Best on bike carbs (circa 50g hit)…

I’m having a bit of a mind bonk about what to have a go at next in terms of carbs for the cranks. I’m a big bloke at 90kg and 100-120g/hour seems to be the sweetspot once riding the sugar train. Standard gels are a ballache being circa 30g a hit and eating 4 times an hour is tedious. I used the zipvit zv0? Gels for a bit they were 50g which is more like it.

Can anyone recommend a bar etc rather than a gel that tastes good, are easy to eat on bike that I won’t have speedload whilst chugging the moors?

MALTLOAF!!!

Jelly babies, my brand of choice for last year or so is Tesco’s own, 250g bags. 79.7g of carbs per 100g, of which 64.6g is sugars. Ate a bag on my ~5 hour ride around Longleat area hills last Thurs while riding, plus a Nature Valley bar during a sit down break on a bench on Water Lane (Horningsham).

I love maltloaf off the bike, but find it too chewy while riding, babies just “melt” and give an energy boost very quickly for me.

Small individual Soreen bars have 17g carbs each

Belvita soft grain breakfast bars have 30g each

One drink of SIS Beta Fuel (80g) and 1 30g gel would do 110g for you, particularly a Torq Gel in the first hours as they contain Fructose. For those doses you need to mix Glucose and Fructose (you’re limited to 60ghr of glucose absorption otherwise), most of the Jelly babies you find don’t contain that.

Jelly babies / sweets are mostly sugar, so find some fructose to add to it for your 120g.

Small individual Soreen bars have 17g carbs each

If he wants 120g an hour (which to me is too much unless you are racing) then that would require 7 per hour or one every eight and a half minutes for your entire ride which is a bit ridiculous and would certainly give me indigestion and I have an iron stomach. That’s why maltodextrin is the best on-bike carb form.

I buy generic bulk maltodextrin, I put it in bottles with some orange squash. You can also get generic fructose to go in it but the results were too sweet for me.

Jelly babies / sweets are mostly sugar, so find some fructose to add to it for your 120g.

When ‘sugar’ is listed as an ingredient it generally means ‘Sucrose’. Molecules of sucrose are a molecule of glucose and a molecule of fructose just holding hands.

Not sure what impact that has on absorbtion and whatnot (you need to digest the sucrose a bit to form glucose and sucrose) but I’d be wary looking for more fructose if you’re fuelling on jelly babies.

Too much fructose can make your ride unpleasant for yourslef and those you are with.

In the highest quality of Jelly babies there is 0.5% fruit juice, so not enough of a ratio to be making a difference to absorption – it needs to be closer to 30%.

which to me is too much unless you are racing

This is an good point, and a more than 1-2hr race at high effort too, OP what is it that your doing that requires so much carbs?

I make a gooey flapjack style thing with dates cherries sultanas coconut syrup sugar egg butter and flour. Just like the chewy bar sold at Marquis Drive on Cannock Chase.
It’s always palatable, the problem is that it’s all gone before you get half way through the ride.

Millionaires shortbread is a solid sugar hit, might be messy if it’s a hot day though.

I currently eat getbuzzing oat bars from Waitrose which are a bit moist, each 62g bar gives 257kcal, 41.2g of carbs of which 24.7g is sugar. So one every half hour for you (I eat less).

You need to get fat adapted bro – unless you’re racing/riding at repeated high intensities then your body can be happily burning fat with no need for on the bike carbs at all (ride length dependant obvs).

“You need to get fat adapted bro ” Well, I got fat, so I’m half way there 😉 Just need the adapted bit and I’m good to go

You need to get fat adapted bro – unless you’re racing/riding at repeated high intensities then your body can be happily burning fat with no need for on the bike carbs at all (ride length dependant obvs).

This. If you’re having to “ride the sugar train” (four gels an hour!?) in order to be able to “chug the moors”, that’s sounds pretty unhealthy.

[gross oversimplification for sake of point-making]Racers need gels. Normal people need sandwiches[/gross oversimplification for sake of point-making]

You need to get fat adapted bro

This. You could make your life so much easier. Doesn’t mean some kind of extreme keto hell – just the ability for a handful of nuts with a few raisins to give you an hour’s worth of pedalling, and save the massive sugar hit for emergencies. You won’t get the insta-buzz of pure sugar, but you won’t get the massive trough when it burns out either.

