Fuelling for longer rides

most are trying to ensure that the tear-off strips on gels remain intact

You can fit four SIS gels under your cycling short grippers for easy access, I always have one for finishing short circuit races. No need for back pocket antics! I’ve never ripped the tab fully off one yet either. All rubbish goes into a back pocket or down the skinsuit (if racing). You don’t litter.

Practice taking bottle without looking down, and taking food if in a back pocket. Riding one-handed comfortably is an essential skill. Often not practiced until too late.

It’s a bit harder with 3/4 bibs or longs! I’ve worn shorts once so far this year. I’m the same with gels, it’s the SIS Beta gel wrappers that are the biggest pain.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that people’s metabolisms differ – the same food is absorbed at different speeds, causes sugar spikes quickly or not etc – also the point at which individuals start burning predominately glycogen also varies, or at least that’s how I understand it.

So coming up with hard and fast rules about what and when to eat based on individual experience is only a very rough guide. If you’re someone who starts burning glycogen at quite a low level you may need to fuel differently from someone else who burns fat for longer even at the same intensities.

Apparently you can shift how your metabolism works – see also ketogenic diets, GCN did a fascinating video on that a while back – but initially at least, you are where you are. I’m no expert but that’s the gist of stuff I’ve listened to / read from people who should know what they’re talking about.

As far as gels go, for me they’re pretty much an emergency measure given that I’m not racing. I’m also quite dubious about some of the additives used, particularly artificial sweeteners, by the likes of SIS. I’ll maybe pop a couple in extremis, but for normal rides I tend to avoid. Ditto sports drinks.

TLDR: there’s quite significant variation in how different people need to fuel. One rider’s fuelling regime might well not work for someone else.

Practice taking bottle without looking down, and taking food if in a back pocket. Riding one-handed comfortably is an essential skill.

Or just remembering to stop at the memorial bench and taking in the view, we’re not all eating for gains.

Siri, describe a poorly-planned bike ride:

“4 hours between cafe stops”

Siri, describe a poorly-planned bike ride:

“4 hours between cafe stops”

“Needing 8 gels between cafe stops…”

Or just remembering to stop at the memorial bench

Given how often I drink or eat, I’d need to be riding around the Donkey Sanctuary 😉

GCN did an interesting video on this, and the ex pro rider said that he probably under fuelled during his racing career which detrimentally affected his performance. I think that level of carb intake is unsustainable in the real world, maybe for a specific race but imagine consuming that amount of food on a ride, makes me feel sick.

https://www.globalcyclingnetwork.com/lifestyle/challenge/does-fuelling-like-a-pro-rider-let-you-ride-faster

Personally, I don’t do anything specific for longer rides (I don’t race though), as they’re longer they should be mostly in zone 2 so I will be mostly be burning fat and I’ve plenty of that. I’ll take food if I’m not going to be passing an open shop or cafe.

I once was asked why I ate cake if I was a keen cyclist, I said that “I cycle so I can eat cake” I even have a cap to remind me just in case I forget.

Will Ride for Cake Cycling Cap

“the ex pro rider said that he probably under fuelled during his racing career”

Keeping in mind, if you have big watts, you consume a lot more calories per hour. Professional cyclists zone 2 equates to our zone 4!

Bigger guys, Ganna for instance, are at a disadvantage. He’s a bigger guy at 82kg, benfitting from a bigger FTP (450w maybe?). But he then needs to be able to consume more to fuel that engine.

I said that “I cycle so I can eat cake”

+1

I set off yesterday afternoon with two slightly out of date SIS gels in my jersey pocket, without a real route plan. I had a banana a while before I headed out, having had oats late morning, with a small sweet potato and tin of mackeral in curry sauce for lunch.

The sun was wonderful, nicest day so far this year, knowing we had rain forecast for the rest of the week pushed me to go much further at very low Watts than I expected and was out for ~3.75 hours.

Yep, I was and still am a bit sore plus physically knackered. But I don’t think I bonked through lack of fuel, I was in z1 for a vast majority of the ride, with very short spells around high z2 up hills in easiest gear.

~2+ years ago, when I used to regular 30+ mile loops including several hills I’d usually climb at z4+, I’d often have a banana before leaving with some water and take a bag of Tesco’s jelly babies… Roughly one every 5mins or so from near the first hour of riding.

Yep, I was and still am a bit sore plus physically knackered. But I don’t think I bonked through lack of fuel

I know that feeling, it might not be bonking but I still prefer to avoid it, you can feel amazingly fresh after long rides (and I swear, but can’t prove, even more pain free) if you eat!

