Even on a 100km ride plus, I never eat more than a banana and perhaps if I get up early enough a small bowl of mixed cereal before setting off. I will eat 1 Powerbar and one more banana during the ride. And remember these are mountainous rides with climbs up to 17%. I've never owned an HRM and don't need or want one. Common sense stops you from bonking. Why don't I want an HRM? Because it doesn't tell me much, and I don't want to train watching a bloody HRM thinking I'd better speed up/slow down, I'm going to have a heart attack, damn it says 280bpm, I must have died.poky said:
TYSON
If you go out w/o eating that is just plain crazy. I eat a bagel (prefer a salty one) or a nice bowl of oatmeal before my rides, and carry one Powerbar for each hour I plan to ride after the first hour (so on a three hour ride I'll take two Powerbars). I might not eat both but better to have just in case. Also I mix a sports drink (Accelerade) and take it with me. It sounds like a lot, but I never run out of energy.poky said:
Exactly what I was saying tt. I also used to take 2 powerbars but have never eaten 2 so gave it up. I also take a small bottle of Gatorade along with some plain water. TYSONttrawin said:If you go out w/o eating that is just plain crazy. I eat a bagel (prefer a salty one) or a nice bowl of oatmeal before my rides, and carry one Powerbar for each hour I plan to ride after the first hour (so on a three hour ride I'll take two Powerbars). I might not eat both but better to have just in case. Also I mix a sports drink (Accelerade) and take it with me. It sounds like a lot, but I never run out of energy.
Water is definitely something else I take along. Can never have enough of it.Sillyoldtwit said:
There are very good reasons to drink something other than water on rides lasting longer than 1-1.5 hours. Going out for longer periods, 2-3 hours "requires" supliemental calories. If you don't want to eat, I'd at least suggest switching to a "sports drink" to take with you.ttrawin said:
You never run out of energy because you are riding very easily.ttrawin said:
No, muscles can't use fat for energy, so we're always "burning" sugar. It's the source of that glycogen/glucose, or more technically the percentage of those sugars that comes form muscle glycogen, blood glucose or stored body fat that changes with our intensity level.Spunout said:
Mabyee this is why I don't bonk. After doing the fast section we wait for everyone to arrive to regroup for the ride home. Perhaps these 10 minutes or so are long enough for my carb levels to be replenished.Spunout said:
I think you understand on one level, as you have given the correct advice, but you have mis-understood how our body works. We ARE talking about cellular reactions, because it's our cells that do the conversion of one energy source to the other. You cannot separate the two. When we exercise, we are always burning glycogen in our muscles. This glycogen is replaced by glucose in our blood. The glucose in our blood is replaced by converting fat and glycogen in our liver and other areas to glucose. All of this happens inside the cells. At low levels of exertion, our body can keep up with the replacement of glycogen/glucose by our fat cells. At high levels of exertion, it cannot.Spunout said:
So, I guess the crucial question then becomes: How much energy can you store in your muscles as glycogen? As you have pointed out, once you run out of that source of energy, you're screwed: A calorie intake of 300 calories per hour by eating/drinking is less than a quarter of the rate at which an average cyclist typically burns calories for something like a 20mph average in flat terrain. Anybody know at what rate we can burn fat? My guess is, though, that even combining nutrition and fat burning, we won't be able to get above 1000 calories per hour, which is probably the very least we need for anything resembling a decent pace (well, at least going solo). So, for how many hours can we make the glycogen stores last, and how can we cram as much glycogen as possible in the stores?Lonnie Utah said:
