Originally Posted by
terrymorse
I can't see that how hungry you are is a good measure of the training effect of a ride.
All other things equal: the longer the effort, the higher the training stress, the greater the fitness adaptation.
A measure of "too much effort" would be symptoms of overtraining: fatigue, lethargy, insomnia, weight fluctuations, high resting heart rate, etc.
How do you get the idea I'm talking about training effect from that? I'm not taking training effect into consideration at all.
I was just giving the OP a possible reason why they feel they eat more on long rides. On my long rides, I've never felt overly hungry afterwards. It is my short very hard rides that I tend to eat large amounts of food for a time afterward.