Fuelling long rides

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Mike_

Regular
Been browsing for a while so decided it was about time to sign up! Anyway, got a few newbie questions where some advice would be great. Been cycling for a few months now with all rides between 30-60k. Had an early finish today so decided to go for a 100k ride this afternoon. All was well for the first couple of hours but then around 3 hours in i seriously bonked! Got to a big hill which was 10% + in places and after 100m i just couldn't hack it and had to walk up for a good 10 minutes. Felt like a right tool when a couple of cars went past! Then for the next couple of hours i was struggling and had to stop for a few minutes another couple of times. Usually i'd be ok but the route i took was much more hilly and rural than usual, so instead of taking it easy on the relatively flat route that i'm used to i was stuck in the middle of nowhere knackered with many big hills to get over!

Anyway, how do you go about fuelling the longer rides? I had my breakfast and dinner as usual and took a couple of small flapjack bars with me but clearly that wasn't enough. Really enjoyed the longer ride but obviously for next time i need to fuel it much better! Also, my back and knees where aching towards the end, does that point towards something with the riding position or simply due to the length of ride and the fact it was the first time i'd gone so far? On the bright side though my backside held out well with no issues whatsoever!!
 

MaxInc

Senior Member
Location
Kent
Depends how hard you are riding. The harder you push, the more glycogen (carbs deposits) you use and when those runs out, you bonk. On longer rides you need to start with a full tank of carbs (glycogen) which means a carb rich dinner (potatoes, pasta, rice etc) the night before topped up with some carb rich breakfast (porridge + fruits) 2-3 hours before the ride (to allow the carbs to metabolize).

On the ride either take is slower than your normal pace in order to encourage fat burning (unlimited amounts of energy) rather than carbs (reserves last for 1.5-2 hours) or feed on carbs while riding like ingest some form of carbs every 30 minutes or so. How much depends on how hard you push and how efficient your metabolism is. If you eat not enough carbs and keep pushing, you will eventually run out and bonk, if you eat too many of them you will get fat :whistle: and hills will become more difficult.
 

swiftylee

Senior Member
i usually have a pasta meal night before, the have porridge for breakfast followed by a couple of bananas plus some bars on the way.

managed to do about 65 miles on this
 

theloafer

Legendary Member
Location
newton aycliffe
make one of these a couple of slice,s with jam or p/butter ...:hungry: wrapped in foil in your jersey pocket .....full of good stuff much better than sorreen..:thumbsup:
BRANFLAKE LOAF
More delicious than shop bought malt loaf and so easy to fling together
a child can do it. This must be one of the only cake mixtures that looks and tastes
pretty revolting in the bowl, but honestly, the end result is well worth the complete lack of effort...

Best sliced thinly and eaten with butter or jam.
1 mug of Kellogg's All-Bran
1 mug of either currants, mixed dried fruit or sultanas
1 mug of milk
1 mug of self-raising flour
A generous half-mug of caster or soft brown sugar


Method
1. Put everything except the flour in a large bowl and leave the mixture to stand for about an hour.
2. Grease and long-strip-line a standard size loaf tin and pre-heat the oven to approximately Gas Mark 3 (160 C)
3. Sift the flour into the soggy mixture, stir it in well and pour the whole lot into the loaf tin, spreading it evenly up to the sides.
4. Bake in a cool oven for about an hour and a half, until a skewer or sharp knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
 

RWright

Guru
Location
North Carolina
From your description it sounds like it could have just as easily been a conditioning issue as opposed to a nutrition issue. More hill practice will probably not hurt. :thumbsup:
 

Saluki

World class procrastinator
Take a bag of jelly babies too. Instant sugar. We take them on every ride over 20 miles. Sometimes we take them on shorter rides because they are gorgeous.

@theloafer That cake recipe sounds nice, I shall give it a go tomorrow. I make fat free tea fruit loaf to take with me.
 
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