Thulsadoom

I'm looking for suggestions for easily digestable foods once your stomach is in that "queasy" zone that develops past 70 miles or so.

Yesterday it was a little humid, but nice. I went for a century and did fine on Clif bars and Gatorade for the first 60 miles or so. Then my stomach got that typically queasy feeling that comes with several hours of relatively hard riding, not to mention the sugar in the drinks and the bars. I couldn't eat anything and ended up in a bonk state at around 90 miles. I rested and then limped home.

No matter what drinks or food I eat for the first 50-60 miles seem to make much difference, my stomach gets ugly after several hours. I'm trying to think of an easily digestable food that will work even when my stomach is not particularly happy.

jdom

Ease up on the gatorade for the first 70 miles,the sugar in it is probably what is causing your stomach to feel bad in the first place.
I've found that gatorade in hot humid weather does not sit well in my stomach.I try to drink water and eat more regular foods to start with.
I don't know what will work for you but I like to eat trailmix,fruit or granola bars.The fruit is a little hard to get sometimes though.I'll also stop to get a sandwich every now and then.

Standalone 

I was bummed to find only gatorade at the 50 mile rest stop on yesterday's ride.

Somewhere after the 80th mile, I downed half a ziploc bag full of kettle cooked salt and cracked pepper chips. fixed me right up, as far as my feeling of well-being.

As far as food, one last really well chewed cliff bar kept me going and staved off nausea, even as the sun came out and I rode through super humid steaming marsh land and baking pavement towards the end of the ride.

Machka 

This is something you've got to figure out yourself.

Personally, gatorade and any sort of energy bar is a bad idea for me. I've also gone off granola bars recently. For me, whatever it is cannot be very sweet, or at least if there is something sweet it should be in limited quantities ... I prefer bland or salty out there.

This weekend I rode 100 km and ate 5 of my homemade cycling cookies (Mmmmmm!!!), plus at a lunch stop I had a cup of vegetable pasta soup, a slice of bread and jam, half a banana, and I snagged a shortbread cookie just before leaving. That worked for me.

Experiment with fruit (especially bananas), granola bars, salted almonds, potato chips, beef jerky, cookies, and pastries. Also plan for a stop at the halfway point where you can sit down and eat a meal - like a chicken sandwich, a sub, or whatever you happen to like to eat.

Go with what you crave ... do not get locked into typically cyclist foods. Just watch the spice level ... keep it a bit on the bland side.

clarkgriswold

I cut down significantly on my intake of gatorade/powerade stuff. I found the sweetness really gets to me by the end of the ride.

I now run one bottle with G2 powder, and one with just water when I start my rides (and the G2 powder is mixed a little lighter than recommended). I take Endurolytes to make sure I'm keeping up on electrolytes, and sometimes by the end of the ride I'm just on water with endurolytes.


I've been ok with Cliff bars as that's what I use except for a turkey sandwich or similar around lunchtime stop.

As I'm learning my body requirements, i've been eating less and less food on rides. I'm down to 4 cliff bars and a turkey sandwich plus 4 Accell Gels and no calories in my water bottles for 125 milers. (200k) This is for a very flat route though.

But as always tempuratures and terrain will vary your requirements.

CliftonGK1

+1

A couple years back I tried doing a double on just bars/gels/powder mixes and by the time I was 12 hours into the ride it took every ounce of my willpower to eat another bite of Clif Bar.
Some experimentation and many thousands of miles later, and I've learned what I can and cannot eat while riding. Now, if I could just remember to eat more often while soloing, I'd have it made.

steve0257

I drink about 10 times as much water as gatorade and the gatorade waits until the later portions of the ride. For food, rice krispy bars, oatmeal raisin cookies, apples, and oranges

Carbonfiberboy 

Sugar is usually a bad thing. Try drinks that are mostly maltodextrin. As Standalone noted, a stomach not emptying can often be fixed with electrolytes. I use Endurolytes, but whatever like that you come across will probably help. That and plain water.

Hydrated

Ummmm... Hello?

We're waiting for a recipe here!

canopus 

I'm just the opposite here. Gatorade for most of the ride (I like water after mile 70 or so depending on the weather) but I have to stop and get a Subway 6" BMT after mile 63. I have just about done away with my clif bars or other protein bars. I guess I am a real food kind of person with the sugar mixed in. Then again when I was a kid we survived on 3 to 4 pitchers of Kool-aid a day with 2 cups of sugar in each....

chasm54

Take a sandwich - or two sandwiches. And a banana - or two bananas. There's no particular need to stick to drinks, bars, gels. Ordinary food is fine as long as you eat it a little at a time.

Daveyboy

I love a 12" subway Spicy Italian, I'll eat half all at once and nibble on the rest for a couple hours.

I used to love gatorade, but have recently attributed a bad stomach on a few long rides (300k +) to too much gatoraide. On my last ride (hot and humid 4 1/2 hours) i was drinking Nuun and popping endurolytes like nobodies business - and I felt great. I've also recently discovered V-8.

However, as Machka says, food on the bike is highly personal, gotta just find what works for you.