Thanks for your feedback team singletrack. Some interesting ‘opinions’ being banded about. The OP was in reference to riding hard, I’d love to have the time to pootle about stopping for a leisurely cucumber sandwich☺️ Although there was a British olympian that won a medal on jam sandwiches aledgedly?! 😆

As we are all physiologically different there is no one fix for all wrt carb dosaging. Personally I’ve found the suggested 80g/h to be way too light for me (120g is a bit much in all honesty) and I can feel it over longer more fatiguing rides. Through experience I have learned what works for me, I wasn’t really looking for health advice just ideas for on bike snackery.

I’ve used sis beta fuel but find I benefit from a combo including solids. Might just go down the Sagan/Haribo route… Hasn’t done him any harm 🤔😚

For high output the human body requires to burn the carbohydrate flame, every piece of literature I’ve read (and there’s a lot of it) supports this. Unless you’re an ultra endurance athlete where pacing is the key and load is below threshold. I am fat adapted and ride with the bare minimum and a double espresso before starting at times… That’s not what this post is about 😏

What’s “speedload”?

If it’s a hard ride, I add sugar at 5g per 100ml to my bottles, in additon to a SIS hydro tablet. Find it easier to drink the carbs than eat them.

Not sure if this is bad. Proepr sports drinks use Maltodexterin. But I’ve suffered no adverse affects

You could use Maltodexterin at high quantities as it’s not so sweet tasting

You talk about 4 hour rides “chugging around” and needing to pump in sugar…

A few things already mentioned are that it is doubtful your body can actually use that much carbs per hour, especially for that length of time, and also you don’t say why you believe to have that need. Anecdotal?

It will sound harsh but more likely a combination of being overweight(?) and “unfit” relative to what you are trying to do is having you dig really deep and feel sh..t and the sugar is giving a short lived boosted feeling but not really doing that much.

Just to give you another opinion you won’t want to hear, ride more, drink more fluids and eat proper food.

I didn’t believe it either but it is easy to have a watered down energy drink and a bit of pre- portioned sausage roll or ham sandwich in your back pockets and get them in every half an hour on the move. Ride more, get fitter, lose weight without knowing and things get exponentially easier. World of difference.

FYI I’m 92kg with 12% body fat.

The day I start thinking about needing energy gels or powerbars is the day I find another sport to try.

If you don’t need gels occasionally you don’t do a sport you have a hobby ;-).

Op

I’d recommend reading the literature on the issues of high carb concentrations, gastric emptying and the impact on performance.

Try cyclic dextrin mixes.

@continuity

Thanks, I’ll give it a look.

Even if you are “fat adapted” or riding Z2 and below burning mostly fat, anything you eat other than short chain carbs during a ride is not going to used by the body until hours later because the digestion and absorption times for proteins and fats are measured in hours rather than the minutes for glucose.

The OP sound like they are riding at high pace where their gut isn’t going to be tolerating anything other than short chain carbs and their metabolism is burning carbs for the majority or energy production. At similar intensities I like jam sandwiches(no butter), fruit such as plums, apricots and bananas survive quite well in my jersey pockets and are soft enough to eat while riding, a couple of tablespoons of sugar(about 25g) in per 550ml bottle is the limit in terms of sweetness for me any more and I would be looking at a Maltodextrin based drink as suggested by others. Home made porridge bars made with water oats and sweetened with dried fruit are super cheap and easy to make in the microwave.

Personally I find gels disgusting.

Really old school jam or marmalade sandwiches aren’t as daft as it seems. Mix of sugar and slower release carbs and easy to eat on the bike without as much ickyness of too many sweets. Flapjacks as above are similarly good but sometimes marmalade sandwiches are easier to eat. Used to eat them a lot when I was a student and riding further but on a budget. Now time is more of an issue so I rarely need to eat on a ride.

Just eat 5 bananas an hour.

As others have said, but doesnt want to be heard, this amount of calorie intake seems nuts to me.

I mean, how do you carry the equivalent of 20 bananas for a 4 hour ride?

I did a 100 mile club run on Sunday, over fairly hilly terrain, with a decent average speed and all 7 riders carried what they needed in their jersey pockets. I think my eating habits are similar to the others, where people generally seem to try and eat one thing an hour, eg a banana, a cereal bar, a gel. I tend to just use plain water or electrolyte, but others may have energy drink too.

Back to your question, sensible things to eat on rides:
Bananas
Cereal bars (I love the Lidl porridge bars)
Dried fruit in a sandwich bag (dates, figs, apricots)
Homemade coconut rice balls (pudding rice, coconut cream, vanilla, brown sugar)
Luchos blocks (equivalent of gel but more like slightly crunchy turkish delight, wrapped in a banana leaf that you can chuck in the hedge)
Jam sandwiches
Nutella wraps

Final advice, make sure you brush your teeth when you get home if you insist on the refined sugar.

