Im not going to debate this any further. the OP has my ideas including getting proper advice from someone properly qualified not quackery and positivly harmful advice

Its a short social ride FFS

https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20220809/short-walks-after-meals-cut-diabetes-heart-risk-study

For me its food every hour or so and generally something approaching real food. But I guess picnics are not the done thing on a club ride?

This… well for me any way. A lot of people over complicate this and rightly so when to professional athletes, but for us normal people I think this basic rule is totally fine. Half a cliff bar every hour and plenty of water does me fine. Anything more than this and I feel awful on a ride – the idea of mid ride cake just makes me want to vomit.

@tjagain

I’m hoping you’re just meaning well, and in your defence what you’re suggesting is oft-considered wisdom, but it’s so far from what the current evidence says that if we were on any other forum I’d assume you were trolling.

The idea of walking activating the gut is pure quackery. Continuous glucose monitoring has shown that insulin sensitivity drives up during exercise and this enables you to a) take in exogenous carbs and b) process those already in the gut.

@molgrips

If that’s what you mean then that’s fine – but the often pushed idea that you can teach your body to become more efficient at oxidising fat at higher percentages of vo2max by starving the muscles of CHO – can happen to a small amount, but is generally an ineffective strategy for endurance athletes.

@crosshair

It’s a really simple concept but the evidence points to it being significantly suboptimal for both body composition improvement and aerobic fitness development against fuelling more. If you can’t stick to a diet off the bike that’s on you :-).

@continuity

Once I hit goal weight- I’ll reintroduce carbs to *all* rides.
I’d just rather eat food and not feel like I’m dieting in the meantime. (And accept that means limiting rides to under 3000kj).

The other disingenuous part of the TR discussion is their woke obsession with not stigmatising weight loss.
I think I worked out in the summer I could afford to lose 80-100w off of my ftp and still improve w/kg by getting back to my old race weight 🤣🤣🤣

For anyone not at (or obviously below) optimal body composition- performance is not just about adding ftp watts….

Im not going to debate this any further.

Good, cos you really don’t know the subject at all and you never listen to anything I say so it’s futile.

the often pushed idea that you can teach your body to become more efficient at oxidising fat at higher percentages of vo2max by starving the muscles of CHO – can happen to a small amount, but is generally an ineffective strategy for endurance athletes.

This is broadly my experience – I have tried fasted riding, and it made me feel stronger (subjectively) whilst reducing the percieved need for carbs – but I think I still ended up depleting my muscle glycogen anyway. Put another way, I could ride 2hrs with much less carbs taken in, but any longer and I’d have to catch up anyway or face a bonk. So I don’t know what was happening in my muscles! It didn’t lead to actual gains overall, really, and the effect plateaued quite quickly so I gave up.

but for us normal people I think this basic rule is totally fine

The thing is, normal cyclists still vary a lot. Two people on a mediocre ride both trying hard but going at the same speed could end up both using energy differently – one might be burning fat and the other might be using their carb stores. So they might want to take on different amounts of food.

When I started being coached, I did a blood lactate test and discovered that I had almost no actual base fitness a.k.a. ‘fat burning zone’. Nearly all my effort came from carbohydrate metabolism. I’m sure this is the case with many other riders but they don’t know it.

But if you like 2 hour smash fest’s in the woods why worry?

Well, a few reasons.

1. You might also want to go on a longer ride from time to time, and you’ll find it hard.
2. You will actually get faster at your smashing if you do base training as well – your speed work will be more effective, I think
3. Speed fitness does not last as long as base fitness, so your fitness will drop faster if you don’t ride for a period for whatever reason.
4. If you want to lose weight this is easier if you develop your base fitness.

1. You might also want to go on a longer ride from time to time, and you’ll find it hard.

Or you might not.

2. You will actually get faster at your smashing if you do base training as well – your speed work will be more effective, I think

A lot of people don’t really agree, nor do I.

3. Speed fitness does not last as long as base fitness, so your fitness will drop faster if you don’t ride for a period for whatever reason

Oh well, never mind.

4. If you want to lose weight this is easier if you develop your base fitness.

I don’t want to and I don’t know how you came to this conclusion.

