Originally Posted by
GhostRider62
With support and an acclimated stomach, I suppose liquid is doable. But think of say PBP. They say you need 35,000 calories, I calculated mine more like 25,000 last time, IIRC. Assume half of that is fat and half is consumption. 12,500 calories is 3,200 grams or 7 pounds of powder, not to say anything about the large volume of it. 35,000 calories is probably more like it. My bikes are very efficient and I am out there fewer days than the bulge of riders. Someone might need to carry 10 pounds of powder.
WRT OP's desire to sleep 8 hours each night on PBP, if you can have support handing you bottles even at every other control, you will save a lot of time vs getting food in the cafeterias, easily 5 hours to save. In 2015 riding unsupported, I wasted enough time getting food that had it been supported with bottles handed to me, it would have been sub 50 hours. OP has to think to do everything as efficient as possible and probably liquid fuel is a given .....a requirement.
I wonder if RAAM riders like Strasser change from one fluid to another. I get sick and tired of the same fluid and get to the point, the thought of it makes me want to ralph. Even with liquid, they cannot replace all the calories burned. They lose some fat.
Yes, the liquid fuelers have a variety of fuels in the support van. They have everything in the support van except sleep and new legs. I think Strasser used mostly Ensure, which I can't even stand the taste of. Luckily, we're all different.
The PBP rider I mentioned who liquid-fueled did it with Ensure. He came to France with a suitcase full of Ensure. His wife drove support. I believe he went through the control and then cycled to a rendezvous which may not have been near the control on the route. He had a large bar bag for the Ensure. He slept in a hotel room she arranged for. He used Endure because it worked, it was what he'd always done, and thought his PBP experience would be best if that's what he did again. He was not a fast rider, but he had good endurance. He did PBP again with a new wife on a tandem. I don't know what he used that time, but the new wife was a racer girl, now a cross-fitter. Like so many of us, he doesn't ride anymore, Afib. They're still happily married. PBP was the last time she ever rode a Brooks - she was 6 months healing.