How much do you eat on your trips?
 

Just did a 5 day/409 mile Northern CA/Sonoma/Napa/Coast tour with a buddy and I was eating constantly.

Here's a list of just one days worth of food.

3 cups coffee
2/3 cup oatmeal
1 slice bread w/peanut butter/honey
turkey/ham/roast beef sandwich
bag of chips
2 dr peppers
1 orange
2 peaches
3 licorice sticks
turkey/ham sandwich
2 top ramen
lasagne w/meat sauce
broccoli cheddar rice
1/2lb macaroni salad
3 strawberries
2 granola bars
about 10 bottles of water

Is it just me or is this a lot?

I Love Buffets!!!

On last summer's coast to coast tour. I ate about 5000 calories a day. I didn't eat that much at any one time by rather snacked continuously on and off the bike.

Too much.

I cant comment with authority; I gained 7 pounds on a one week tour last year.

About the same as I eat normally.

I can imagine this is typical of long tours. Even after riding for a few hours every night for a week, I noticed my appetite changed.

I eat a ton and that's one of the joys of bike touring, provided you are prepared. My first "big" tour was 4 weeks down the west coast. I thought it was going to be inexpensive, compared to car camping - no gas, hiker/biker sites. I think the amount I spent on food was more than the gas would have cost (this was in 1992!)

I also expected to lose some weight - I was never fat but I had a little belly sticking out. I ended up gaining weight! My belly was about the same size at the end, but I had put on about 10 pounds of muscle.

LOL!

For me it depends how active or inactive I've been before starting a trip (cycling or hiking). If I plan to get into shape during the trip, then I eat like a pig for the first few weeks. As my weight drops, and my overall fitness level increases I still eat a lot, but better and cheaper.

--Then of course I have cravings! I was dying for real American style pizza for months, and when I reached Kathmandu I probably spent about 50$US equivalent in just a few days on brick oven pizza...mmm

It all depends on how much biking I'm doing.

When we biked coast to coast (and doing at least a metric everyday), we were enjoying 5 meals a day.

One reason why long distance biking is better than long distance hiking is that you can eat!

Eat until your full
 

If I feel hungry I eat, If I'm not, then I don't eat. Listen to your body. I always have enough food on trips. Packing a little more is better than not packing enough in my opinion.

Well the thing for me is ... in the months before a tour, I might be riding 400-600 kilometers a week with my randonneuring and for fun. During the tour I might be riding 400-600 kilometers a week. So my eating quantity doesn't change.

It's when winter comes and the quantity of riding I do slows down that I have to watch how much I eat.

Depends on your pacing. If you are working pretty hard all day long you are going to need twice as much food as usual. At least for a guy. If you are going real slow and not expending much more energy than walking then you will need a few hundred calories more than usual.

I often get extremely hungry after about four hours riding and it does not subside if I am riding many hours a day until a couple of days after stopping the ride.

it's all good except for the Ramen
The Ramen really puts you over the top







:)

Now 50 days into my tour, I have noticed a few things about my appetite so far.

First, I never really eat fast food in the real world. I started to crave it a lot in the first couple weeks but got burnt out on that crap real fast. It's not nearly as cheap as you may think for what you could get for the same money at a grocery and if you eat a lot during the day while riding you will feel it.

Second, it is hard to get enough protein. I am a carb fiend in the first place, and it is really expensive to get enough protein so I look for it wherever I can and eat a ton of nuts.

Third, FIG NEWTONS! I never really liked these things but it turns out they are a perfect touring food. Compact, high in calories, and with some nutritional substance including ever-important fiber. They are also available everywhere and pretty cheap. I have a small box in my handlebar bag at all times and eat while riding.

How much to eat depends upon (at least the following) speed, distance, terrain, weather, time of year, weight of bike plus gear, metabolism. One example on the high end of calorie intake: during a late autumn-early winter tour I pushed 120lbs, through the intermountain west, averaging 100+ miles/day, in cool to cold conditions. I averaged 7000 calories a day with a low of 6000 and a high of 8000. If I wasn't riding I was eating and sometimes both at the same time. I was toasty warm throughout and my body weight was approximately the same at the beginning and end of the tour.