Food on your bike ride



alwaysmiling

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Jul 6, 2006
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What food do you take with you when you ride your bike?

Do you use sports-drinks while you are riding? If you do, what advantage do sports-drinks give you over water?

Thank you
 
alwaysmiling said:
What food do you take with you when you ride your bike?

Do you use sports-drinks while you are riding? If you do, what advantage do sports-drinks give you over water?

Thank you
If you do some searching around you'll find lots of conversations about nutrition and hydration.

Generally speaking, for any ride an hour or under water alone is fine. Beyond that, and depending on variables such as weather conditions and how hard you're riding, you'll benefit from a carbohydrate replacement and hydration strategy which goes beyond plain water.
 
Hey, This information may be a little over the top, but it may help in some ways.


Eating during a long ride is a good idea. We’re talking over 2 h workout here. Other than that you can get away w/ water and electrolytes (Gatorade). The sports drink works better on long rides, because I ususally have to drink it less, because it keeps me hydrated longer. I also like the 'GU' gel, that keeps you hydrated pretty well, if you go to your local LBS you can get some for a dollar. As far as food goes, my personal preference is a Clif bar or similar.

Keep in mind that while working hard your digestive system sort of “shuts down” a bit so you want to be thinking easy to digest stuff- hence my pref. for the energy bar. You may also want to try a PB&J sandwich, and slice it into small pieces for better access on rides.



For post workout there is something called the glycogen window, basically it says that your body needs to take in certain things soon after a workout to optimally recover from a workout for the next workout. You want to immediately consume some sugar after a workout and then consume some protein within 45 min. Some also recommend a light meal within 2h. Stuff like Endorox and Accelade really do work but are expensive. For the more cost conscience I would suggest a piece of fruit or two and a glass of milk or a few handfulls of nuts. Don’t forget to rehydrate after a workout. You need water to wash out all that lactic acid from your workout from your muscles.



Now as far as general nutrition goes. What is recommended would certainly keep you alive. I would make sure you eat lots of fruits and vegetable (fresh and frozen not canned). And try to focus on whole foods.
 
Food = PBJ on Whole wheat bread

Drink = 24 oz bottle 1/8 Gatorade, 7/8 water, level teaspoon Raw Honey

Gatorade gives some quick mineral replacement but to much will upset your stomach
Sugar keeps glycogen levels up and keeps your brain from going to sleep but to much sugar will give you a head ache
 
on rides longer than 1.5 hrs 2 fig newtons per hour along with gatorade endurance or regular with added salt.
 
I bring individually wrapped rice krispy squares, granola bars, candy (jelly beans, etc), and peanut butter crackers. I like to drink flat, watered down Mountain Dew.

--Steve
 
on rides longer than 2 hours:
2 bottles weak gatorade
banana
1/2 powerbar
couple of whole wheat fig newtons

when i get home i chow down on pasta, usually with steamed veggies, garlic and olive oil...
 
ZimboNC said:
I bring individually wrapped rice krispy squares, granola bars, candy (jelly beans, etc), and peanut butter crackers. I like to drink flat, watered down Mountain Dew.

--Steve




Interesting Method...Lots and Lots...and LOTS of Sugar... does it keep you energized on a 6 hr+ ride?

I know it makes you hyper/ energy burst...but will it last? or do you have to repeat with more sugar?

Thanks.
 
alwaysmiling said:
What food do you take with you when you ride your bike?

Do you use sports-drinks while you are riding? If you do, what advantage do sports-drinks give you over water?

Thank you
============================================================
I've changed what I eat/drink recently.
Drink on rides; I used to mix up cordial(just for taste) with water - only one water bottle - usual rides up to 70kms.
Now I used a sports drink. I found using it(and having another 750ml after I finished a 50km + ride) helped me to recover so I now use it for every ride.
In the summertime here I'm going to put on a second bottle cage and drink more on longer rides!!

Food on rides; I used to take 2 museli bars and basically time how I ate them - 1/2 at a time over the duration. Now I take 2 higher protein bars and do the same with them. Trying to cut down on my sugar intake and find that they give me longer energy. Racing I'll do the same(if it's not so fast and furious and I can get time to eat without dropping off the bunch) and have a gel nearer the end of the race.

