Neil_B

"The best advice I've ever heard about nutrition while touring came from my brother Justin. He told me to "eat like a fat person." This means lots of fatty foods like potato chips, fries, pizza, steak and doughnuts. Incidentally, these are the same kind of foods I crave while on the road. Touring is a slow and steady sort of activity, and fat burns in much the same way. When ripping through 8,000 calories a day, one quickly burns through carbs. Your body then starts to burn fat reserves that will need to be replenished. The times I've eaten mostly vegetable stews and rice, I've found myself losing a lot of weight."

https://www.dirtragmag.com/print/article.php?ID=859

This is the same article that suggests wearing underwear unwashed for several days and dumpster diving for food.

Tom Stormcrowe

You do burn through the calories when touring.

Here's the estimated caloric burn on my UP tour. The wattage figures appear odd, but remember, between the bike, trailer and gear, my equipment alone was 100 pounds and I was riding the first 105 miles were on dirt firetrails and VERY hard riding conditions. 37,000+ kcals over 5 days. I was also fighting a nasty headwind the entire trip!

bdinger

That... doesn't seem smart . A guy with us on a group ride last year grabbed a couple Krispy kremes and a coke while the rest of us grabbed gatorade and granola/nutrition bars 20 miles into a 35 mile ride. He was one of those who usually hung at the back of the pack, but miraculously - fueled by coke and donuts - flew to the front of the pack for a pretty crazy 4 mile sprint.

Then.. he crashed. And.. it wasn't pleasant. We stopped the ride at 25 miles to get a vehicle to take him home, where he spent the rest of the day in bed.

I may wear my cycling shorts for two days before washing, but they spent about - at maximum - 4 hours of that 48 hour period on my body. Wearing underwear for two days in a row would be... disgusting.

Tom Stormcrowe

Well, you do have to take in the right kind of calories......

Krispie Kreams and Coke are a sure fire way to trigger an insulin spike and major bonk!

I use a Maltodextrin base electrolyte /carb supplement and low residue carb sources on the bike and a good recovery meal at dinnertime on tour. This might be Ramen and tuna or something like the Mountain House Freeze dried meals. The Chili Mac and the Beef Stew or Beef and Potatoes are pretty good! I don't recommend the Freeze dried Eggs and peppers though, because while they taste good, but the eggs have the consistency of leather!

Breakfast on tour is usually oatmeal, or if I don't feel like cooking, a meal replacement bar like Zone Protein complex bars.

neilfein

From a site documenting a guy's cross-country US ride:

What did you eat?

bdinger

The Mountain House freeze dried meals are great, I used to take those with on long evening hikes! Then I realized that for a couple more ounces of weight, I could just take a can of chili or something like it. That workes out well too .

On tour, do you get a consistent calorie intake during the day? I find on long rides I do best if I'm taking in some sort of... something every several hours or so. If not, I get hungry and out of energy QUICKLY, which has bad consequences .

Tom Stormcrowe

I take in calories hourly, about 250 kcals an hour. I still lose weight on tour!

Neil_B

Also worth reading is David Lamb's book "Over The Hills", an account of his cross country bike ride in 1994. Lamb ate all the 'wrong' foods, drank moderately, and smoked. He was 54 and didn't train before leaving. He also had never ridden long distances before starting his trip.

Tom Stormcrowe

True, but self supported touring, you have weight worries. You think OK, a couple of ounces here and a couple of ounces there and next thing you know, you are pulling a truck! When you are pulling ALL your gear and living out of a bike trailer or panniers totally, weight adds up really fast and you wind up overloaded before you know it.

Next time, instead of carrying in all my water, for example, up on the UP (Through the wilderness areas), I'll carry my 4 bottles and a filtration kit instead of 30 pounds of water in addition to my bottles. I'll use exclusively freeze dried instead of a mix of freeze dried and canned. Trying to ride up a hill with 80 pounds of trailer behind you really sucks!

EDIT: I did have to carry clothes I normally wouldn't as well, because of temperature swings. The UP in early June can be between 35 and 75 degrees on the same day and the wind off of Lake Superior is ALWAYS cold!

bdinger

Oh I learned all about this one during my hiking stint (that I really need to get back into, I *love* it). When doing a 10 mile hike in for an overnight or two, every little ounce really adds up. The first time, I think I took everything.. except the ibuprofen I needed once I was there! The second time, I took the smaller of the two "overnight" packs, and just about nothing. That time was very cool, as we did it in late Feb, getting an overnight sleet to keep us all in our tents. I took just the "right amount" of survival gear, as I kept warm enough to sleep several hours then go warm up by the fire. Rinse, repeat .

The clothing thing is interesting that you bring up. I've always wondered about this "on tour" and actually am working out the details of a mini-tour in late October. That's the part that I love about hiking, and adventure cycling.. the "adventure" aspect. I think the most fun I had on a hike is the one we did with regular temps at -5 degrees, and a wind chill that re-defined "wind chill". It's odd how easy it is to keep the torso warm but how much of a challenge the extremities are. the "coolest" part of that hike was looking at my boots and seeing that the snow just sat on them, too cold to even melt!

Not to derail the thread, but what kind of golves did you use to keep your hands warm during the cold? Last year I did a couple of winter rides, those and the feet were the challenge that kept me from riding more.

neilfein

Looks interesting; I added it to my Amazon wish list.

Tom Stormcrowe

Cold weather gloves.....

Really cold weather, I use ski gloves with 1500 grams thinsulate
Moderate(35-48℉), I use full finger mountain biking gloves, warm is fingerless crocheted back gloves.

Wet weather, I have some waterproof shell mittens (Lobsterclaw).

Caincando1

Do you have a link to that web page? I seem to have lost it. Thanks.

Tom Stormcrowe

Of course I do!

https://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm

Caincando1

Bookmarked, thanks!

Neil_B

Or you can borrow my copy.

superslomo

Live and let live and all that, but that dude (cited above) has some nasty habits. I'm not super squeamish, but I'm not fighting rats for a slice of three day old pizza or eating roadkill. Sorry.

Wogster

Hiking and adventure touring do resemble each other a lot, 50lbs on your bikes back is just as bad as 50lbs on your back. So you need to count those ounces, actually I hate working with pounds and ounces, because you need to keep mucking about to get totals. It would be better to work in a single set of units, which is where us metric folks have it easier, because you can change units by shoving the decimal point around. Mind you, if your up on your 16 times table, then you can convert everything to ounces and work from there.

I understand that a lot of modern equipment is considerably lighter then older equipment, even equipment that isn't that old. You need to also remember, gear will expand to fit the storage capacity available. If your panniers will hold 30lbs then your gear will weigh 30lbs, if your trailer will hold 100lbs, then your gear will expand to weigh 100lbs, as Tom found out

(51)

Thanks for that link, Tom. That seems a lot more realistic (1,020 cal). Some sites I have visited suggested I was burning 2,000 calories or more on my rides. I'm going to have to lay off some of those fries.

Tom Stormcrowe

No problem, scroll down the page if you are a math geek and you can even see and verify the calculations the site is based on and how the variables affect the result! There's a really nice tutorial there.