Op, are you eating well prior to exercise? That is an awful lot of carbs per hour during exercise and taking into account the various posts above, would suggest that possibly the problem to solve is pre-loading rather than trying to cram during exercise.

If it’s a hard ride, I add sugar at 5g per 100ml to my bottles, in additon to a SIS hydro tablet. Find it easier to drink the carbs than eat them.

Not sure if this is bad. Proepr sports drinks use Maltodexterin. But I’ve suffered no adverse affects

5g per 100ml isn’t a lot. The benefit of maltodextrin is that you can put far more in without it a) tasting intolerably sweet and b) upsetting your stomach.

Not sure what impact that has on absorbtion and whatnot

As above, really difficult to consume that much sucrose, but much much easier with malto.

FYI I’m 92kg with 12% body fat.

Really, like actual measured in a lab 12% body fat or via a set of body fat “measuring” shop bought scales as 12% body fat puts you firmly in “athlete” category and to get there you would’ve had your all round nutrition absolutely nailed, unless you a skin and bones build at like 6’6″ or something.

DIY Sports Nutrition

What’s “speedload”?

Isn’t that what killed River Phoenix?

OP when you say you’re “riding hard” how long are you actually riding for?

I can only speak from personal experience but up to 2 hours I’m not sure I’d need to be scoffing any extra Carbs, certainly not during the first hour, even if I was riding harder.

If I know I’m going to be riding for longer I start taking on a mixture of smaller snacks, some sugary some more savoury/salty after the first hour to give me a chance to digest and metabolise it over the second hour of riding, for it to kick in during the third and subsequent hours.

I’d tend to eat every 30-45 minutes (I have an auto reminder set on my Garmin) I doubt I ever take on more than 60g an hour tops, I’d have to be eating pretty much constantly to take on 120g of carbs, at which point I think I’d struggle to digest it in anything other than liquid form so any increase in pace, would probably be offset by needing to stop for a piss every half hour…

It might be simpler to just ride a bit slower…

There’s a huge thread on the trainerroad forum about this topic- guys on there have managed to get as much as 200g of table sugar into a bottle 🤣

It’s all I use now- plain table sugar with squash and a pinch of salt to knock the sickly edge off. Any more fructose (I used to use SIS powder) gave me gout!!

Just doing mine now for chaingang and will put 6 tablespoons in each 750ml bottle for roughly 90gx2. I’ll drink the first one on my way there (an hour easy spin) once I’m exercising so it doesn’t spike my insulin; block fat burning and make me feel sleepy. The second will be downed during the ride by about half way round. Doesn’t matter if I don’t technically “use” it all during the ride- it starts to replenish muscle glycogen on the way home and means recovery should be faster.

Interestingly, BikeRacingWithoutMercy on YouTube did a lab test and even at his zone 2 he was using OVER 100g/h of carbs!!!

(And yes I can ride fasted too- worked up to 6hr fasted rides last year by capping my power at 65% ftp.)

The entire evening will be around 1800kcals so even 700kcal of sugar is but a drop in the ocean.

It might be simpler to just ride a bit slower…

Some performance coach you’d be 🙂

12% body fat puts you firmly in “athlete” category and to get there you would’ve had your all round nutrition absolutely nailed, unless you a skin and bones build at like 6’6″ or something.

Plenty of people with that low body fat and lower that are just generally active without special training.

Really, like actual measured in a lab 12% body fat

I went to a sports science professor and he measured my body fat using calipers and IIRC three points. He said it was accurate enough. He did have fancy calipers though.

Interestingly, BikeRacingWithoutMercy on YouTube did a lab test and even at his zone 2 he was using OVER 100g/h of carbs!!!

The entire evening will be around 1800kcals so even 700kcal of sugar is but a drop in the ocean.

Yes but that’s in no way the same as needing to put in over 100g per hour, otherwise you’d starve to death during your sleep.

Sorry @Dangeourbrain I don’t get how sleeping and 1000kcal/h Chaingang’s are the same thing??

Eff “offsetting glycogen loss” – burn it all off on a 3 day fast with light walking and riding, go full keto, never feel the need to ever eat (never mind sugar) again even on 10 hour rides. 🙂

Lose the top 15% of your performance tho, because balls-out is carb-burning.