I think the only drawbacks are the faff of trying to carry as much food as poss, and the conscious effort to keep packing it in 😂

I also agree tfat a mix is good, tailoring the sugariness/short chain-iness of the snack to taste or upcoming effort.

What  are you calling longer rides? 4-6 hours might be 50% looking at the view or coasting down hill or it might be completely on the rivet. For me a morning, say 50 hours/60 miles on the road with several stops for slashes and jumper stops, means a normal cereal breakfast a nasty, they all are, cereal bar at 30 to 40 miles and that’s it. Might get home knackered if with faster mates but that is the whole point of the ride.

100 milers mean a trip to a cake shop 2/3 of the way round or maybe a butchers for a nice pie. Summer may see this replaced with a pint in a pub.

Way too much fuss being made over food and drink. Pro road riders may need to worry, most of us don’t.

Eat real food; eat early, eat often

This. If doing a long road ride, I’ll usually start with overnight oats and have a second breakfast at a cafe stop. I did 1200km last year (PBP) on real food all the way, including pastries, pizza, sausage gallettes, plus a couple of Paris Brest pastries. I did lay off the booze until the finish.

Forgive me, I've only " scan-read " the thread this far...
Don't get around here much, anymore.
kinda at the plateau of the D-K curve on the topic of nutrition, I hope Alan or matilda doesn't see this....

Anyway, seen a lot of comments about carbs, carbs, carbs.
If you're participating in a tour, then unfortunatey, you're going to need to consume refined and easily digestible carbohydrates.

However, for every muther-luving " cyclist " one of us proles-on-wheels, out for a weekend six hour ride, to blow away the stress or the cob webs from the week?
A diet of species specific, species appropriate food, will surfice, ie, the muscle meat of large ruminant animals and associated fats.
Leave the carbs alone, they'll only upset the randle cycle or/and create advanced glycation end products.
Glycation in cells is seriously not what you want to cause and certainly not as a matter of habit!

S

Gels are fine – there’s nothing in them that isn’t in normal sweeties and they’re a bit more convenient to eat sometimes. Just like normal sweeties, I’d struggle to palate them if it was all I took on a ride.

I’m definitely in the ‘eat a bit more than you might instinctively think camp’ for anything that’s challenging. So if I’m out doing intervals or anything a bit longer I’ll aim for something every half hour, mixing things up as much as possible. I personally find I finish the ride much stronger, and more importantly don’t get as much fatigue afterwards. It’s the difference between being able to play with my kids later on or not so for me it’s worth the effort.

Way too much fuss being made over food and drink. Pro road riders may need to worry, most of us don’t.

I disagree, although on the spectrum from 3gels an hour to not worrying, I am firmly in the middle.

Eat stuff something carb based every half hour on rides over say 2.5hours unless you are simply on a solo pootle (or zone two as people call it nowadays)

Gels are fine – there’s nothing in them that isn’t in normal sweeties

Ingredients:

Water, Maltodextrin (From Maize), Natural Flavour, Salt, Gelling Agents (Gellan Gum, Xanthan Gum), Acidity Regulators (Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate, Malic Acid), Sweeteners (Acesulfame K, Sucralose), Preservatives (Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Benzoate), Potassium Chloride, Magnesium Citrate

YUM!!!

That’s an SIS gel. I’m not saying it’ll kill you, but why would you choose to eat that stuff when you don’t need to? ‘Normal sweeties seems like a bit of a low bar tbh, but arguably slightly less UPF-ish. And actually, there does seem to be quite a lot of stuff in an SIS gel anyway, that isn’t ‘in normal sweeties’:

Jelly Babies

Sugar,
Glucose Syrup,
Water,
Gelatine,
Concentrated Fruit Juices** (1 %) (Apple, Lime, Orange, Strawberry, Blackcurrant, Lemon, Raspberry),
Acid (Citric Acid),
Colours (Anthocyanins, Paprika Extract, Vegetable Carbon, Lutein, Curcumin),
Flavourings,
**Equivalent to 5.5 % Fruit Juice

Mars Bar

Sugar,
Glucose Syrup,
Skimmed Milk Powder,
Cocoa Butter,
Cocoa Mass,
Sunflower Oil,
Milk Fat,
Lactose and Protein from Whey (from Milk),
Whey Powder (from Milk),
Palm Fat,
Fat Reduced Cocoa,
Barley Mat Extract,
Emulsifier (Soy Lecithin),
Salt,
Egg White Powder,
Milk Protein,
Natural Vanilla Extract,
Milk Chocolate contains Milk Solids 14% minimum,
Milk Chocolate contains Vegetable Fats in addition to Cocoa Butter

Thanks for the detail BWD.

