Training & Nutrition - anyone use only 'liquid fuel' on a long ride?

Does anyone use just liquid calories (malto, dextro and electrolytes) on long rides say 60 -100 miles? It seems like it would be easier to digest and baggies of powder are lighter than bananas and Powerbars. Any drawbacks to not consuming solids?

I think you will find that you will probably not feel too good around mile 75-80 if you only drink your calories. I have gone to the opposite in my century rides and now only drink water and eat a few snacks along the way. I haven't had any of the queasiness that I used to get when I drank mostly gatorade on longer rides.

I usually consume nearly all of my calories as solids rather than liquids during training. I find that it keeps me from getting hungry. If I'm going into a race, especially a crit - where the effort will be fairly high for the whole event (but short), I find soft drinks usually work well. If you don't eat enough before a crit and risk being hungry because of that - you're not going to do well anyway ;)

i did an 82 mile ride a few weeks ago in the pooring rain. my cleat never hit the ground for the entire duration (i can track stand) and all i had was a bottle of water and a bottle of gatorade. surprisingly i rode very well considering the conditions and i had no signs of running out of energy.

i did an 82 mile ride a few weeks ago in the pooring rain. my cleat never hit the ground for the entire duration (i can track stand) and all i had was a bottle of water and a bottle of gatorade. surprisingly i rode very well considering the conditions and i had no signs of running out of energy.


did you go hard?

did you go hard?

my average was around 19+mph. i figured this was doing alright for the conditions: lots of small towns and traffic, cold, wind, rain, and riding solo. i was unprepared and only had shorts and a short sleeve jersey. the only way i could stay warm was riding hard between towns. (which also picked up my in town average)

edit:
i cant recall my exact average, but i know i was on the bike a little over 4 hours. i remember this because i couldn't read my computer (driving rain) and when i got to where i was going i wiped it off and couldn't believe the ride time. it felt like two days...

I think it's possible, but there are consequences depending on your GI - like constipation.

my average was around 19+mph. i figured this was doing alright for the conditions: lots of small towns and traffic, cold, wind, rain, and riding solo. i was unprepared and only had shorts and a short sleeve jersey. the only way i could stay warm was riding hard between towns. (which also picked up my in town average)

edit:
i cant recall my exact average, but i know i was on the bike a little over 4 hours. i remember this because i couldn't read my computer (driving rain) and when i got to where i was going i wiped it off and couldn't believe the ride time. it felt like two days...

hmm...you must have been well fueled, I would have long bonked if I tried to do more than easy-moderate for 82 miles without anything to eat

Individual physiology,fitness level, weather conditions etc. impact on how the body reacts to extended physical activity. Unfortunately, in our country a lot of folks eat/fuel way more than necessary. I see folks using Gu, etc prior to a 5K run. Believe it or not, water works pretty good. When I ran ultras I would drink water, maybe a coke or 2, a few fig newtons and chew some bubble gum. Would finish a 50 mile run (8-9 hrs). This when not consuming any food 12 hrs prior to the start of the ultra--and have lived to share that info with you.

Riding 50 miles is a heck of a lot easier and less strenous than running 50 miles. I often just drink water. Maybe, if I stop, I'll drink a pint of chocolate milk. Again, we are each unique--so what has worked for this soon to be 67 yr old fart with over 71,000 miles of running and over 2,200 miles on the bike since early in May (no riding for 12 yrs prior to getting back on the bike) may not work for your metabolism. Try experimenting--you may surprise yourself and find you don't need all those calories when you are out riding.

Does anyone use just liquid calories (malto, dextro and electrolytes) on long rides say 60 -100 miles? It seems like it would be easier to digest and baggies of powder are lighter than bananas and Powerbars. Any drawbacks to not consuming solids?

It is definitely possible to do long rides on liquids alone. There are a number of liquid nutrition options out there ... Sustained Energy, Perpetuem, and my personal favourite Ensure. I rode the Rocky Mountain 1200 mostly on Ensure, and RAAM riders seem to like Ensure as well. For me, it tastes good (there are several flavours and Butter Pecan is particularly nice), goes down well, sits well, and provides me with energy. You can get the powder to mix up on your own, and it comes in convenient little bottles now too.

These choices have more than just malto, dextro, and electrolytes. They have protein, fats, carbs and a whole list of vitamins and minerals.

My preference among the Ensure products is Ensure Plus: http://ensure.com/products/ensure-plus (you can see on that site the protein and fat content they have).

