What do you guys eat before a long road ride?
 

Not super long but a fast paced 2.5 hr ride. I've been eating cereal w/non fat milk & fruit and maybe a cliff bar or builder bar in the middle followed by protein and carbs like a sandwich afterwards.

Any one have any suggestions, am I going in the wrong direction with this?

Also how far before your ride do you guys usually eat.

Before: almost always some kind of healthy cereal/granola, with dried blueberries. No milk, though, just water. At least an hour before the ride... ideally closer to 2 hours, but I'm not usually up early enough for that.

During: for 2.5 hour ride, you don't really need anything... I might have 1-2 fig bars.

After: If particularly long/hard, I try to consume something small (carbs) right away. And then a decent meal sometime within an hour or two.

Oatmeal.

Yah during my day rides i don't really eat the energy bars i pack but during these 2.5 hr night rides i do with this bike group i seem to get reallyhungry.

I heard if a ride is under 3 hours you shouldn't eat an energy bar, is this true or bs

Big bowl of oatmeal with honey, dried fruit, skim milk. Mug of good coffee, black. Good enough for 60 miles on that. If I'm going longer, I'll pack a clif bar or some cookies.

2.5 isn't a long ride. I don't even think to eat anything special, I just eat what ever. Nothing but water and sport drink during. Longer Sat. morning rides I choose to eat corn flakes with a sliced up banana. During the ride ,sports drink, granola bar, and sometimes a grape jelly uncrustable. After Muscle milk and anything that crosses my path.

You know I tried that muscle milk stuff and thought it was amazing and then started reading about the chemicals in it and saw some "findings" that made me decide to stay away from it.

I do the same 1/2 hour before I leave. Oatmeal, dried fruit, skim milk and a mug of coffee. I'll have to try adding some honey.

Then have a glass of Pro MR (http://propeptide.com/products/promr.html) just before I leave. I believe you need some protein along with the carbs. Even then, this lasts me maybe 40 miles.

+1 on the oatmeal.... sometimes I settle on a bowl of cereal, but oats are great for preride fuel. Almost always added with a cup of coffee.

1.5 hour rides, I bring just water and one gel pack "just in case"
3 hours, I load up two bottles with heed and bring along a gel pack
A "long ride" for me is 4.5-6 hours. With this I bring the same, but usually eat the gel. I then stop around half way and eat something at a bakery, gas station etc.

I drink 400 cal. of a 1:7 mix of maltodextrin and soy protein 2 hours before every long group ride. I start eating 15 minutes into the ride. That's only if it's a group ride or brevet and I have to actually perform. If it's just a training ride by myself, I'll still eat something 2 hours before, but then won't eat much during. No worry about getting dropped if my blood sugar does.

Although i love all cliff bars, i would reccomend staying away from them DURING the ride, because of the amount of protein in them. It just doesn't help you to be consuming that much protein, it's useless. For a 2.5 hour ride i don't think you need anything more than 1 cliff bar, maybe a choice of sometype of gu, granola bar, whatever.

Before i usually will eat a massive bowl of kamut cereal and toast with reduced sugar jelly or sub the toast for an apple. I'll try to eat at least an hour,no more than 2 hours before the start of the ride.

After is when the builder bars are great. I rode to a bikeshop i worked at over the last summer(16mi, not a 2.5 hour ride though) I had a builder bar everday after i got in, it really helped me recover, and filled me up till lunch time(2-3 hours later).

Today I went for a bit of a hill frenzy ride with my buddy it was a 30 mile 2 hour ride and we kept a 15 mph average and at the bottom of this huge hill he told me to stop and eat my builder bar which i had brought just in case but didn't really plan on eating. I was really hurting at that point since im new to this and i didn't think i could make it and was against the idea of stopping and eating it but i did and felt terrible for the first 500-1000 feet then suddenly felt great. I really try to stay away from energy bars cuz they have sooo much crap in them, cliff bars, power bars, builder bars i think alot of it is just BS but man i get really hungry when i ride so im kinda stuck.

I saw an interesting article in a riding magazine this month, it said to bring boiled skinned potatoes and that is the best thing to eat when you ride, any of you guys try that? They even showed how to pack them up so they fit great in your jersey.

I put a cup of vanilla yogurt in the blender w/ a ripe banana and about 10 frozen strawberries (slightly thawed in the microwave so as not to kill the blender). It makes this wonderful frozen smoothie. When I'm really hungry I also eat a granola bar.

2 eggs, 2 slices wheat toast, 2 cups coffee, 1 serving yogurt, 1 glass OJ. Seems to be optimal fuel for me. I do eat a large variety of stuff, however.