Palm Fat  🤒

😆

I have always been guilty of underfuelling on long rides ,try to stick to mileage/distance reminders now ,so eat/drink even when I don’t feel like anything.

Thanks for the detail BWD.

It’s all very delicious, tbf, Torq for one, seems less additive laden. I started making my own flapjack-type bars  and using them for ride fuel – at least I know what’s in them and with an air frier, you can cook a batch in 15 minutes.

I’m not saying gels (or sweeties) are inherently terrible things btw –  I get that there are plenty worse out there –  and they have a place in race nutrition particularly – I had a mate who won 24-hour rsolo aces and he ended up fuelling exclusively with gels (yuk) because it’s the only thing his guts would tolerate, but for normal riding it feels like overkill. Also, so many discarded gel wrappers on the roads round here 🙁

Jelly Babies have sugar and glucose syrup on the ingrediants list there. I wonder what ratios… Sugar is 1:1 glucose:fructose, then adding more glucose as per the ingredients list, you MIGHT end up being a similar ratio as the sports drink mixes 2:1 glucose:fructose!

Available everywhere for cheap – Jelly Babies FTW 😂

I started making my own flapjack-type bars  and using them for ride fuel – at least I know what’s in them and with an air frier, you can cook a batch in 15 minutes.

This sounds interesting… do you follow a specific recipe or should I just Google “air frier flapjacks”?

My  local Aldis now stocks big bags of dates (500g) for £2.49 . So if I’m going on a longer ride I just take a small bag of these.Just one natural ingredient moist,tasty,easy to eat and digest and  57% carb by weight and cheap too.

For long races I like a carb drink then savoury snacks.

Don’t need to eat much when pootling.

For an ultra marathon I made up some rice cakes with pancetta. They were fabulous as a lovely change from the sweetness associated with most energy foods. I’d left them to be picked up at the halfway food station, so found I was really looking forward to them and got a nice boost. A bit of faff for “everyday” use though.

Way too much fuss being made over food and drink.

I think if you’ve been riding for a while; 10-20 years, sort of gig, you can do the sorts of rides you’re talking about and your body will just cope with it, becasue you’re just so used to doing it every weekend. It takes a while to get to that stage though, and not everyone will have had that time adaption.

That’s an SIS gel. I’m not saying it’ll kill you, but why would you choose to eat that stuff when you don’t need to?

Quite. I keep gels for emergencies, they’re helpful if I get the dozies at 4am, but I don’t see the need for them routinely.

gels are gross.

I put 50g table sugar and a pinch of salt in a standard 550ml water bottle. I take a swig every 10 minutes and hey presto 50g/hr done. There’s a limit to how many bottle I can carry, so I either take containers of pre-weighed sugar and salt to refil my bottles or take a mix of solid food like bananas, rice cakes, flap jacks/porridge bars. The key for me is to avoid high fat/protein foods, because they  take longer and are more demanding to digest while exercising.

gels are gross.

I really don’t mind them (Torq) it’s just that I’m too much of a skinflint to use them regularly 😂

Pro road riders may need to worry, most of us don’t.

You don’t need to ‘worry’ as such,  but having the right food to eat on rides will make you ride further for longer and feel better doing it, which is a good thing isn’t it?

I use plain maltodextrin powder and squash for flavour, with a pinch of electrolyte powder as it stops me having irregular heartbeats.  Plain maltodextrin from bulk.com is extremely cheap, much cheaper than jelly babies.  I used to put it in bottles and whilst it’s effective it resulted in me drinking too much of my fluids and needing to carry more. Now I put 4-6 scoops as needed in a 150ml ‘soft flask’ with hot water to help it dissolve and a bit of squash, then I can snack on that as I feel the need.

100 milers mean a trip to a cake shop 2/3 of the way round or maybe a butchers for a nice pie. Summer may see this replaced with a pint in a pub.

You might want to ride like that but I can’t imagine eating a pie half way round a 100 mile ride. Blurgh.

British Cycling say I need 0.75 x my weight ( 65kg ) per hour = 49 gms per hour.

I think that’s the typical maximum people can absorb.

Fueling on gels ie glucose is not good for you.  You need a mix of carbs.

Gels aren’t glucose, they are generally maltodextrin.  These days they do sometimes contain a mix.

I bet you are having sugar crashes from overstimulating your insulin response.