If you're a fairly fast, fit rider, and can do 60 miles in 3-3.5 hours, you could probably eat a decent breakfast, have one of those 350 calorie bottles of Ensure halfway along, and drink HEED and water the rest of the time.

I can't see any drawbacks to doing a 60-100 mile ride on something like Ensure (or SE, or Perpetuem, or chocolate milk, etc.). The only thing is ... if you plan to travel to other places, especially other countries, to do long rides you may find that your favourite liquid nutrition is not available or hard to get there. Therefore, you may want to train yourself to eat solid, real foods on long rides ... things which you may be able to find in shops along the way.

hmm...you must have been well fueled, I would have long bonked if I tried to do more than easy-moderate for 82 miles without anything to eat

That sounds about right for me for 4 hours at a near tempo pace. I may have a bottle of perpetuem or a clif bar depending on my mood.

If you're a fairly fast, fit rider, and can do 60 miles in 3-3.5 hours, you could probably eat a decent breakfast, have one of those 350 calorie bottles of Ensure halfway along, and drink HEED and water the rest of the time.

Personally, I would never eat that much for a 3 hour ride.

When I do centuries I stick to liquid fuels, maybe have a Hammer bar but, I personally feel better and perform better with this method. Each person is different and needs to test their tolerance for liquid only.

Does anyone use just liquid calories (malto, dextro and electrolytes) on long rides say 60 -100 miles? It seems like it would be easier to digest and baggies of powder are lighter than bananas and Powerbars. Any drawbacks to not consuming solids?

yes, heed, perpeteum and cliff bar electrolyte on my last long ride - thru in a packet of gel and a cliff bar to nibble on - i think the key for me is too make sure i don't put too many calories into my stomach and drink about 20 oz of water per hour at a constant rate

hammer nutrition has a lot of information and fuels

however, a pure 'hammer diet' does not work for me - i tend to need some simple sugars and additional electrolytes

i think if something tastes good along the trip - that is a good sign your body is telling you something - one problem with just drinking/eating the same thing is you just might get tired of it after awhile

everyone is different i have a friend who drinks 32 oz of water per hour for instance for short rides or doubles - i can't drink that much water

Personally, I would never eat that much for a 3 hour ride.

Maybe in a race I suppose

hmm...you must have been well fueled, I would have long bonked if I tried to do more than easy-moderate for 82 miles without anything to eat

i am 24 years old. "fueling up" is something i excel at.


That sounds about right for me for 4 hours at a near tempo pace. I may have a bottle of perpetuem or a clif bar depending on my mood.

normally i would have had a cliff bar. my originally intent was to take a break (so i didnt bring one) but do to the weather conditions and how i felt i decided to just push it in.

I'm not sure what the prevailing conditions are - but in the old days accomplished riders usually went about 24 hours before wanting to shift into any food stuffs. In the eighties many companies tried to market products that would sustain for many days. They seldom worked. get it "sustained," (inside joke) ......

Just did my first organized bike event Saturday, an 85 over rolling terrain at 6200'. 12mph average, previous longest rides were 60m @ 10mph ave. Pretty thrilled with the results, particularly considering the wind and rain. [CASVAR ride, Star Valley WY].

Had a cup of coffee, banana and cup of juice before the ride, then 6 Hammer gel servings, half in the first two hours, then two bottles of Perpetuem. Prolly ~ 20oz water/hour or more. Had 6 grapes at 15mi, 2 orange quarters at 40mi, one grandma's chocolate cookie at 70mi. Had 4 beers, a double hamburger and 3 handfuls of chips at 86mi. ;)

Felt better than I've ever felt on a long ride. Was jamming into the 70mi CP on the big ring with the same energy i had at mile two. No GI issues at all. Totally sold on the Hammer products.

I prefer to eat real food, on my long distance rides. One time I tried riding a century on mostly liquids, sure I made it , but I didn't feel very good. I like to eat animal foods high in fat and protein with some carbs and fruits in between and lot's of water. I have experimented a lot and I know what my body needs to function at it's best. Every person has different needs.

I prefer to eat real food, on my long distance rides. One time I tried riding a century on mostly liquids, sure I made it , but I didn't feel very good. I like to eat animal foods high in fat and protein with some carbs and fruits in between and lot's of water. I have experimented a lot and I know what my body needs to function at it's best. Every person has different needs.

:vomit:

:vomit:

To each his own. I love cheese on whole grain bread, or maybe some smoked fish with a chunk of whole wheat bread.

