Road Fan

What's good these days? A dozen years ago the Clif bar was widely recommended, but they have a lot of product diversity now.

What's good now? Kind bars? Or ... what do you guys like?

base2 

Honey.
Just plain honey.
1 oz is 80 calories of glucose/fructose. The easiest, simplist, most direct muscle fuel possible.

The difference in my riding is made up of nut butter & fats/protein. Plain ol' peanutbutter & jelly sandwiches on white bread. Tortilla, corn chips, cheese, jerkey/pepperoni. Dried mango slices & cashews. A home made spicy pickle every now & then.

Around hour 5 or 6 or so, an honest to goodness meal of some sort. A giant burrito from a taco truck, a few musubi, a big ol' Red Robin style cheese burger from a roadside stand or a mocha/latté/coffee & big fatty fat blueberry muffin with cream cheese, or similar is high on my list...Not because it's bike food, but because it's lunch time & lunch is important.

Who doesn't like a pint/quart of milk & a few cookies?

Call me old fashioned, but gels & "fitness food" found at bike shops & the healthfood aisle really don't offer a lot of value when you crunch the calorie to dollar equation.

Edit, because I'm dumb & can't read: Recovery food? No such thing. Eat dinner.

For dinner, maybe Phad-Thai or phad kee mao or panang curry, orange chicken & fried rice, or something from the tandoor or maybe lamb biryani, palek paneer, arroz con pollo, pollo a la crema, fajitas, teriyaki, chili, potato or curry ginger squash soup, turkey or bourbon chicken burgers, etc*...& most importantly a beer or 3, & get some rest...It's actually the rest that is important no matter what high protein cuisine (meat derived, or not) you cook at home.

*Yes, I really actually do cook these things on any given day & eat them after a ride. These things are just dinners based on a well stocked pantry. Ask me about my breakfasts of Hawaiian spam egg & rice, bacon, or blueberry, or apple/cinnimon waffles, pancake sandwiches, crimini omelettes, harrissa scrambled eggs, & home made breakfast sausage, or cranberry/almond oatmeal, & homemade yogurt with granola. Guarenteed to fuel your ride like a champion.

**Don't eat factory "food" if you can avoid it. I ain't high & mighty. You gotta do what you gotta do. Chicken & rice is universal across all cultures...even if it's plain ol' 'merican cream of mushroom soup, chicken breast in a pan & a box of Zatarans or Rice-a-roni...It's all good. Y'all know what I mean. Homemade "real" food, from scratch, not tv dinners, or frozen pizza if you have a choice. It don't take much to grab a 4 gallon pot & make a batch of 'x' & portion out a gallon or 2 of it for the freezer to be ready for any post ride meal.

Real food. That's my answer.

Cyclist0100

For recovery I usually have yogurt with oats, pecans or walnuts, cinnamon and a banana.

Trakhak

I eat whatever I usually eat. Just more of it.

Carbonfiberboy 

Ah, there you are. CTS' Carmichael is now recommending nothing unless your ride is over 1700kj. I think that might be equivalent to a 2-4 hour ride, depending on how hard one rides, the idea being that your glycogen will be replenished by one's ordinary diet, as in post 2. After longer, hard rides, I'll have a recovery drink in the fridge or in a cooler in the car: about 25g maltodextrin, 25g natural sugar, 25g whey protein, mixed in water. Liquid is better. Chocolate milk is always good, but I use the dry powdered stuff because I always have it on hand and it never spoils. After that, I'll often have a bagel if dinner isn't going to be real soon, maybe an apple too and some walnuts. Depends on how depleted I feel. I don't eat a high protein dinner after a hard ride, I eat a high carb dinner.

grizzly59

half a baked potato and a glass of chocolate milk

canklecat

Banana. Peanut butter sandwich. Any kind of energy/protein bar (the ingredients are mostly the same, so it's down to texture and flavor).

Water with some creatine, maybe electrolytes and/or vitamins, depends on what I bought on sale in the Kroger bargain bin.

Maybe whey protein powder shake or chocolate milk.

spelger

Now I'm hungry.

debenhoh

I have gotten a lot of good and helpful info from Paleo Diet for Athletes book by Joe Friel....
My go-to right before a ride is raisins, during a ride I add a couple scoops of Tailwind to my water bottles, and after I go with more raisins, a banana, and some kind of Clif Bar or Energy Bar. No gels or goos for me - the Clif Bar is as processed as I get. If I'm going more than 4-5 hours, I'll have a few ounces of de-fizzed Coca-Cola (put it in a jar and stir, stir, stir until all the fizz is out), then put it in a separate bottle. I haven't had a soda in 20+ years, but a couple ounces of that stuff - while disgusting to my taste buds these days - is like a bit of magic on those really long rides.

Road Fan

Ok, thanks, folks! My rides lately have been fairly short duration and low in the kj, so I bought a few more Clifs to keep near the bike mounted on the trainer. On any of these levels of expertise, I'm pretty low, so I'm sure that will be a lot better than nothing and better than pure carbs.

Clyde1820

Have always found about 8-10oz of a good whole-milk yogurt with a handful of "granola" (raisins, choc bits, oats, nuts) with some fruit added in works well. (Banana, for more potassium; honey, if I'm really zapped and need quicker energy.) Plenty of sugars, proteins and fats for a reasonable recovery. With sufficient water + electrolytes in addition, of course. Seems to work more quickly than, say, a typical "energy" bar, at least for me. With the mix of whole milk and nuts, there's longer-lasting energy in there along with the faster-reacting energy sources of honey, sugars from the yogurt, the fruit and granola.

Iride01 

Recovery as in off the bike and finished with riding?

I just make sure to get some decent protein and good amount of carbs within the first 45 minutes after the finish of the ride. Might be a drink mix of the various recovery drinks out there, or just a sandwich and other stuff to get protein and carbs along with some fluids/water. Though sometimes I get too caught up in other post ride things and forget till the next meal comes along.

Flip Flop Rider

recovery recipe:
Step 1 stop riding
Step 2 eat, drink and rest

experiment with different foods and drinks. Chocolate milk helps me a lot. Also home made milkshakes with bananas peanut butter

Carbonfiberboy 

After researching the last couple months of my workout history on TrainingPeaks, I decided that my following the CTS advice as in my post 5, above, was wrong, wrong, wrong. I need a recovery drink after every ride. I wasn't doing that and got in trouble - I wasn't recovering for the next day's ride.

New recovery recipe:
Step 1: ride
Step 2: drink carbs (Calories 50% of kj), eat, sleep.
Step 3: ride.

That's working.

debenhoh

That lack of recovery sounds like what I used to struggle with. For the last year, I have followed the magic time windows for replenishing cards/glycogen, according to endurance nutritionists: take in some carb/energy within 20 minutes after your ride/run, and then a more balanced meal within two hours. It has made a huge difference in recovery - both for the nest day, but also just for the rest of the day!