Molgrips – your advice may be OK for racing where the marginal gains from fuelling on sugar means you can ignore the unhealthy nature of it. You yourself couldn’t lose weight while following this advice – because you were eating / drinking a kilo of pure sugar a week ( from previous conversations) then you wondered why you were not losing weight.

Yes I don’t know a huge amount about the topic but I know a bit and I also discussed what you do with professionals with real qualifications

However this is a man on a short social ride not an ultra endurance athlete or a racer. He does not have the same requirements for fuelling

Continuity

Sorry dude – of course exercise will drop your blood sugar but walking does make the gut motility increase.

@bigblackshed, yes you are too pathetic and weak to ride at the pace you did, as others have commented you burned through all your glycogen stores because you were riding too fast. The benefits from long slow steady rides come from sustained time in Z2 or below. How did you monitor this, do you have a HRM or a power meter, talk test?

@tjagain just because its a social ride doesn’t mean that the pace is slow enough for the OP to stay in Z2. Even a ride with a Z2 average power that consists of very short z3+ burst with long z1-z2 recovery periods will have you bonking much sooner than a steady Z2 ride. Just the short burst of acceleration from a junction or up a small rise is enough sure when they’re inevitably followed by freewheeling or easy pressure on the pedals that mean you don’t start breathing any harder and still pass the talk test, but the way the muscles are metabolising different energy stores has still happened.

I’ve had two SIS gels and half a Cliff bar. In addition to coffee and cake about half way round.

Prepared to be told am wrong but I’d try and eat earlier and often…my probably outdated rule of thumb is that it’s going to take 40mins for anything of substance and by that I mean not a gel or sugar gummy things to be any use..I find clif bars very digestible but often opt for just muesli bars…on a group ride something with carbs in a bottle eases fiddling to feed as does having stuff open and cut up…I wouldn’t be too worried about taking in cals…it’s pretty hard to eat enough on a 40mile ride to come out having consumed more cals than burnt especially if you are on the big side and stops are few and far between…summary: carbs in drink bottle, eat more, eat way earlier…then it will be enjoyable and you’ll stick with it

@tjagain

Gut motility increases but this is not the reason for the improvement in your control of circulating blood sugar, which is the operative point we’re discussing.

There are many reasons to adopt an efficient fuelling strategy whilst casually riding as well as when racing – it’s cheaper than whole food, it is much more efficient, you are less likely to have gastro issues, you train your gut, you check your nutrition works for you, you can ride further, you can train harder (and all the positive knock ons this comes with).

But in short: the issue here is OP has started riding with people who push him, is a bigger relatively untrained person, and he is bonking.

The solution to this is to fuel his rides well.

The best way to do so is to use simple sugars.

As he is only going to do this during his ride (and not on the couch), the metabolic changes his body undergoes during exercise will ensure that the only downside might be to his teeth (which he can brush).

He will not put on weight because of this (unless he is eating to mass excess outside of his rides and depending upon his rides for cal balance) because it is virtually impossible to eat enough on the bike even if you chug sugar like it’s on an IV drip. The body can’t oxidise much more than 120g/hr. this is circa 480cal/HR. This only requires ~133W average to break even. Any more than 133W and you are in a calorie deficit even if you chug 120g CHO/hr. Think about it.

You might not like this, but you are not aligned to the current evidence, and if any of the professionals you are ‘speaking to’ are disagreeing then they need to invest more time in their craft.

^ that still won’t resolve the issue if BBS is burning all his matches too fast. I’m well used to fuelling strategies that work for me (I drink every 5km, and eat every 15km if it’s going to be a longer ride) and have done 8+ hour rides many times in the past, but if I go out on the faster club rides I can still blow up in a couple of hours – usually not to the point of a total sit down and cry / blurred vision bonk but certainly to the point of not having anything to give as soon as the road goes at all upwards – I usually announce that the engine management light has come on and go into limp mode and then crawl home.

@theotherjonv

“Fuelling strategies that work for me” and bonking are not compatible statements.

Go and do the same thing @ 120g/HR (or even 80!). Honestly, I guarantee you haven’t tried it (it’s a lot of food!) and you will ask me what magic witchcraft have I wrought when you finish the ride feeling like a hero.

yes, true – by upping the intake then I could stave off the bonk for longer but go too hard for too long and you finally reach the point where your outgoings have depleted both starting reserves and the top up that you can process. For where BBS is right now, avoiding depleting the reserves as well as topping them up efficiently are both important.

