Flapjack bars? Just as good as energy gels etc?

Going to be taping some Trek or similar flapjack bars onto the bike for the sdw this weekend. Did the same with SIS gels before but I didn’t find them “filling”.

Flapjack, just as good in reality and much cheaper?

It’s all carbs and protein innit?

Flapjack is better simply because flapjack and not some strange chemical shit storm wrapped in foil.

Gel Is quicker and easier to digest but that isn’t everything. I did a 140k MTB ride last summer and needed savoury food part way round. Just something to think about.

Is the protein handy for the leg muscles at the end of the riding day?

Riding stw over 3 days. I’m not fit but I’m getting there. Baby steps.

It’s more of a matter of speed and accessibility of the energy contained in the two.

Gels are a very rapid quickly absorbed and are good for a quick pick me up of energy.

Flapjacks will take longer to metabolise but will give a longer slower release energy.

I use both, gels as instant energy and oat bars or faux naked bars as slower release energy.

Flapjacks are usually quite fatty so reduce the rate of carb absorbtion apparently – both of the flapjack and subsequent foods. Not the end of the world most of the time but can have an impact depending on exercise intensity and how you schedule your food intake etc.

Two bottles. One with plain water, one with SIS or similar. That should keep you going nicely between more pleasant sandwich stops. For sdw in three days I’d say pack two sarnies so you can have two sandwich stops and then stick an emergency couple of gels somewhere about your person or bike.

If you ‘bonk’ a gel will hit the spot much quicker IME

I find some flapjack-like cereal bars a bit cloying in the mouth (eg nature valley).

Proper homemade flapjack made with all the butter you can find obviously doesn’t have this issue.

I’m not coming from any science viewpoint, but when I’m doing a longer day on the mtb (40-50km all off road) I take a mix of gels / clif bars / honeycomb bars. I would take a hydration pack full of water and stick an electrolyte drink in a bottle. If there’s a chance to refill the bottle at any point I stick another hydration tab in my bag.

Sometimes on a long draggy hill it’s just something to stop me getting sad as much as anything else!

Flapjacks are usually quite fatty so reduce the rate of carb absorbtion apparently

This would be a slight advantage to me as I plod along. I’m after steady carb release rather than a spike. Obviously this doesn’t apply to an actual athlete. 🙂

I need savoury as well on a long ride. Mini Melton Mowbray pork pies are my current weapon of choice.

Very interesting programme on Amazon following a catering crew for one of the TdF teams.

They basically said gels are a no in a stage because they create spikes of high and low and eventually send your body in to spiral of decline if used too soon.

They only used gels at the end of a race in the last few miles

A really good watch if you like food in general, and it’s in UHD

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eat-Race-Win-Season-1/dp/B07DX93K98/ref=nodl_

I usually make my ‘flapjack’ without butter, just lots of banana, syrup and an egg to bind it together. Makes it more palatable for me on the bike.

Also. Do an accurate calculation of your calorie needs. If you’re only doing 30-40miles then that’s 2000-2500 calories. Plus a bmr of say 1500 (don’t add 2500. That’s a bmr plus an average day of activities). You don’t want to fall into the trap of eating more calories than you burn. In fact if you’re not already <4% body fat you only need to look at carb calories when on the bike to stave off bonking. Your body can happily burn off some of those fat stores as it goes.

So now it’s down to ~1000 calories on the bike (six of those small squares of flapjack you get in tubs from the supermarket) and three light 500 calorie meals.

Then consider your muscle and liver glycogen stores, if you’re fit these will hold about 1000-2000 calories. So actually for 4 hours riding at a gentle pace, you should be fine just on the calories you get from a meal.

Gels have their place, but that’s when you’re riding flat out and the body can’t spare the effort for digestion.

Here’s the maths I did for 120miles mixed on/off road.

120miles. 10 hours.
Average power 180W
Work done (180W, 60x60x10 seconds) 6500kJ
Calorie requirement 6500calories
From fat 3250
From carbs 3250
From glycogen 1000 (I wanted to ride the next day so no deplete it to zero, just enough to justify some carbs with dinner)
Calories needed 2250

1l of orange juice (diluted into 2x 1l bottles) 450calories
1 bag of dolly mix 800 calories
Flapjack pieces 1000 calories

Breakfast: 3 weatabix

‘lunch’ on the move, 2x mini pork pies (counted out of my BMR not on the bike calories, fuel for the soul not the legs!)

Dinner : paella and a beer.

It’s very easy to fuel badly and end up actually calorie positive over the course of the day and then wonder why getting fit and losing weight it such hard work. Ive been there and done that!

I quite like oatcakes on longer rides, I just eat then dry.

They basically said gels are a no in a stage because they create spikes of high and low and eventually send your body in to spiral of decline if used too soon.

