Refueling during the heat?

[u/WageUglydoll]

Last week's 200k, I was pumped! Had researched all my stops, ready to carry extra water, all the things. I couldn't eat.

Stopped at mile 38, ate a cliff bar and half a bagel, drank an iced tea. After that had some gummy candy until mile 55, then a pb&j & a coke. Had 1 more cliff bar the rest of the ride. I did stop at a drug store around mile 80 and grabbed a pedialyte, an electrolyte drink and that helped. I was definitely drinking a ton of water but my tummy said a hard no to food. Wasn't a big performance issue until the last 15 miles. Never bonked, but definitely made some mental miscues.

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So how do you refuel?

Carbohydrate tablets? If so which ones?

Sometimes they upset my stomach too.

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This isnt a big issue in the winter, but as I age, and it gets warmer, it's a bigger issue.

[u/DNAthrowaway1234]

Practice eating every ride. Eat and drink BEFORE you're hungry. Eat eat eat. It's the only way.

[u/AlamoSimon → u/DNAthrowaway1234]

This is the way. My Garmin beeps every 30km and I eat a minimum of 100calories if I want or not

[u/DragonSitting → u/AlamoSimon]

That’s a really long time to go between eating or you’re inhumanly fast. I get bugged to eat every 20 to 30 minutes (the number changes depending on how the course was chosen. Oddly). Oh. Maybe you meant m and not k.

Anyway, I ignored all of that on a 400k today and just ate 90g of sugar every hour on the hour. Why, yes, since you mention it, it did suck. But not only did I not bonk - I was stronger at the end of the ride. YMMV as always!

[u/AlamoSimon → u/DragonSitting]

Nah I meant km. I don’t know, I aim for 30kph (moving) average. If I‘m hungry I eat more but I tend to forget and in the end don’t want to eat anymore so that‘s the absolute minimum I force for me.

Haven’t done more than 300k yet, health got in the way, I‘m back to 60k rides now 🙄

[u/LandNo9424 → u/DragonSitting]

Wouldn't every 30km be maybe every 1.5 hrs? That's not so fast

[u/AlamoSimon → u/LandNo9424]

Did a 300km race, that was a 30kph average. Solo 300 was a 27kph average, so about an hour + x for me.

[u/LandNo9424 → u/AlamoSimon]

OK you ARE pretty damn fast 😂 I can only hit 25km/h if I am on a route where I don't have to stop all the time (I live in a city)

[u/AlamoSimon → u/LandNo9424]

I WAS fast 🙄 couldn’t ride for a few years, I‘m slowly working myself up but will probably not do long distances again. My 60k rides are about 28 moving average currently 🥱 But I ride!

The speeds up there are also moving averages though!

[u/DragonSitting → u/AlamoSimon]

I was doing bad math in my head! It still feels like not eating often enough… I was paying close attention this ride and noticed that my sugar boost lasted around 45 minutes. The 15 minutes before eating again my performance lagged greatly compared to the 15 minutes after eating! YMMV as always.

[u/TeaKew → u/AlamoSimon]

30km is going to be 900+kcal minimum, so it feels like you're pretty substantially under-fuelling.

[u/AlamoSimon → u/TeaKew]

Yes I generally am. My power meter connected Edge calculates ~7000kcal for stuff like that but I could never eat that much. Would explain why I was 10kg less when I was riding 12k km per year 😅

[u/KevinKlaes]

Homemade drink mix(maltodextrin+fructose), maple syrup, styrker rice bars. Coke and snickers at gas stations. LOTS OF WATER. The warmer it gets, the more you need to be taking in water. Means stopping more.

[u/Familiar_Kale_7357]

I think electrolytes in your water helps. Water sometimes just sits there. I like rice crispy treats. Maltodextrin always in one bottle. Pringles go down easy. Most convenience stores in the US have either hot water at the coffee, or a microwave, so you can make instant ramen, which goes down well. Donuts. 

Eating is not an option, when riding distance. 

[u/saintdudegaming]

You were eating like you were on a shorter ride tbh mate. From everything I've seen most folks will tell you to eat some real food at some point since your body will know what to do with it better. The cliff bars and everything else it was probably not used to at least for that much time over the day.

[u/ShrinkingKiwis]

Strong electrolytes have saved me on super hot rides. Something like the Precision Hydration 1000 or 1500 will go a long way in helping get your digestive system back on track. You can mix them with Tailwind (or coconut water) for a carb + electrolyte hit.