The sugar spike/crash thing applies at rest, not when you are actually riding.  If you take small amounts of carbs regularly, it enters your bloodstream but it then gets used up by your muscles, so it doesn’t cause insulin spikes.

You can’t beat a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer in the low weight/high carbs/taste equation.

You might want to ride like that but I can’t imagine eating a pie half way round a 100 mile ride. Blurgh.

You do need to build up to these things and train your body to adapt. Start with a pie halfway round a 10 mile ride and build up gradually from there.

This sounds interesting… do you follow a specific recipe or should I just Google “air frier flapjacks”?

I just mess around with recipes and ingredients. It’s easy to make them very sweet, but there are plenty of variations and you can add whatever dried fruit, nuts, seeds, bananas or whatever. The main issue, if you reduce sugar, butter, syrup too much, is binding. It’s quite easy to make something that’s tasty and not overly sweet, but crumbles very easily – eggs get used quite often, but don’t work as well as the classic oats/butter/sugar/syrup gig. I only make them to eat on the bike anyway, so I’m not too fussed about a bit of sugar. I figure there are enough slow burn oats in there to give a decent balance and I know exactly what’s in them.

But yeah, basically use google and take it from there. I tend to find 15 minutes on air fry @ 160˚C works pretty well as starting point. Oh, and silicone bar trays are brilliant. I got some on amazon that slot pretty well into a Ninja and make it easy to produce ‘pro’ shaped flapjacks 🙂

As above, insulin and exercise are opposing. During exercise insulin is suppressed! Insulin does come into play post exercise, and fit individuals who exercise reguarly benefit from increased insulin sensitivity (at rest).

Also completely agree with molgrips “but having the right food to eat on rides will make you ride further for longer and feel better doing it”. Even if you’re stuffing loads of carbs in, you’re still highly likely to be in a calorie deficit.

But being carbed up will make the ride more enjoyable (well that’s what I’ve found). Even longer rides, 75miles+ if I really try and think about eating well, I still feel fine and strong at the tail end.

Pies and pints are a wonderful thing, but your body will struggle to turn that into useful energy mid ride. Stick to easily digestable carbs, not too much fat or fibre. And have a lovely pie afterwards.

The sugar spike/crash thing applies at rest, not when you are actually riding. If you take small amounts of carbs regularly, it enters your bloodstream but it then gets used up by your muscles, so it doesn’t cause insulin spikes.

Yeah, I’ve never felt anything like a ‘crash’ after using gels, typically if I’ve been fuelling well already, something like a caffeine gel before a big effort and/or near the end of a ride has a genuine rocket fuel effect, it’s great fun! (and the Torq ones seem to taste absolutely fine to me).

Also completely agree with molgrips “but having the right food to eat on rides will make you ride further for longer and feel better doing it”. Even if you’re stuffing loads of carbs in, you’re still highly likely to be in a calorie deficit.

Equally agree, I admire those who can do long rides on little or no fuel, although saying that, I can too, I just don’t enjoy it as much and feel worse (even if just mentally) afterwards. Little or no gain to riding under-fuelled other than trying to stoke some sort of hard-man image which I couldn’t carry off even if I wanted to! 😂

The main issue, if you reduce sugar, butter, syrup too much, is binding

I use blackcurrant squash. (diluted with water) If you use the ‘no added sugar’ ones and there’s considerably less sugar than say; golden syrup, you do have to press the ingredients together quite firmly to bind it all, so you won’t get nice fat plump flapjacks, you get a harder biscuit type thing, but I’ve found them robust enough to survive being in a pack for a few hours.

use these quite a lot, on there own or with butter and jam or peanut butter.

fueling on longer rides for me is not about performance more about not wanting to eat everything in the house 5 mins after getting home.

Equally agree, I admire those who can do long rides on little or no fuel

I think it’s genetic tbh.

I find I really struggle to eat gluten based cakey bready things on long rides – I get indigestion quite badly, despite being highly adept at digesting them at rest.  If I’m going to have anything besides maltodextrin it is going to be granola bars, chocolate bars or – somewhat bizarrely – meat, particularly when spicy.  I wish I liked Pepperami.  Also nuts go down well despite being very fatty.

I did take a carton of milk and some granola on my Ridgeway attempt and ate it after an hour of riding.  It was a right game, I had to drink half the pint of milk and cut the top of the carton off to make a bowl to dump the granola in.

I find I really struggle to eat gluten based cakey bready things on long rides

agreed, there’s no way I could eat those brioche buns. No problem at breakfast with a cup of coffee, on a ride? No chance.