Machka 

Bonking is essentially low blood sugar. If you look up the symptoms of low blood sugar, you'll a list of what you'd be in for if you were to bonk.

Also, bonking is a progression. As indicated in the list below, you might start by feeling a bit shaky and irritable. Ideally, you'd have a quick bite to eat then, but you might not notice or register that a problem is starting for one reason or another (my reason was that it was my first time riding a 600K and riding through the night ... didn't occur to me I'd need to keep eating through the night).

Then you might start to have difficulty doing math ... "We're 400 km into a 600 km so that means we're ... um ... oh this doesn't seem like it should be so difficult 400 and 600 ... I need to relate them somehow. Let's see ... halfway!! No, we're more than halfway ... halfway would be ..."

And your favourite jersey might suddenly become the most uncomfortable thing you own. "It's strangling me!!" "When did the zipper become so scratchy?"

The dizziness might start and you might think then that it would be a good idea to eat something but you're just not hungry anymore and besides it would be way too much effort to reach into your handlebar bag to find something. If only something would come to you instead.

And you start to feel sick so you think you'll try to stop and get off your bicycle for a minute, but that has become really hard to do. You'll have to keep riding till you find a fence or something you can lean on while you get your leg up and over ...


Of course YMMV. It might be a fast progression or a slow progression. You might skip some of the symptoms ... I skip the hungry feeling which is problematic. If I felt hungry it would probably help.

For me, once it hits the nausea point, it's going downhill rather rapidly and it is really hard to regain a not bonked state. It can take hours to get back to feeling just average again nevermind good.


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This site contains a good list (other sites are the same or similar):
https://www.diabetes.org/diabetes/me...l/hypoglycemia

I quote:

From milder, more common indicators to most severe, signs and symptoms of low blood sugar include:

Feeling shaky
Being nervous or anxious
Sweating, chills and clamminess
Irritability or impatience
Confusion
Fast heartbeat
Feeling lightheaded or dizzy
Hunger
Nausea
Color draining from the skin (pallor)
Feeling Sleepy
Feeling weak or having no energy
Blurred/impaired vision
Tingling or numbness in the lips, tongue, or cheeks
Headaches
Coordination problems, clumsiness
Nightmares or crying out during sleep
Seizures