When do you need to eat on longer rides?

cycleclinic

I tend to eat after about 2 hrs. I am generally o.k for 3hrs. 5 has been known after a ferry all you can eat breakfast.

You eat before you start to flag. You eat more regularly if your trying to maintain a high effort.

If you want to increase the time you can ride at s moderate pace for without eating go for s 60 + mile ride and don't carry food, Just water. Ride till you honk. Its not pleasant. Do it enough and you will increase the time you can ride for without eating.

Always eat breakfast though. I am not a believer in fasted training. Fasting is what religious people do.

Porridge is a great breakfast. Cornflakes is normally a cooked breakfast can work but you do need carbs. Jam on toast can do that. How about, honey, bannano and peanut butter on toast ( corn bread toast uhmmm). Now that is calorie dense.

simon_e

Food is unnecessary on a ride of less than 2 hours. On a long morning ride I won't eat beforehand and wait at least an hour to start eating - banana, flapjack or similar. On cooler days a Snickers is a mid-ride treat that perks me up (Aldi's Racer bar is a smaller version). Dates or raisins go down well but can be bit fiddly on the move. At this time of year I can imagine a slice of leftover moist, fruity Christmas cake would go down a treat. No energy drinks, just water.

I have porridge most days but on its own it doesn't keep me feeling full for long. I've started mixing in a teaspoon of nut butter or a handful of presoaked almonds while it's cooling, which seems to help. Half a teaspoon of cacao powder can give a satisfying chocolatey taste without the sweetness of normal choccy.

pottssteve

Not sure if anyone has mentioned yoghurt yet? It's high in protein and always fills me up. If you get the unsweetened stuff you can add fruit, honey, muscovado sugar etc to taste, giving more carbs. Yummy before or after a ride.

OnTheRopes

pottssteve wrote:

Not sure if anyone has mentioned yoghurt yet? It's high in protein and always fills me up. If you get the unsweetened stuff you can add fruit, honey, muscovado sugar etc to taste, giving more carbs. Yummy before or after a ride.

Yoghurt, I like it but it would keep me fuelled for about 0.5kms

svetty

Sniper68 wrote:

......unless they want a break but don't want to admit it :?:

You're about right here - some of them need to HTFU but it doesn't do to even hint at this to them :roll:

davep1

There's no easy answer to your question, it depends so much on you, and what you are doing.

If I am going on a 2 hour ride, I probably won't have breakfast and take a snack with me, which I may or may not eat.

Anything over 2 hours, I'll have breakfast (recently converted to porridge, the milk & microwave type. Would prefer crunchy nuts with my sweet tooth, but I find porridge seems to "last" inside me at least two hours). And then if we're having a coffee stop will have a slice of cake/flapjack, possibly a savoury snack on a treat day.

I wouldn't have a full on meal, or a pub lunch. I did a great ride around the big hills in Kent in the summer, had a couple of pints and a pasta dish outside a lovely pub, really chilled out, thinking what a great day I was having. The rest of the ride home (about two hours) was horrible...

pottssteve

OnTheRopes wrote:

pottssteve wrote:

Not sure if anyone has mentioned yoghurt yet? It's high in protein and always fills me up. If you get the unsweetened stuff you can add fruit, honey, muscovado sugar etc to taste, giving more carbs. Yummy before or after a ride.

Yoghurt, I like it but it would keep me fuelled for about 0.5kms

Not alone, obviously. I meant alongside something like porridge.

ugo.santalucia

It's highly personal... and depends how hard you go.

If I keep a steady pace, say 15 mph, I am generally OK for 3 hours with no food, but if I push a bit harder, then 2 hours is about the limit

figbat

My experience (such as it is) generally mirrors the consensus here. Under two hours (or so) on a bottle of water, maybe with a small snack of some kind a little before starting. For a sportive (which is the only time I ride longer than 2 hours really) I'll have some kind of nutty granola for breakfast and take some Nutri-grain bars with me - I find these easy to chew and swallow on the move compared to, say, fig rolls which can get a bit stodgy in the mouth. I plan to eat regularly on a long ride but inevitably forget to and just eat when I remember to, meaning I often take in far less that I 'should' (but I still finish OK). I'll grab a flapjack and/or handfull of jelly beans at the feed stop, if I stop (I often don't stop at every station simply because I don't want to upset my tempo).

