downtube42

I've used maltodextrin for about 8 years on randonneuring rides over 200km, in addition to solid food at occasional stops. I have no idea how many calories per hours, and honestly don't have the energy to find the answer (pun intended). About 1/4 cup of pure maltodextrin in a large bottle is what I've settled on, and I drink about 1 every 2 hours.

I went to England this year for LEL and decided for some stupid reason to abandon the malto in favor of foraging for fuel en route. I DNF'd for the first time in 12 years of rando and ultradistance riding. There were other issues for sure - saddle and sleep - but poor fueling led to the vicious spiral that led to DNF.

Pertinent point being, I think, that you have to learn what works for you and stick with it. At least don't change things before a big event, which everyone (including me supposedly) knows.

GhostRider62

400-500 kCals/hour is only 110-135 watts. Racers are burning over 1000 cals/hour.

I agree with you that there are benefits to be able to burn a higher percentage of fats (lower RER at a given power output), but well into a ride, there is little risk of an insulin spike. Also post ride for around 30 minutes, GLUT4 doors are open and restoring glycogen is very efficient and not such an insulin level "risk". I am relatively intolerant of fruit on rides but will have one banana occasionally. Fueling long rides or training for them might not be rocket surgery but to deny advancement in both training techniques and energy products is rather naive, despite the fact big G is fleecing us. Nuts and dried fruit does not work very well for me on long rides. I'd rather have a large chocolate milk and high GI bag of Lil Debbies donuts. Preferably needing less due to higher fatty acid oxidation but my training this year hasn't gotten me there.

mr_pedro

Indeed, 400-500 kCals/hr, even for an amateur cyclist would be a fairly relaxed ride.
Peformance driven athletes are not worried at all about burning fat rather than glycogen. Just like anyone else, even untrained people, when you push yourself you will start burning glycogen.

There is also little benefit to eating fat while exercising, also if you are at a level where you burn mostly fat. Even fit people have more than enough body fat for many hours of exercise, and you are not able to digest the fat fast enough to be of any use anyway.
Actually, fat intake will be detrimental during a workout as it slows down the digestion of sugars, which can be put to good use during the exercise immediately.

GhostRider62

Not true.

In fact, the ability to burn fat in some racing is what separates the winners.

If you are burning 1000-1200 cals/hr and are able to consume and process 400 kcals.hr, this 600- 800 cals/hr deficient will soon lead to performance issues unless much of it comes from fatty acid oxidation.

Iride01 

In what racing do the athletes eat or drink fat while actually performing?

The discussion is about what to eat or drink during a ride.

Sure, to various levels the bodies of individuals that demand more energy will get better at utilizing the fat already stored in them. But that rate still will never make up for the needed glycogen that is used at extreme levels of exertion while riding and in anaerobic territory. And even supplementing with carbs will not make up for that. But no-one I know has a bottle with 300 - 400 Calories of fat that they drink from.

And increased rates of fat burning do not alone make for a victor. Being able to get oxygen in and CO2 out of the muscles plays a very large part along with many other things.

And besides that, I don't think the OP wants to compete. They just want to ride their bike and keep a comfortable level of energy.

GhostRider62

I never said to eat fat. Go back and re-read what I wrote.

And then show me where I said such a ridiculous thing.

As a ride gets longer, it is impossible to replace glycogen by eating more. Running low on glycogen isn't comfortable. The choices are improving your ability to oxidize fat (your own) or slowing down. Of you wish to learn, research VLamax. Otherwise, re-read what I wrote.

Iride01 

I know you didn't say to eat fat. But your argument about fat is ridiculous in the context of what this thread is about.

Carbonfiberboy 

Well no. One limit is how many calories per hour can one get across the stomach well. That's not a hard limit - it's trainable - but once one has trained for it, it is a hard limit. All the rest of the calories have to come from fat, and the point is that fat burning is also trainable, thus also a factor in increasing the power available on very long rides. I don't think it matters as much for rides of say 4 hours. I think most riders have enough glycogen to last at least that long, but much longer and available calories becomes a speed-limiting issue. I've ridden with riders who've done an Alpine tour that summer and still bonked on a 9 hour 2-pass ride. Most folks aren't used to the practice of never stopping except to refill bottles and pee, like 10'. They tend to go a little harder than they should considering how they've trained. Elites and randonneurs have had to figure all this out..

mr_pedro

How much you need for a 3+ hour ride totally depends on how much you are pushing yourself. It can go from just plain water to 100+ grams of sugars per hour.
If you are going at a tempo where you can still talk easily and no heavy breathing you can do without any food, or just do very little, like 20g of sugar per hour.
On the other side, for hard rides where you are right at the limit of what you can do, you might need up to 100g per hour, not to drop in performance.

As an indication you can do 20g per hour for easy, 60g per hour for medium and 100g per hour for hard. Since there are a lot of moving targets here, take this as a starting point and adjust according to feel. After a while you will be able to estimate de sugar need depending on type of ride.

To get all that sugar in, you can for example make your own sports drink by just using plain sugar, salt and citric acid. I like to mix the sugar and citric acid in a big pot with ratio 100:1. Then I can just scoop in the grams of sugar I want in my bottles and add between 0 and 3 grams of table salt, depending on how hot it is outside.

You can also bring some solid food, containing mostly sugar, if it is a long ride it is nice to also have something to chew on.