The very best fuelling strategy will not allow someone to ride permanently in Z4/5 for hours and hours.

Normal off-road rides would be done with a decent sized bowl of muesli or granola, sometimes porridge, maybe a banana before we set off. Then coffee and cake when finished, maybe a ready made pot of pasta salad, meal-deal type of thing

Hate to break it to you, but it wasn’t for lack of fuel that you were suffering. The above is plenty for a 40mi road/gravel ride. Porridge is better for slow release carbs. If you must, eat a rice/pasta dish the night before (I much prefer rice). And perhaps a gel half way around. A cafe stop is an opportunity for a piece of cake and should be enough to see you home. No point at the end of a ride. Add sugar to the coffee.

For ultra distance, I eat rice the night before, porridge for breakfast and then pretty continuously, alternating; gel, light fruit bar or malt loaf, liquidised food. So about 2-3 items per hour for 12 hours with gel bloks at any time (they are lovely). I’ve never bonked but seen a lot of people suffering 10 hours into a 12hr TT. Power is normally a flat 200W (Z3) throughout. For 40 miles, I eat a banana before I leave.

@bigblackshed I think some people just don’t realise how much effort and how many matches you burn keeping up with lighter weight riders on lumpy rides when you’re our size. On a social club ride I am working bloody hard on the hills, still getting dropped, and wishing then they’d speed up on the flats and descents where I end up coasting or even braking.

If you’re going to do those rides with a group of relatively lightweights and keep up you need to fuel with carbs on the ride. At our weight it’s not so social a pace especially when it’s lumpy.

Btw I no longer go on those rides 🤣

Taking in all that refined sugar ( and thats what maltodextrin is) is bad for you. No doubt at all.

I always thought maltodextrin was a slow release complex carb.

Quite @longdog 👏🏻

It’s why I would prioritise weight loss until you get closer to the average weight of your riding buddies.

If they are climbing at 3w/kg, being 116kg v say 80kg means you are doing 348w to their 240w 😬
🤣🤣

@anagallis_arvensis you sound defensive, there’s no need. I’m just talking a out the science, you can ride however you want. Makes no difference to me.

@tj I thought you weren’t debating this? I’m not going to respond cos it’s futile and you’re just saying the same stuff you said last time.

Thanks for the replies.

I’ve no scientific data to say what zone I’m exercising in, no heart rate monitor, no power meters, just experience of how hard I’m breathing and how tough any one bit of the ride is feeling.

Some bits of the ride are very social, I can maintain a conversation with ease, as soon as the gradient goes slightly up I’m starting to blow. A few climbs towards the end we’re probably slower than if I’d walked.

I’m a “natural descender”, those bits of the ride, combined with the very, very slow climbing skews the averages. At least half of the ride is in the “a bit too quick for me” category. I’m having to work to keep up.

I know that with time and more base fitness I wouldn’t be working so hard to keep up, therefore not burning up the available glycogen so quickly. But in the mean time I’m thinking I need to top up the stores little and often, drink and eat before the crash happens.

The weight loss has been going well in the last 3 months. I was 124kg at the beginning of September, this morning I’m 115.9kg. That’s through diet and more exercise. I need to be adding more slow, steady, flatter, rides in between rides with more concerted efforts. The slow rides I’m planning on riding without continually topping up with fuel, the club rides not too worry about the extra calories and just enjoy the riding.

Hopefully the club rides will be more enjoyable if I’m not suffering so badly.

Sounds spot on 👍🏻

you sound defensive, there’s no need. I’m just talking a out the science, you can ride however you want. Makes no difference to me.

The science is far from conclusive so absolutes are best avoided

As a long time MTBer who is now pretty much a roadie, I will say it takes time to build the endurance and conditioning for longer road/gravel rides. Also the constant pace without regular breaks was tough for me to begin with (mtb much more stop/start). Stick at it though, and you’ll quickly improve.

And when you get back out for an MTB ride you’ll be flying!

 I was 124kg at the beginning of September, this morning I’m 115.9kg.

that’s massive, well done! Losing the weight will certainly help with bonking on the longer rides.