I have five different types of gel in my cupboard right now and I’m just a shit trail runner. Using “gel” is a very vague term.

SIS Isotonic
SIS Energy
SIS Energy caffeine
SIS Energy double caffeine
SIS Whey protein.

I dont even have any ketone ones.

Bernal was smashing gels on the start line on Saturday.

And flapjack with egg in it? Omg.

Ymmv

Bernal was smashing gels on the start line on Saturday.

Unusual shortened stage though. Well under two hours for the top riders, up to a pretty handy pace pretty much from the off.

An energy gel factory yesterday:

Bernal was smashing gels on the start line on Saturday.

He appeared to be colour-coding gels to his jersey. When he was in the white jersey, it was white, vanilla I think gels, in yellow he’d switched to a yellow-topped one. You can’t really do that with flapjacks.

The obvious answer is to try your flapjack of choice on a long ride before you do the SDW. What you don’t want to do is head out on something that long and then find that your food choices don’t work for you. I find anything with high fat levels – includes a lot of flapjack – doesn’t work for me on long stuff – 24 solos and the like – but everyone’s different, what really matters is that it works for you.

Nairns ginger oat biscuits are a better option. Leas sweet, great amount of carbs and low sugars. You won’t need gels over a 3 day sdw ride. I think you will be slower if you use them.
Malt loaf, bananas, oat cakes maybe a feq cliff bars and you will be fine
As your base fitness is way off gels will not make you fit or fast, weight loss and structured training do that

When we used to do Polaris events in the 90s we were in the process of working out nutrition and we settled on dried bananas and maltodextrin powder, which seemed to do the job well. We tried convalescent drinks like Complan and Build-Up, which are just MD and whey with colour and flavour. Then along came more and more expensive energy bars but there’s only so much sucrose, fructose and carbs you can actually pack in a pocket-sized bar and I reckon flapjack still does the job if you can make it non-sticky and pack it in a way that’s OK to handle.

By about our fourth Polaris (7 hours riding on Saturday and 5 on Sunday) we discovered that a big juicy steak fried up with pasta on the overnight camp was much more palateable than a sachet of Complan or Build Up and the protein seemed to repair muscle damage much better than just carbs, meaning we felt less knackered on the Sunday morning.

A pal of mine has a small sports nutrition company and he has given me some energy bars to try. His “during sport” energy bar is an exact replica of Kendal Mint Cake but with a citrus flavour and after necking one of those I had a very urgent and fast bathroom visit the next morning; the formula is corn syrup in sugar and that must absorb water from the gut and turn into a gloopy gel.

Energy gels are, AFAIK, just maltodextrin mixed with water and some sugars into a gloop, so not much different from Bisto gravy though without the colour and meat flavour. I’ve never really used them as I dislike having to stuff the sticky sachet back in a jersey pocket.

So stick with flapjack, it’s cheap and does as good a job as all the other stuff.

If you’re riding the South Downs Way over three days I’d just do it on cafes, pub lunches and a bottle of water in between.

If you’re riding the South Downs Way over three days I’d just do it on cafes, pub lunches and a bottle of water in between.

Sage advice, 3 days isn’t exactly smashing a pace out.

No doubt I’m about to be told I’m doing it all wrong, but for 12 & 24hr solos I’m quite happy on SiS gels, bars, iso-carb drink, peanuts, bit of banana, cranberries and the odd shovel of pasta if I get hungry or do a kit change. Towards the end I’ll happily do 2 to 3 gels per lap on a typical course as it’s just a case of keeping going at that point and **** the consequences 😂😂

For 12 & 24hr team & pairs efforts the pace is a lot higher so I find myself actually eating proper food between sessions, like pasta and bananas and SiS bars. Couple with a can of Pepsi max each session and a glass of SiS hydrate stuff

Both of those types of efforts involve serious calorie burn, so I find I need instant hits on the replenishment front

Bernal was smashing gels on the start line on Saturday.

Yes because it was a sprint race for them 🙄

If you’re riding the South Downs Way over three days I’d just do it on cafes, pub lunches and a bottle of water in between.

Yup, SDW over 3 days is a nice long weekend trip with plenty of time to stop and eat lunch. Pack a few bars for emergency dips but you aren’t into sprint or mega endurance territory.

And flapjack with egg in it? Omg.

I make it by eye. So no idea of weights, but its basically

2 bananas
1 egg
Loads of sugar
Plenty of syrup
Splash of water
Add oats until it looks like flapjack mix.

Leave to rest for a few hours and let to oats swell before baking on greaseproof paper.

The egg and banana just keeps it gooey without having to resort to massive amounts of butter an syrup.

At a nice steady pace most foods are fine. It’s only when you are burying yourself that gels and the like help. Pack a few sandwiches and some sweets for the odd low spot. For stuff like Charlies Gravel Dash I have sandwiches and a big packet of jelly beans. A bit of cake helps too and I remember from a few years ago there was a cracking bacon and cheese savory cake halfway round.