GhostRider62

You misquote me, back pedal on the assertion, and characterize me as ridiculous. I am not arguing anything, merely relying facts.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

I'll take it a step further. The inability to oxidize fatty acids is symptom of poor metabolic health. Moderate exercise of 1-2 hours on a bike and NOT eating is probably the best thing most of us could do.

https://alancouzens.com/blog/improvi..._burning2.html

https://alancouzens.com/blog/improvi..._burning1.html

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/...00.279.6.E1325

https://medschool.cuanschutz.edu/dea...igo-san-millan

GhostRider62

Short answer is on a 2-3 hour zone 2 ride, you probably are better eating nothing but as intensity and duration increases, you need to eat carbs. The amount you need varies enormously. Try Mr_Pedro's rules of thumb starting at the low end.

Iride01 

Back pedaling? I didn't characterize you as ridiculous. I think your information is reasonable but not really applicable for this instance the OP is asking about. That's where the ridiculous part comes in for me.

None of the things you link talk about increasing fat burning by just drinking water on rides. The rate at which one can burn fat is going to increase as one increases the quantity of their exercising. And yes certain diet strategies might help.

Do you know of a study that shows drinking plain water and not supplementing with any carbs makes one reach that higher rate of fat burning any sooner than one that does supplement with carbs?

Still, I don't know what having the best rate of fat burning possible is going to do for the OP. They just want to get up the hill with some energy remaining and not have a queasy feeling stomach.

Carbonfiberboy 

^ Yes, I'm also interested in how to stimulate fat oxidation. There was a fad on here a while back for going out fasted first thing in the morning with only water for 1-2 hour rides at a moderate pace. Lance and his team were famous for going on 6 hour rides with only water. I wonder if that works better than just riding lots, and don't think I've seen a study for that. I never did that thing, just rode lots. Seemed to work for me, but OTOH I never did the fasted ride thing. Not that fond of unnecessary suffering. Or if we're really hard, is all suffering beneficial?

Our group used to have a ride leader who believed that a real next-day recovery ride should be 5-6 hours. I remember going on one of those, on which I had a liver glycogen bonk. That was really unpleasant. Brain non-functional. Luckily, I had a high-carb source with me and was fine after a few minutes. I also remember my very first 50 mile ride as a newbie 50+ rider, when I found myself sitting in a ditch while the world spun around. A Clif bar fixed me right up. I used to subscribe to Flying magazine, which always had a story titled, "I Learned About Flying From That."

It's easy for me to consume adequate carbs on a ride, no matter how long, But is that not true of everyone? And it's well-known that as power increases, fat oxidation decreases while carb oxidation increases. It's also well-known that both fat oxidation and carb oxidation are trainable, thus focusing on training one of those decreases time spend training the other. IOW IDK, but seems to me that ride lots, ride hard, works well enough.

spyderjohnson

Calsun said it best in an earlier post "This is not rocket science and not any different than what experienced cyclists knew and used on their rides a half century ago. What has changed is the profitable marketing of magical food products like Gatorade and keto bars to the public which is now a multi-billion dollar industry."

Carbonfiberboy 

Wrong. Being anti-science has become a fad in this country. BTW, road cyclists don't eat keto bars. Nope. And I haven't seen anyone on our group rides use Gatorade in at least a decade. Get out and do a fast 7000' double metric, see how that goes. One should be able to do at least a century on any given day, no special prep. I love this stuff.

The way science works is you get some hair-brained idea and you experiment with it. See how that goes. Normally, you're wrong but you learn from that and come up with a new idea, experiment with that, see how that goes. Etc. Go at it. That how we all got to be doing what we do. It wasn't advertising, I assure you. The interesting part is that everyone's different and no one can know everything.

zandoval 

Carbs, Sugars, Some where in there Protein...

But... BUT... Where do my Little Debbie's Fit in?

Carbonfiberboy 

Not to mention my Hostess Fruit Pie! I can eat one of these puppies in under 5 minutes.

wolfchild

Nutrition for a century is pretty simple. Just regular foods, snacks and drinks you find at your grocery store. No need for any special sports drinks or energy gels...Majority of my riding is done around zone 2 so I can eat regular foods without suffering any digestive issues. I never found sport specific drinks and gels to be very satisfying. I need a combination of proteins, carbs and fats during the ride. Carbs and sugar alone just doesn't cut it.

spyderjohnson

Wolfchild, I totally agree. Natural.

PeteHski

Big yawn.

Why do these kind of posts always mention Gatorade? Keto bars are first though, 😂. Nobody considers using either of these things for ride nutrition.

Carbonfiberboy 

I had different goals and so a different experience. I rode long distance for time, thus was racing my riding buddies. So I'd get say an hour in Z4, and hour in Z3, and the rest in zone 2, with maybe 5' in Z1. I wasn't trying to ride a century, that was easy, rather trying to come in as early as I could. So my nutritional needs were quite different. Certainly for one just trying to ride the distance, your program is fine.

mr_pedro

Why not, other than that it might not have enough sugar for certain needs on the bike, I don’t see anything wrong.

GhostRider62

Osmolality is too high

Minerals too low

Lousy cheapo carbs

Countrytime lemonade with table salt is a heck of a lot cheaper and just as lousy

PeteHski

It's just that the post was suggesting that modern day performance focused cyclists fuel on Gatorade because of billion-dollar marketing. In reality most serious cyclists would either mix their own fuel or use much better commercial products e.g. SIS, High5 etc.

wolfchild

Longer duration endurance activities are very catabolic to muscles. Whatever you decide to eat and drink make sure it includes sufficient protein...Carbs or fats for fuel and energy, and protein for feeding the muscle.