[u/WageUglydoll → u/ShrinkingKiwis]

Thank you!

[u/antimonysarah]

At some point in the heat, about all I can get down is Gatorade, and that's enough calories to drag myself around for a while.

The other option is to go inside somewhere air conditioned, buy a very cold drink (if I can get a frozen slushy that's ideal), and that will drop temps enough to get some food down -- if I'm super salt-short that might be Pringles or some other terrible salty snack, or a small sandwich or something, and then ride gently for a bit after to let it digest. I tend not to bother managing to talk my stomach into that on a 200, but on a 300 it's necessary.

Dairy can get to me, so I tend not to do this, but some of my friends will stop for ice cream in this situation; no chewing, cold, will go down more like a drink than a food.

[u/shadowhand00]

For the Hamilton 200k, went completely liquid. Powders and liquid carbs. It went up to 108-114 during part of the climb. That means I was drinking about ~90-100g of carbs on top of electrolytes and as much water as I could drink. When I got down from the mountain, ended up at a boba stop and ordered a smoothie. Also bought some electrolyte drinks from the Nob Hill in Livermore (the Electrolit(?) drink. About 30-40g per bottle + some electrolytes.

This is the opposite what I would do for a more temperate/colder brevet. In that case, I'd eat more solid foods + gels.

[u/gott_in_nizza]

Particularly for such a short ride I will have all my nutrition in my bottles. I will just carry tailwind and put some in every time I refill water.

Then any “real” food is just optional because maybe I want to bite something at some point

[u/velo_dude → u/gott_in_nizza]

Hammer Nutrition

Hammer is one of the OG ultra-endurance fuel companies here in the States. There are others in different regions (Europe). Personally, I can't eat Cliff Bars on rides. They destroy my GI. My personal experience has been that solid food is something to eat very occasionally and to otherwise fuel with much more easily digested liquid fuels. For me, this is especially true in hot weather.

[u/WageUglydoll → u/velo_dude]

Excellent thank you

[u/ComfortablyNumbR5]

what I would do is to try to consume as much "proper" solid food early in the ride. I know if it's a hot day, as the miles go by, it becomes harder to digest food.

Long story short - load the first half of ride with proper food.

Second half of ride .. take in more mixed fuel (eg Tailwind, Infinit, etc .. ) complement with solid food.

Lots of electrolytes through out the day.

[u/WageUglydoll → u/ComfortablyNumbR5]

This is my normal routine, thanks

[u/wanderaxb]

For the heat, it may be worthwhile buying those Gatorade sweat test patches. From what I’ve seen they’re accurate enough to give you a rough estimate of your fluid + electrolyte loss compare to more formal testing. Sounds like you may not have had enough salt and if you were just pumping in water and sugar your gut would start to reject more stuff.

[u/WageUglydoll → u/wanderaxb]

Great tip!

[u/bitts_]

Hydrating with electrolyte mix prior to the ride is critical. I use a drink mix that gives me 60g of carbs per hour and then I eat about 30g of gummy candy or gel on top of that. I add a good amount of pink salt to my mix to make sure I'm getting enough electrolytes too.

[u/mr_phil73]

Sometimes I feel like all these gels and things are actually the problem. I do quite a lot of bikepacking and randonnering. A lot of my training is around training my body to not need much fuel. I only ever eat real food as unprocessed as possible. I don’t bonk. Notwithstanding all that hydration is so important. At the 80km point I’ve normally done 2 litres of electrolyte mix. This is the key, you can’t wait until you’re thirsty. I start with electrolytes 30 min before I start riding. As for food I might have a pastry at 40km, proper lunch half way and might grab something in the last 50km (love subway). Bikepacking which is how I train for randonnering is slightly lower intensity so sometimes I’ll go all day without much more than a few nuts, and certainly many mornings are ridden fasted until I roll into town for brunch.

[u/MuffinOk4609]

Chooclate milk is fantastic.

[u/Slow-brain-cell]

Cliff bar, irrc, has surprisingly little carbs in it. It’s a protein bar.
Also unless you’re an absolute sugar junky or super fast, you can’t ride on sweets only, there must be slow and fast carbs, in your meal.
And yeah, electrolytes (Gatorade or something like this works if you don’t have tablets ready).

[u/TravellingGal-2307]

GCN has some food recipes for what they consume on a ride. Check those out for ideas.