This is the best flapjack recipe I’ve found. With a couple of my own amendments –

175g peanut butter, crunchy/Coconut peanut butter/cashew nut butter (or a mix) Lidls sell them
75g Raw Cocunut Sugar
4-6 rounded tbsp Lyle’s Golden Syrup (depending on how gooey you want em.
2 tbsp sunflower oil.
90g raisins.
175g rolled porridge oats

Heat nutbutter/sugar/syrup/oil until melted, stirring
Fold in raisins and oats, mix well
Press into pan, gas 4, 180C for 20-25mins

Do not forget a pint or two of guinness post ride. I am sure it is good for strength and recovery.

Jelly Babies, tasty, cheaper, better.

They basically said gels are a no in a stage

Because it’s a long distance endurance job and they get big meals before and after. One day racers are probably gelling up.

Flapjacks are much harder to digest. On a hard 4 hour ride I have to be careful how much cakey stuff I eat because it gives me indigestion. I find chocolate bars better for non-gel food than flapjack, that tends to be what I buy at garage stops.

I rarely use actual gels cos they are so expensive. Maltodextrin powder is very cheap and does the same job.

I use gels occasionally because people keep buying me them for birthdays.

Best I found for long multidays was the hi5 maltodextrin & whey 4:1 mix .. just seemed to work longer, especially if not smashing it out.

thisisnotaspoon

Subscriber
I usually make my ‘flapjack’ without butter, just lots of banana, syrup and an egg to bind it together. Makes it more palatable for me on the bike. snip…

Good post that mate, thanks.

As said by people, not a long ride for most but for me, well…lol

I’m intending getting to Amberley on the first day, so about 48 miles. That’s going to be the loudest ride I’ve done in years and that’s the day I’ll need all the help I can get. Next 2 days will be a bit more leisurely as I’ll be feeling that 48 miles for sure!

That’s for the advice guys. I’ll be stopping at the occasional cafe but I think I’ll stick with flapjacks rather than energy gels after advice above.👍

A 225g bag of Sainsburys Jelly Babies should last you at least 3+ hours… And that’s if you feel the need to replenish carbs to the max of ~60g per hour.

Don’t get me wrong, I love eating flapjacks, but the nutrients won’t get into your system as quick as Jelly Babies. Too much fat, just like my original bike fuel of peanut butter/yeast extract/jam sandwiches.

in yellow he’d switched to a yellow-topped one.

Ooh, they do custard gels?

Torq do rhubarb and custard, bit Bernal would have been having vanilla as he’s sponsored by SIS.

Whatever you do, don’t have the SIS Chocolate Orange Protein gel.

Its **** rank. Grainy texture, tastes like somebody put orange essence in mud.

Thinking about it – aren’t flapjacks and gels just different – flapjack for slow energy release, gel for quick hit of carbs to keep you going? That’s what I always thought (back when I was actually able to exert myself 🙁 )

I have not done a long ride for (thinks….) Gulp 5 years! But I personally found flapjack type creation, and or soreen loaf with butter and or small sandwich in quarters with a filling such as peanut butter and banana or grapes. Then a bag full of mixed fruit and nut worked well. Especially dried apricots. Worked well for me. Be sure to eat some of the sandwiches etc as only eating the dried fruit will result in emergency poo situations. Just the same as only eating gels tbh!

PoopScoop, jump onto the Torqfitness website theres a wealth of free info.  Take out the marketing but its easy to distinguish the relationship between Fat/Glycogen stores and Food/Gels and your performance after about an hours reading / watching videos.

FWIW and with the greatest respect you’re not a regular athlete with continual above normal demand so the flapjack won’t kill you during the SDW, but its not the best.  You also should have practised whats good for you / you can cope with for the duration.  For example this…

Especially dried apricots.

…would have me leaving a different kind of trail between Winchester and Eastbourne.

I am with @martinhutch – for longer rides you will find yourself craving something savoury. I also find mini pork pies great for this, suitably moist and one can be scoffed quick enough.

They’re different.

I doubt there’s anything as quick as gels at getting fast energy into your system, but once you’re on them you’re pretty much committed until you’re ready to stop doing whatever it was.

Flapjack (in general) offers a broader base and actually approaches nutrition rather than simply being an energy delivery product. It can be too dry but this is probably down to the flapjack itself and the hydration state of the rider.

Having played with the branded ‘sports’ bars, I’d be inclined to buy basic supermarket cake variety rather than ‘sports nutrition’ bars, but its very DIYable too, that way you know exactly what you are getting. According to legend, that’s pretty much how ‘Cliff’ bars started out. I’m not sure their promotions people get irony…