Yeah they are delicious! I usually do it when I get tired of gels and Cliff Bars, or I just crave potatoes. :)
Anyway with bars you have to remember that it takes a while for it to get digested. So if you do eat them have it at the beginning of the ride. That way it will provide energy towards the end.
For longer 3h+ rides I just have a big bowl of oatmeal (400-600 calories). During a ride I have GU20 in my bottles (300 calories), and a cliff bar. Recover drink is a glass of cold Chocolate Milk. :)

does that gu stuff actually work, i figured it was junk. I just wish those things didn't have so much suguar. I've always felt athletes are kinda suckers for the most part and that 90% of these energy things don't really work. That they'd get the same effect by eating some roast beef rolled up in foil in their jersey, i mean i don't mean offense to anyone and i find myself eating cliff bars and such but i think alot of that stuff is marketing.

if you want to most bang for the number of chews

baked potatoes are rocket fuel for cycling
then pasta
then rice

for me at least

you don't need anything more complex for under 3 hours hammerfest


then during the ride you could ingest up to 60 grams carb per hour after
that, be it sports beverage or gu and water....60 grams is about normal
and about what you can digest when hammering. more will bog you down,
less is ok if you have enough stored carbs in the first place...

Some of it is marketing, some of it is not. Does average Joe on 20 mile leasurly ride need Gels? No. On the other hand you are doing three hour hard pace ride, intervals, race. You need to replenish sugar you are expanding fast, and convenient. Gels fit the bill. They are fast to digest so you get that blood sugar spike fast, and they are compact. Roast beef on the other hand does not. It doesn't have enough carbohydrates, slow to digest, and not very compact. Nutrition need to be tailored to what kind of riding you do. Keep in mind that all the nutrition stuff is not some magic bullet that will make you faster. It's so that you remain fast. At high intensity you burn high percentage of carbo hydrates. So you need something that is easy to digest and hits blood stream fast = Gels. On LSD rides you need/prefer something that gives constant supply of calories = energy bars.

That makes sense, thanks for that. I gotta say though I need to stay away from the builder bars I think today when I ate it it felt like i just ate a snickers. I think the power bars or cliff bars are less dry and easier to get down so I'm going to avoid the builder bars even though I think they pack more of a punch than cliff bars.

Oatmeal and/or a banana

If Im riding more than 50 miles, I like potatoes, halved and boiled in spicy crab boil. One before the ride and one after.

I'm really interested in trying this potatoe thing.

Standard Thoughts on Pre ride Meals are that unless you have 2-3 Hours to digest the meal, You are better off starting the ride on an empty stomach. If you properly topped off your Glycogen stores following your previous days efforts (recovery drink), and ate a healthy dinner, You are properly fueled to begin your ride. You can then begin eating after about 20 minutes. The thought on this is, your reserves are topped off and eating more will just start the process of converting the new food into stored energy. That is a bodily function that will not help your performance or comfort....

Once the ride is underway you can begin consuming calories. Standard is about 250 calories per hour, more if your big (but not to much more). Thats all your body can use in a hour that you are exercising. Thats why powerbars are all 250 calories. You only need Protein if the ride exceeds 3 hours. and then only about 4g per hour. Powerbars contain 9g.

So for a 2.5 hour ride You can begin your calorie intake at 30 minutes. The goal would be to consume about 500 calories over the next 2 hours. You could hit that goal with:
1 Powerbar = 250 cal.
1 Gu Pack =100 cal
32 oz Gatorade (diluted to half strength)=100 cal.
1 fig newton =55 cal
Total =505 cal
This fueling plan is for multiple hours. On a short ride of only 2.5 hours you could cut the consumption down. Maybe zero consumption for the last 30 minutes. Or you can follow these guidelines for Many hours consuming that ammount every 2 hours...

This has worked very well for me on many 100+ mile days...

link about glycogen stores....
http://www.americansportsevents.com/...ACE%20MEAL.htm

link about chocolate milk being the ideal "recovery Drink" to top off glycogen stores
http://www.thefinalsprint.com/2006/0...hocolate-milk/

Fast pace maybe 20 mph average x 2.5 miles = 50 miles. Maybe 1,500 calories on that ride.

It might depend on your present state of conditioning. I would eat an early breakfast and finish before 6:30 am and start out at 7:30. Mine would be a smoothie: banana, acai, blueberries, ground flax seed, oranges, pomegranate juice, ice cubes. Makes about 30 ounces. Oh, and maple syrup in the smoothie.