Olde Steele

I'm with most of the other reply's - less is more. Just finished a 400K in 23 hours. Hot weather. Drank lots of water and ate 2 hot dogs, a turkey sandwich, probably 5 gels and maybe 4 bags of chips during that whole time. Only problem I had during the ride was one stop that only had Gatorade and a bag of chips to buy. Gatorade upset my stomach and it took about 3 hours of only water before I got my stomach under control.

Like most of the others, I can't do sugar. I go with what I'm hungry for. Chips, bean & cheese burritos, hot dogs and french fries will always work. And I carry gels in case I can't find a Mini Mart when I need power.

Olde Steele

I'm with most of the other reply's - less is more. Just finished a 400K in 23 hours. Hot weather. Drank lots of water and ate 2 hot dogs, a turkey sandwich, probably 5 gels and maybe 4 bags of chips during that whole time. Only problem I had during the ride was one stop that only had Gatorade and a bag of chips to buy. Gatorade upset my stomach and it took about 3 hours of only water before I got my stomach under control.

Like most of the others, I can't do sugar. I go with what I'm hungry for. Chips, bean & cheese burritos, hot dogs and french fries will always work. And I carry gels in case I can't find a Mini Mart when I need power.

noteon 

I had a sudden craving for yogurt around mile 200 this weekend. Cold, slightly tart, easily digestible and available. Felt good afterward, too.

On the brevet before that, half a gallon of plain Silk turned my whole outlook around.

robertkat

I drink HEED all day long with no troubles. Past 70 miles is getting close to lunch time on a solo double for me, so it's a Super Star with cheese and coke and I'm good to go another day. Some good advice a club mate gave me is to make a couple turkey sandwiches, one slice of bread, a little mustard, fold in half, fits in your pocket. Easy and good. Frozen yogurt in the summer time is a good treat.

Commodus

My girlfriend makes me these bars made of nuts and fruit and dark chocolate. I'm not one of you super long distance types, so I'm not sure what my advice is worth here, but they do me great on my weekly 50-60 km rides.

Machka 

I use this recipe as the base, and then I modify it slightly:
https://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1710...249194,00.html

Instead of granola cereal, I use a bag of trail mix with lots of almonds and raisins in it, plus chocolate chips, and then I add oatmeal to top it up to the 3.5 cups.

I like that it uses 2 eggs ... that was one of the reasons I chose it ... because the eggs add protein. Including lots of almonds (and other nuts) also adds protein. I also discovered that even though there is 1.75 cups of brown sugar, the cookies don't taste overly sweet. There isn't the almost sickly sweet taste of granola bars etc.

I've really liked them on my rides lately.

barturtle

I try to alternate bottles of water and Gatorade (the powdered stuff). Clif bars caused some discomfort, but Powerbars have been fine. GU Gels have also been fine so far. I also like Snickers bars. Chocolate Pudding. Hot dogs. Slurpies. Fried fish.

ClydesterD

Thanks to those who mentioned Endurolytes. I'd never heard of it, and after cramping up on a ride last weekend I was looking for a good electrolyte source without all the sugar. I just ordered some from my good friends at Amazon.

As for food, I like oatmeal-raisin cookies, oranges (and OJ when I can get it), and apples. I'm not (yet) like you LD pedalers for whom 200 miles is standard, but in my experience up to 80 miles or so, these get me through with enough energy and without stomach upset.

rumrunn6

as a parent of little kids the B.R.A.T. diet comes to mind:

banana
rice
apple
toast

the banana and apple sound be easy to carry bit I think the toast and rice while doable with a rack trunk, would still be a challenge

Richard Cranium

As several previous posts suggest - any kind of food recommendation is useless. Food or fuel requirements are based on individual variables that result from the actions of the cyclist and the environment he/she is riding in.

Still, in keeping with Richard Cranium's penchant for supplying superior, fact based forum answers - I'll go ahead and offer a few "tips."

1. Any fuel a rider requires during a ride has to be supplied in a proportion that is governed by the both the cyclist's environment as well as the cyclist's pace. This means that hot weather rides, or ride at higher intensity levels require different foods than rides that produce no stress in these areas.

2. As fatigue increases in a given rider due to longer sessions of exercise, portion size and control of fueling rate becomes more critical with very little room for errors in caloric value.

These two statements cover all the theory necessary to understand appropriate fueling strategies. Simple examples of these strategies are drinking a lot more whenever you eat in hot weather, and using only easily digestible sports nutrition products during intense workouts. All other situations are a blend of these two examples.

Although exceptions will always appear to exist to these theories, they are a result of luck, not evidence of sound exercise nutrition.

rumrunn6

an example of bad planning: I ate and drank too much on a long ride using my trisuit for the 1st time. trisuits are quite tight. anyway at the halfway mark I stopped at dunkin donuts for coffee and a cookie. shortly after getting back on the bike I began belching, and then on one big belch up came some coffee and cookie. I let it flew to the right and just kept pedaling with no further discharging. if it don't fit - it don't stay down.

RFC

I curious. I have had good luck with refried beans before a ride and whole wheat fig newtons during the ride. Have any of you tried these foods?

steve0257

Jet propulsion?