Paul :)
 
I like to take a Clif bar or two (depending on the length of the ride), then some watered down Gatorade (do I see a theme here?).

I find that for myself, the Clif bar works great, cause it gives me a bootst of quick energy (via sugar), long-lasting energy (via complex carbs), supresses any hunger I have (via protein), and assists in my recovery (via the correct balance of all three of these). I also usually eat one right after a workout to help recovery. And it tastes a lot better than a lot of other bars (I usually have to have something solid, if for no other reason, to hold off hunger-- I got into the habit when I ran).
 
I don't eat anything and don't seem to have a problem. Other riders have bonked badly on the same ride, so it must depend on your body type. I do have some "in case of emergency" food with me, but have only eaten it on a day when I was off colour and ended up with the flu later in the same day.
 
Hey y'all,

I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately. I've just started going out on longer (for me) 70km plus rides. For fuel I bring along granola bars or baked potatos or a mix of the two. The potatos work great. You can get them in plastic wrap, microwave them, and then eat them while you ride. Although I may be odd in that I think a plain baked potato actually tastes good.

Here is my conern: I want to consume the proper balance of calories to do good strong rides while at the same time having a slight calorie deficit for the day (as I'm looking to drop about 10 pounds). Right now I'm taking in the equivalent of one granola bar (~170 calories) per hour plus 12oz of Gatorade per hour (another 100 calories). That adds up to 270 per hour. Oh, and I don't dilute the Gatorade. That's right, I'm an animal. What do you think, is this too much or too little?

much appreciated,

s.d.
 
seriouslydog said:
. . . The potatos work great. You can get them in plastic wrap, microwave them, and then eat them while you ride. Although I may be odd in that I think a plain baked potato actually tastes good.

Here is my conern: I want to consume the proper balance of calories to do good strong rides while at the same time having a slight calorie deficit for the day (as I'm looking to drop about 10 pounds). . .
Although depending on your metabolism and quite a few other factors, I would strongly advise staying away from potatoes on your ride (at least not too many). Potatoes are very high on the glycemic index meaning they are converted into sugar by your body very quickly -- about as quickly as pure sugar. Small amounts at a time are OK, and may even be beneficial, but I would make sure that things that contain a good quantity of complex carbs are the main food you bring on your ride (granola bars are great).

The amount of your food doesn't seem extroardinarily high to me, but it really does depend on how much you eat when not riding and how much you ride, as well as your metabolism. That sounds like about what I take in (and I'm not a light eater in general, either), but I'm not a good comparison to most people because I'm 17 and my metabolism takes an enourmous boost from exersize (a couple years ago, I went from 205 lbs to 157 lbs in a couple months just from running and not drinking pop -- most of it was a metabolism increase rather than a calorie decrease -- my metabolsim goes hyper when I do endurance sports). And besides, your metabolism will be higher if you eat more then burn it off than if you had the same net caloric intake, but a lower gross.

As for the gatorade, The reason many of us dilute it (i think) is that we find a slightly more dilute solution is both more easily absorbed and contains appropriate proportions of electrolytes, although I honestly don't think it matters very much at all (unless a higher concentration causes specifi problems, which doesn't dound like the case at all). One of the real reasons I dilute it is that full strength is a bit too sweet for me and dries out my mouth a bit...
 
pakicyclist said:
You need water to wash out all that lactic acid from your workout from your muscles.
err... you sure about that?? read on...

May 16, 2006
Lactic Acid Is Not Muscles' Foe, It's Fuel
By GINA KOLATA


Everyone who has even thought about exercising has heard the warnings about lactic acid. It builds up in your muscles. It is what makes your muscles burn. Its buildup is what makes your muscles tire and give out.

Coaches and personal trainers tell athletes and exercisers that they have to learn to work out at just below their "lactic threshold," that point of diminishing returns when lactic acid starts to accumulate. Some athletes even have blood tests to find their personal lactic thresholds.

