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Am off for 50 miler myself in a few days. I usually take plenty of water, a few peanut butter sarnies and emergency flapjack. Might pick up a banana from a shop instead of flapjack. Non-competitive riding, mind (read - lazy tour)
Yes, pork pies, the food of athletes.
Apparently the England cycling team developed this for the 2012 Olympics.
He's not an athlete at the Olympics, he's a bloke riding his bike for a few hours.
True, but 50 miles is 50 miles.
It takes it tole on the riders body so may well make it as easy as possible.
Gels can give you stomach issues but that's usually due to people not taking them correctly. The real thick stuff needs a good sup of water to dilute them and stop the squitz.
The powder pre mixed with water is nicer and more convenient method IMHO.
Anyway, each to their own.
I wouldn't bother with specialist products as they are expensive. They have their place in certain situations but cheaper substitutes can be found, especially if you are not looking for marginal gains.
My last hard 50mile ride I ate 6 v. small new potatoes (my new favourite biking snack with a small amount of cheese melted inside then cooled) 2 pieces of flap jack, 4 potato cakes and a twix.
I was going hard though, practicing for the national champs in May and it was around the trails of GT and Innerliethen so tough, physically.
On easier rides I eat much less.
If you want emergency sugar then cheap sweets work as well as gels so jelly babies, wine gums or whatever you fancy.
I find eating sweet stuff for 5 hours upsets my stomach, so I've been playing around with rice cakes (google cycling rice cakes) and other ideas, hence the potatoes.
Beer
Pies
Pork Scratchings
Whisky
Tangfastocs
[b]on and on[/b] - Just out of interest, how much carb drink were you carrying when you did your 130 miles? Sounds like an awful lot of fluid to get down you if you were drinking every 20 mins. You must having been stopping to pee that often too!
[b]jonba[/b] - love the potato with cheese idea!
85k yesterday in sweltering Sussex heat.
Fat coke and a Twirl did me, and a couple litres water.
Chum3 🙂 yes, I was either peeing, needing a pee or looking for a place to pee.
I now have a mental male of every location around lake Geneva where I too a pi55.
I drank a whole tub of torq powder and would mix with water along the route.
Not ideal, but it was my first time using product and riding over 100 miles in one hit- you live and learn
feed zone portables book has lots of recipe ideas for home-made non-processed snacks. Miniature homity pies are a fantastic thing to pull out of the rucksack when you're fed up of powerbars 🙂
I do a 60mile training loop and depending on how close it is to racing/how tight I'm feeling it'll be one of 2 choices
tightwad version
2x750ml bottles with torq energy plus a refill of the powder
4x bannanas
1x maltloaf cut into cubes or a pack of jelly babies or mixture
3x gels which I try to not use
serious money version
2x750ml bottles with torq energy plus a refill of the powder
10 gels or 5 gels and 5 bars
I have more energy and feel better with the serious money version. A 3rd hybrid version has me eating bannanas for the first 90mins as I've already had a large breakfast.
I'm wary of what I can take out with me in the heat. It's 30 degrees plus here, even in the mountains, most of the day, I don't think a pork pie would be very good for me after a couple of hours, although it would be a great weight loss programme.
I think carrying a whole ice pack and cool bag may just piss me off.
Thanks for the input folks. Sounds like the sort of things i take anyway.
It's the WHW so a reasonably brutal 50 miles. I know what I'm letting myself in for as I've cycled the good bits a few times already. I'll just take my time on the tricky Loch Lomond section. Very excited!
That is a very big 50 miles. I did the WHW last summer in a one-er and ate the equivalent of 7 meals. It was hot so I also drank more than a litre of water an hour. From what I can remember there was a massive bowl of porridge, a chicken pasta meal, wholemeal pittas stuffed with peanut butter, burger and chips at Tyndrum, sandwiches from the Green Welly, sausage rolls, roasted almonds, flapjack, High5 in the water, lucozade sport and maybe a chocolate milkshake.
Good luck with the ride. Weather looks good for it.
Trick is to eat massive before you start (carbs) and then eat to a schedule. By the time you feel hungry or tired you're playing catch up. It's also a great motivator if you like what you eat.
eg
On the hour - Gel/Swig
Quarter past - jelly babys/Swig
Half past - Gel/Swig
Quarter too - half banana/Swig
Third hour give yourself something special eg a caffeine gel or sandwich or whatever you can pin your mind on when the going gets tough.
Tough cycling is about 500 calories per hour.
Gels are shit. You don't need them unless you are doing shorter fast races, or things like running marathons. They are just sugar, more diluted than in jelly babies / sweets. Better eating jelly babies / sweets if you can. Gels are very expensive, messy, and heavy compared to jelly babies.
Each to their own. I can eat 20gels I can't eat 160 jelly babies (8 jelly babies per gel for same calories). Agree if you're not racing you don't need them as much but they are still useful for long lower intensity efforts.
On the hour - Gel/Swig
Quarter past - jelly babys/Swig
Half past - Gel/Swig
Quarter too - half banana/Swig
Personally I couldn't live on sugar like that it would give me stomach ache. Make sure you practice on shorter rides.
For longer rides/races like Glentress 7, Kielder 100 etc. I tended to start off with bulkier "real" foods and get more to the more refined sugars later on. I even threw in a few pork pies at the 50mile bag drop on the K100 because the fat/protien helped settle my stomach (and pies are nice). I also craved salty stuff so started taking mini cheddars and other such biscuits.
I would only recommend gels/drinks if you are going to be unable to eat more solid foods. I use them road racing and in shorter high energy mtb racing where eating a pie is hard. By then end of the kielder 100 I was too tired to chew so gels and drinks were welcome.
Christ on a bendybus! I dread to think what your guts are like after 20 gels! 😯
I'll ask the obvious question....
Is there a Gregg's en route?
If not, then you need to re-think your route
[quote=adsh]I can eat 20gels I can't eat 160 jelly babies (8 jelly babies per gel for same calories).
More like 5 jelly babies per gel:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/bassetts-jelly-babies-per-8-sweets-18042301
And 20 gels? Seriously? That's £20 worth of sugar snot. I feel ill thinking about it.
That is the equivalent of half a bag of sugar 😯
[quote=adsh]Agree if you're not racing you don't need them as much but they are still useful for long lower intensity efforts.
They are just sugar. Drinking sports drink and topping up with jelly babies / tablet / savory carbs like bread is more palatable and 'real'.
For most all uses, gels are unnecessary and very expensive.