast then would look to start eating on the bike about 45 min after starting and then eat every 20-30 mins after that. Doesn't have to be a lot, maybe just half a banana for each of those feeds or a little inch cubed bit of flapjack or half a jam sandwich. 1x water, 1 x rehydration tablet in the 750ml bidons (would advise not to overdo the hydration salts).
Listening to the Real Science of Sport podcast, the scientist on there recommends that if you're going to have something fairly substantial to eat then try and get going pretty much straight after or else your body is going to start going into energy storage mode due to insulin release - this combined with blood flow going to the gut makes you sluggish. So for example if your club likes a long coffee stop then he would save his bit of cake until the group was within ten mins of leaving rather than eating and then sitting there for 45 doing nothing - then your body is using energy again when the sugar starts to hit the bloodstream. Not really a coffee stop guy but getting out soon after breakfast seems to help me with initial ride energy levels.
I think the thing over the last couple of pages that we can all agree on is:
don't wear a skinsuit.
I've just worked out (MFP again) that my lunch; cheese sandwich, Eat Natural bar, a peach and an apple is 650Kcal, so I only ate about 200Kcal more than that on the ride. I can decide whether that's too much or just about right or not enough. More experimenting required I think.
If you’ve got a lot of multi day stuff coming up, it’s better to start adapting to what you’ll be able to get hold of
That is very sensible advice, thank you. I don't want to be carrying 3 days worth of gels and flapjacks and energy powders really.
That said, a bar every hour on a 100km road ride would (for me) be WAY too much food.
Shows how different we all are, even a 'big' bar (by my definition, e.g. a full sized Clif Bar) per hour would be too little, or at least, a lot less than I'm used to. I suspect I would make it home but last half hour would feel like more of a struggle and there would be a real risk of hanger/snacking/tiredness later in the day.
The biggest revelation of fueling properly (or by some people's definition 'to excess'!) for me has just been that it is possible to finish really big rides still feeling pretty good, and not be a cranky grumpy knackered snacking machine for a day or two afterwards.
So for example if your club likes a long coffee stop then he would save his bit of cake until the group was within ten mins of leaving rather than eating and then sitting there for 45 doing nothing
Yeah, mega cafe stops do NOT work for me, if everyone is ordering lunch then I'll at least need a second coffee or something before it's time to go. My favourite local run (Auchterarder/Dunblane/Doune/Callander/Bridge of Allan) offers multiple opportunities for very nice short double espresso stops, little and often as they say!
For me? Eat like a hobbit and take my time.
first breakfast. second breakfast, elevenses, first lunch..............
Just checked the last 100k road ride I did and that was a 2006 kcal burn. I always reckoned you can do a 2000kcal activity just by eating beforehand and drinking plenty of water. No need for a bar every hour for that unless you are thinking about your next ride and dont want to deplete your reserves.
I did a 300km road ride on Saturday. Stuff that worked
Overnight oats, double espresso at the start
Veg samosa, eccles cakes
Cheese and ham panini
Zero rehydration tablets
Alcohol free beer
Earl grey tea
Tangfastics
Stuff that didn’t work
Small cooked breakfast, just sat in my stomach
Milky large coffee
Not drinking enough
So for example if your club likes a long coffee stop then he would save his bit of cake until the group was within ten mins of leaving
Good idea that!
Forgot to mention, the restorative power of Guiness saw me through the Dunwich Dynamo last weekend 🙂
(would advise not to overdo the hydration salts).
Why?
How does one know if one is?
Thanks
<p style="text-align: left;">I did the Dunwich Dynamo on diluted squash, Snickers bars and a McMuffin breakfast as by the time we started all the pubs had shut!</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">I'm just starting to scratch the surface of longer rides, have found 60g of sugar and a teaspoon of salt into a bottle of squash helps keep the climbs manageable over 70km..</p>
I've found a bottle of red the night before definately doesn't help, and a good night's sleep and unscientific carb loading (pasta pesto before the ride) does.
I get bad calf cramps when pushing if I get my fueling wrong, hydrating and getting sugar into me seems to fix it fairly quickly but I've not yet really worked out a settled routine as my weekend rides tend to vary in start time, length and intensity..
Did you wear an HRM ? I hate to ask but what 'level' was this at as if you're going slower then need to eat might be lower. Conversely , go a bit too quick and no eating will keep you out of trouble.
If you're stopping to pee all the time you've drunk too much and that can cause problems. Drink when you're thirsty, not to a timetable.
So, tracking the calories of Sunday's ride, (including a post ride beer while I hosed the bike down) I ate just about 250Kcal more what I'd normally eat for a regular workday lunch - about 900 for the ride day vs about 650 for lunch, (see up thread for the details) So I reckon that I haven't eaten too much - as some posters would suggest.
If you’re stopping to pee all the time you’ve drunk too much
I think (for me at least) this is where I think I went wrong, I don't normally drink that much in a ride, in fact; a normal weekend MTB ride for me - 30km/1000m of climbing would see me with a 750ml bottle in the cage that I probably wouldn't finish. That I had a Camelbak with 2 litres that I topped up at 60km and finished - I wanted to be sure to be hydrated, was probably a mistake.
more food, less water next time
Forgot to mention, the restorative power of Guiness saw me through the Dunwich Dynamo last weekend 🙂
DD is hilarious for stuff like that. On any normal 100 mile Sportive, you'd get the usual mix of MAMILs and enthusiasts all talking about power and Strava and nutrition and training and all carrying bars and gels and energy drink powder.
On DD, you get a wild and unholy mix of all sorts of people on all sorts of bikes stopping for bacon sandwiches and pints and crisps and hot dogs and pork pies and God only knows what other assorted food gets cooked up in pubs and front gardens to be served at 3am to starving cyclists; not a bar or gel in sight!
Someone did once ask on the DD facebook page what training they needed to be doing and the replies were very much along the lines of "eating a bacon sarnie in a random field at 2am" and "drinking coffee at midnight". 🤣
Re: overdoing hydration salts. My pal and I did a 6 hr ride in the Alps, he sank at least 4 bottles, all of which he put hydration salt tablets in. Took him about 10 hrs to go for a wee and when he did he reported it resembling Tizer, so reckon this is a pretty good indicator of dehydration.
Reckon there's a balance to be had either by doing one bottle water to one bottle salts, or at least making it all up a bit weaker.
The salts question is so individual, that it is completely useless to look at one individual. People have different salt levels in their sweat, and sweat at different rates so loss of salts, or even how much water is needed to hydrate is very different.
So, for completions sake, did the same ride yesterday, and apart from it being soul-destroyingly wet. I drank just about 650ml (estimated) of water mixed with a couple of hydration tabs, ate and drink the same at the stop, so sugary can and flat white coffee and a brownie. Everything else was the same food-wise.
Totally different ride, wasn't feeling bloated, wasn't ill, didn't need to pee constantly. Legs were fine, could've ridden further (the ride's 80km with 1100m of climbing)
So, despite the fact that the helmet I was wearing makes my forehead leak like a tap, I still don't need to drink that much. Which is good news, as 2.5lts water weighs a huge amount!
How long is your longish ride and what are you trying to eat? Short sunday road ride, 50+ miles means a normal, small bowl of cereal. That's enough to stop me bonking. Once I am home it doesn't matter.
Many people over eat based on all sorts of stories about so many grames of carbs per hour etc. The human body isn't that fussy.