To each his own. I love cheese on whole grain bread, or maybe some smoked fish with a chunk of whole wheat bread.

You probably just don't ride hard enough for it to matter...

I have poor digestion so I prefer fluids all around. The past few centuries I've done have all had accessible water every 20-30 miles, so I just refill water, add HEED then (mmm...urinal cake flavor). Sometimes I'll have a bar of some sort at the half.

Read the hammer nutrition information, it will challenge a lot of your assumptions, at least it has mine. Their idea about not eating a meal less than 3 hrs before riding certainly seems odd, but the science behind it seems sound. Their use of complex carbs instead of simple sugars certainly is contrary to what other sites( e load, gatorade) would have you believe. I have not tried hammer products but probably will experiment with them a little during the winter off season, see how they sit with my stomach, etc.

Digestion takes a lot of effort...

60-100 miles is not a long ride. That's a normal weekend training ride. Of course you can eat only liquid foods on such a short ride. There are a variety of options available. Hammer has Hammer Gel, Sustained Energy, and Perpetuem. Then there's Spiz and Accelerade. The grocery store has Ensure and Ensure Plus. These are all so well proven in distance events of 500-1000 miles that there's simply no arguing with their effectiveness, unless of course the arguer has not ridden such distances.

The only real downside is that the residual volume is very low, i.e. it's hard to take a crap, but that only starts to matter in events over 400k. Personally, I like to eat a little real food from time to time, starting at about 200k. But the "real food" should be something like tuna sandwiches, or ham and cheese, fruit pie, scone, something like that. Mostly carb, a little protein, a little fat.

I'm down with the rider who ate very little. On my first solo century at age 18, I had one 17 oz. water bottle (that was the size back then), one soft drink, one orange, and one candy bar. I stopped once and averaged about 17, in the NY Lake District, not real hilly, but not flat either. I didn't do anything special before the ride. Being young helped.

Hammer products are not "complex carbs." They somewhat overstate their case. They are more properly polysaccharides: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltodextrin
Long chain sugar molecules. In the stomach they exhibit low osmolality, which means that you can get more sugar molecules across the stomach wall, faster. Maltodextrin has the highest glycemic index I know of, about 130, compared to pure glucose at 100. So it's quick, and that's what you want in an on-bike food.

Read the hammer nutrition information, it will challenge a lot of your assumptions, at least it has mine. Their idea about not eating a meal less than 3 hrs before riding certainly seems odd, but the science behind it seems sound. Their use of complex carbs instead of simple sugars certainly is contrary to what other sites( e load, gatorade) would have you believe. I have not tried hammer products but probably will experiment with them a little during the winter off season, see how they sit with my stomach, etc.

Hummer Nutrition's guide exists primarily to pitch their product, whether it be needed or not. For example, they recommend you take 1-3 Endurolytes before, 1-6 per hour during, and 1-3 after. In a somewhat overstated example, that could mean taking 12 Endurolytes for one hour of hard exercise. Completely useless. More generally, I have trouble ever seeing how taking an electrolyte supplement before or after is beneficial. Your diet contains far more electrolytes than you could possibly need. On a daily basis we piss out something close to an entire bottle of Endurolyte capsules. Two to six caps 5-6 days a week is just them pushing a mostly useless product on you. There are a few situations where an electrolyte tablet make sense. Liquid diet for prolonged exercise would be one of them. Thing is, most liquid diets (HEED, Sustain, Perpeteum, Cytomax, etc) all have plenty of electrolytes in them. With the possible exception of ultra-distance it just isn't necessary. If you're going long enough that you need electrolytes you also need some sort of energy source, and it's hard to find one of those that doesn't have plenty of electrolytes.

Now, to be fair, the Hammer Nutrition Guide says as much if you actually read it. There's a substantial difference between the bullet-point "usages" and the actual guide. There's a lot of good info and some miss-information. For example, cramps are not your body "calling out for electrolytes". That's a load of snake-oil. There's a lengthy list of things that have been correlated to cramps. Low blood sugar, lactic acid concentration, lack of oxygen, potassium and sodium imbalances, etc. Which is my point. The Nutrition Guide presents the data and information that lends support to the use of Hammer products and makes no mention of that which does not. Saying that one of many possible causes of cramps is electrolyte imbalances, while more truthful, does not sell the product as well.

My wife only eats liquid fuel on long rides. Now I eat all sorts of stuff. I have been known to eat pretzels, oranges, apples, peanut butter sandwiches, bananas all sorts of stuff. It is more a matter of what your insides can process than anything else.