DeVlaeminck

OnTheRopes wrote:

pottssteve wrote:

Not sure if anyone has mentioned yoghurt yet? It's high in protein and always fills me up. If you get the unsweetened stuff you can add fruit, honey, muscovado sugar etc to taste, giving more carbs. Yummy before or after a ride.

Yoghurt, I like it but it would keep me fuelled for about 0.5kms

You'd be surprised, I have plain yoghurt for breakfast most days, find I get less hungry than when I used to eat cereals for breakfast.

haydenm

In a similar vein, I went out for a 6hr ride on Saturday on 4 Weetabix with milk. I had 4 chocolate and raisin Brunch bars and 1 bottle with some sugary SIS stuff in. Strava reckons I used about 2,000kcal and I've been told that I didn't take nearly enough food for a normal human. I didn't die but I would have much prefered a bit more food coming back into the headwind for the last 30km but can I deduce from that that Weetabix are an excellent source of pre-ride fuel, brunch bars have a magical amount of calories, or that I'm just an idiot and got away with too little food?

I like weetabix as a pre-ride breakfast as it takes little preparation. I find anything that stands in the way of me getting out the door just puts me off

sniper68

DeVlaeminck wrote:

You'd be surprised, I have plain yoghurt for breakfast most days, find I get less hungry than when I used to eat cereals for breakfast.

I have a bowl of Natural Yoghurt with grapes and blueberries in at breakfast time at work.....straight after my poached eggs with beans on toast
Doubt I'd get through the morning on just Yoghurt and fruit

joey54321

HaydenM wrote:

In a similar vein, I went out for a 6hr ride on Saturday on 4 Weetabix with milk. I had 4 chocolate and raisin Brunch bars and 1 bottle with some sugary SIS stuff in. Strava reckons I used about 2,000kcal and I've been told that I didn't take nearly enough food for a normal human. I didn't die but I would have much prefered a bit more food coming back into the headwind for the last 30km but can I deduce from that that Weetabix are an excellent source of pre-ride fuel, brunch bars have a magical amount of calories, or that I'm just an idiot and got away with too little food?

I like weetabix as a pre-ride breakfast as it takes little preparation. I find anything that stands in the way of me getting out the door just puts me off

I'd say none of the above:

4 x brunch bars + drink is likely ~750 calories
Muscles can store ~2,000 calories of glycogen
At 6 hours you'd likely be at a lower intensity so a significant part coming from fat stores

I'm not surprised that you felt a little low coming home, but that could well be the 6 hours as opposed to what and how you ate.

haydenm

joey54321 wrote:

HaydenM wrote:

In a similar vein, I went out for a 6hr ride on Saturday on 4 Weetabix with milk. I had 4 chocolate and raisin Brunch bars and 1 bottle with some sugary SIS stuff in. Strava reckons I used about 2,000kcal and I've been told that I didn't take nearly enough food for a normal human. I didn't die but I would have much prefered a bit more food coming back into the headwind for the last 30km but can I deduce from that that Weetabix are an excellent source of pre-ride fuel, brunch bars have a magical amount of calories, or that I'm just an idiot and got away with too little food?

I like weetabix as a pre-ride breakfast as it takes little preparation. I find anything that stands in the way of me getting out the door just puts me off

I'd say none of the above:

4 x brunch bars + drink is likely ~750 calories
Muscles can store ~2,000 calories of glycogen
At 6 hours you'd likely be at a lower intensity so a significant part coming from fat stores

I'm not surprised that you felt a little low coming home, but that could well be the 6 hours as opposed to what and how you ate.

Good call, average HR of 142bpm (of a max 198) so maybe 10bpm lower than a ride of half the distance. Average speed was very low for 134km but 1500m climbing was a good shock for the legs. It's probably a vital lesson in pacing more than anything.