But that, it turns out, is all wrong. Lactic acid is actually a fuel, not a caustic waste product. Muscles make it deliberately, producing it from glucose, and they burn it to obtain energy. The reason trained athletes can perform so hard and so long is because their intense training causes their muscles to adapt so they more readily and efficiently absorb lactic acid.

The notion that lactic acid was bad took hold more than a century ago, said George A. Brooks, a professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. It stuck because it seemed to make so much sense.

"It's one of the classic mistakes in the history of science," Dr. Brooks said.

Its origins lie in a study by a Nobel laureate, Otto Meyerhof, who in the early years of the 20th century cut a frog in half and put its bottom half in a jar. The frog's muscles had no circulation — no source of oxygen or energy.

Dr. Myerhoff gave the frog's leg electric shocks to make the muscles contract, but after a few twitches, the muscles stopped moving. Then, when Dr. Myerhoff examined the muscles, he discovered that they were bathed in lactic acid.

A theory was born. Lack of oxygen to muscles leads to lactic acid, leads to fatigue.

Athletes were told that they should spend most of their effort exercising aerobically, using glucose as a fuel. If they tried to spend too much time exercising harder, in the anaerobic zone, they were told, they would pay a price, that lactic acid would accumulate in the muscles, forcing them to stop.

Few scientists questioned this view, Dr. Brooks said. But, he said, he became interested in it in the 1960's, when he was running track at Queens College and his coach told him that his performance was limited by a buildup of lactic acid.

When he graduated and began working on a Ph.D. in exercise physiology, he decided to study the lactic acid hypothesis for his dissertation.

"I gave rats radioactive lactic acid, and I found that they burned it faster than anything else I could give them," Dr. Brooks said.

It looked as if lactic acid was there for a reason. It was a source of energy.

Dr. Brooks said he published the finding in the late 70's. Other researchers challenged him at meetings and in print.

"I had huge fights, I had terrible trouble getting my grants funded, I had my papers rejected," Dr. Brooks recalled. But he soldiered on, conducting more elaborate studies with rats and, years later, moving on to humans. Every time, with every study, his results were consistent with his radical idea.

Eventually, other researchers confirmed the work. And gradually, the thinking among exercise physiologists began to change.

"The evidence has continued to mount," said L. Bruce Gladden, a professor of health and human performance at Auburn University. "It became clear that it is not so simple as to say, Lactic acid is a bad thing and it causes fatigue."

As for the idea that lactic acid causes muscle soreness, Dr. Gladden said, that never made sense.

"Lactic acid will be gone from your muscles within an hour of exercise," he said. "You get sore one to three days later. The time frame is not consistent, and the mechanisms have not been found."

The understanding now is that muscle cells convert glucose or glycogen to lactic acid. The lactic acid is taken up and used as a fuel by mitochondria, the energy factories in muscle cells.

Mitochondria even have a special transporter protein to move the substance into them, Dr. Brooks found. Intense training makes a difference, he said, because it can make double the mitochondrial mass.

It is clear that the old lactic acid theory cannot explain what is happening to muscles, Dr. Brooks and others said.

Yet, Dr. Brooks said, even though coaches often believed in the myth of the lactic acid threshold, they ended up training athletes in the best way possible to increase their mitochondria. "Coaches have understood things the scientists didn't," he said.

Through trial and error, coaches learned that athletic performance improved when athletes worked on endurance, running longer and longer distances, for example.

That, it turns out, increased the mass of their muscle mitochondria, letting them burn more lactic acid and allowing the muscles to work harder and longer.

Just before a race, coaches often tell athletes to train very hard in brief spurts.

That extra stress increases the mitochondria mass even more, Dr. Brooks said, and is the reason for improved performance.

And the scientists?

They took much longer to figure it out.

"They said, 'You're anaerobic, you need more oxygen,' " Dr. Brooks said. "The scientists were stuck in 1920."
 
I like my potatos mashed with gravy on the days when I tape a roasted chicken to my handlebars.:)

seriouslydog said:
Hey y'all,

I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately. I've just started going out on longer (for me) 70km plus rides. For fuel I bring along granola bars or baked potatos or a mix of the two. The potatos work great. You can get them in plastic wrap, microwave them, and then eat them while you ride. Although I may be odd in that I think a plain baked potato actually tastes good.

