2/3Hrs Plus Legs Give Up

kayakerchris wrote:

2-3 hours riding doesn't need food. Practise starting your rides fasted and not eating till you get back. You may bonk on the first go but your body will adapt. Only TdF riders need to feed every hour so unless you are pushing 400+W the save the money for the next bike.
Definitely do the zone 2 pacing. This gets your body used to working at that steady aerobic rate. As you practise you will get faster. You may be unpleasantly surprised how slow zone 2 is to begin with which shows how you have been trying to be anaerobic for 3 hours previously.

I would only agree with you if the 2-3 hour ride in question is at a very low intensity. It is a quesiton of calories expended, and how much glycogen you have at the start of the ride.

"Only TdF riders need to feed every hour so unless you are pushing 400+W the save the money for the next bike." TDF riders are not pushing 400 W all the time. Most of the time is in the peleton doing 200-300 W or so. The principles of this are the same for the pro's as they are for everyone else. The aim, not to run out of carbs.

How is your body going to adapt to being starved? Most likely, by going very slowly.

If you ride moderately hard, then burning through your glycogen in 2-3 hours is to be expected, and you'll be left feeling very low and will have to slow down to a crawl. You can only delay this by dropping the intensity, fueling on the go, or increasing your capacity through training. No amount of training is going to make you able to abandon the need for food. The amount of 'fart burning' adaptation you can get, unless I'm mistaken is not conclusively studied.

jonnyb_123 wrote:

Alex99 wrote:

kayakerchris wrote:

2-3 hours riding doesn't need food. Practise starting your rides fasted and not eating till you get back. You may bonk on the first go but your body will adapt. Only TdF riders need to feed every hour so unless you are pushing 400+W the save the money for the next bike.
Definitely do the zone 2 pacing. This gets your body used to working at that steady aerobic rate. As you practise you will get faster. You may be unpleasantly surprised how slow zone 2 is to begin with which shows how you have been trying to be anaerobic for 3 hours previously.

I would only agree with you if the 2-3 hour ride in question is at a very low intensity. It is a quesiton of calories expended, and how much glycogen you have at the start of the ride.

"Only TdF riders need to feed every hour so unless you are pushing 400+W the save the money for the next bike." TDF riders are not pushing 400 W all the time. Most of the time is in the peloton doing 200-300 W or so. The principles of this are the same for the pro's as they are for everyone else. The aim, not to run out of carbs.

How is your body going to adapt to being starved? Most likely, by going very slowly.

If you ride moderately hard, then burning through your glycogen in 2-3 hours is to be expected, and you'll be left feeling very low and will have to slow down to a crawl. You can only delay this by dropping the intensity, fueling on the go, or increasing your capacity through training. No amount of training is going to make you able to abandon the need for food. The amount of 'fart burning' adaptation you can get, unless I'm mistaken is not conclusively studied.

"Fart" burning ey? That's a new one!

Thanks for all the input thus far. Weather permitting I'll be out on an Audax (100km) this saturday, without my speedier friend. A good opportunity to hold back for the first few hours, and monitor how this affects my ability later in the ride.

Heh heh. My best ever typo!

If I could adapt to utilise methane for foward motion I'd be king of the road. I'd need asbestos reinforced shorts though.

I agree with others that you need to just need to build the distance slowly. All this nonsense about binning water and energy drinks, taking gels - just ignore that and also the weekly mileage theory while were at it. When I started off I had the same issues as you did(despite trying every energy drink, food, gels and carb loading) and it took me a while to adjust to bigger miles and sometimes was VERY tired afterwards and then even the next day also. Factor in some days of complete rest or even two to allow your body to repair and rebuild.

Only really seriously got on the the bike again after a crap scottish winter 2 weeks ago but did 3 sportive routes over the weekend Fri Ullapool Mor 132miles, Sat Bealach Mor 90 miles, Sun Skye Mor 95 miles. I only did a few spin sessions a week over the winter so there is proof in muscle memory and the good news is when your body is adapted to long miles then it will retain that ability. I'm off back to bed to recover

I can vouch for that, I trained for a 300km ride with a mate last year and last summer was knocking off 200, 250 km rides for fun on a sunny weekend day. Last week I did a 100km sportive and the just past weekend i did 160 and both of them broke me

DavidJB wrote:

Just training...keep upping it and eating less to train your fat burning. I ride up to 4 hours / 4.30 hours eating nothing but a decent breakfast before I leave. After about 3 1/2 hours my body switches to fat burning as the glycogen runs out (10 bpm higher for same power) but while it gets harder I've not "bonked" in years.

This is semantics... but I thought that glycogen running out = the bonk. You're forced to drop the pace off.

It's worth pointing out in case it isn't obvious to everyone that the only point of doing what DavidJB is suggesting above is as specific training for burning fat more effeciently (or to burn off fat). If you fuel properly you will go faster over the same distance (or at least will be able to do so).