Here is my conern: I want to consume the proper balance of calories to do good strong rides while at the same time having a slight calorie deficit for the day (as I'm looking to drop about 10 pounds). Right now I'm taking in the equivalent of one granola bar (~170 calories) per hour plus 12oz of Gatorade per hour (another 100 calories). That adds up to 270 per hour. Oh, and I don't dilute the Gatorade. That's right, I'm an animal. What do you think, is this too much or too little?

much appreciated,

s.d.
 
Archibald said:
err... you sure about that?? read on...
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I have read that study, and I find two inconsistencies in it.

Firstly, they fail to point out that although lactic acid is burned as a fuel, is IS a primary byproduct (although, in this case, one that has a use) of anaerobic metabolism of glycogen. The problem is that this releases significangtly less energy than aerobic glycogen metabolism (therefore, it is better for a cyclist or other endurance athlete to rely on aerobic metabolism), in fact, so little that anaerobic metabolism is completely incapable of even supporting human life for more than a few minutes (hence, if you stop breahting, you die). Secondly, lactic acid, even though it is a fuel, CANNOT be burned anaerobically. It must be burned through an aerobic system to get rid of it, and lactic acid itself causes a negative feedback loop in anaerobic metabolism, the body is unable to continue anaerobic metabolism once the amount of lactic acid has reached a certain amount. But since this can be detrimental, the body warns you about lactic acid buildup -- by making your muscles sore (not the kind of sore you get two days after working out, the kind of sore you get while you're performing the exercise).

Therefore, yes, lactic acid is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not something you want to keep around for a long time.

As far as drinking water to flush it out, actually, the best way to get rid of it is to lower the intensity so that your body returns back to aerobic respiration and burns off the lactic acid (this is often referred to as the oxygen debt-- you have to pay back the body later for the oxygen it didnt get for anaerobic respiration, although the analogy is somewhat flawed). Dehydration and hyponitration (usually opposite ends -- hyponitration is when your body is usually properly hydrated, but your electroltes are too low) can both cause the electrolyte concentrations on the outside of the muscle cell to be off, which can cause the muscles to not respond properly or to seize up. Early signs of this also imitatie lactic acid burn. However, that said, it is completely true that keeping properly hydrated and keeping the electrolytes balanced in your body is vital to keeping your matabolism, both anaerobic and aerobic working smoothly.
 
Arathald said:
Dehydration and hyponitration
:confused: Don't you mean Hyponatremia (or hyponatraemia)? Hypo = low; natr from natrium, Latin for sodium; emia = blood
 
I see a lot of references to Power Bar and such products on this site. I prefer to make my own energy bars and drinks for my training.

An effective bar should release energy over the period of training but not much longer afterward. Therefore, I take a mixture of food stuffs with different release times but high energy content. I also mix products with certain minerals e.g. apricots. There are lots of recipies available on the internet.

The base of the bar is oats, which I roast to be warm. I mix the oats with a warm mix of margarine (omega 3, vit E), acalcien honey (slow energy), molasses (fast energy) and penut butter.

I then mix in chopped dried apricots, prunes, sultanas, coconut. I bake the thing in a flat sheet, pour chocolate on top to improve the taste, cool in the freezer and cut into small bars. Finally, go for a long ride with plenty of mountains and eat the bars.

When I started I used to compare the calories in the bar with those on my Polar CS200. I don't have the discaplin for that most of the time though.

On return I get through tuna in the can and lots of soya milk.

Isotonic drinks are much easier to make. About 10ml of glucose powder (sugar in the blender) and 3ml of salt to one litre of water. If you flavour it with syrup, just deduct the amount of sugar/Calories in the syrup from the amount you add.

I tend to drink only water if I'm eating the bars.

I also changed my eating habits to reduce the amount of calories with high glycemic index. This seems to result in better insulin/blood sugar management. I now need much less during training and don't get the sudden attacks of weekness from blood sugar drops. I know the science is a little weak here.
 

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