dalameda

Has anyone used those little 5 hour energy drinks as a caffeine pick me up on longer rides? I carried one with me on a recent century, thinking I would use it at about mile 70 when I tend to get fatigued, but by that point I forgot I had it with me! Thinking of trying again in the future, but wanted to hear if anyone else tried it.

Carbonfiberboy 

Search function is your friend, at least sometimes:
https://www.bikeforums.net/training-n...ergy-shot.html
and etc.

mrtuttle04

I tried it one time and did not see a noticeable difference. Trail mix seams to work best for me on long rides.

Dunbar

Color me skeptical that B vitamins give you energy. For caffeine I prefer coffee or soda which are cheaper than 5-hour energy. Or you could always buy caffeine pills to carry along on a ride.

wolfchild

I don't use energy drinks..I like to eat dark chocolate or chocolate covered coffee beans as an emergency energy snack.

dalameda

thanks cfb I tried a search but I must not have the correct technique as it kept coming up empty

Carbonfiberboy 

I always use the advanced search at the top of page where it says "Search Forum." I typed in "5 hour energy" and got many hits, many of them probably just for the word "energy".

dm83

Just use caffeine pills.

therhodeo

That might work on rando type stuff or long slow endurance rides but no way do I want peanuts and such sitting on my stomach during really hard efforts.

telebianchi

If you are fatigued at mile 70 then either you are pushing yourself farther than you have before (which is a good thing to do) or you didn't eat enough. The 4 calories in a 5-hour energy shot is not enough to help you at that point.

Without knowing more info about you, your diet, your fitness, your riding, etc. my suggestion would be to eat or drink something with calories before you get to a fatigued point at mile 70. Bars, gels, drink mixes, bananas, fruit, a sandwich, baked potato, fig bars, etc. If you want caffeine there are a number of gels and bars that have caffeine in them.

chandltp

I learned something about those the other day. They can take 1-2 hours to absorb into your system. Coffee and other liquid caffeine sources can work as quick as 20 minutes, depending on stomach content.

dalameda

telebianchi , I eat pretty well on the rides. For example, last weekend I did the Solvang Century. Stopped at each rest stop and had some fruit and a couple of fig newtons, and had a bottle with spiv in it. I also had some gels to take between stops, so no fear of starvation there. The fatigue I am talking about is more an emotional fatigue that sets in around the mile 70-80 mark. I've tried different visualization and motivation strategies that seem to help, but the interest in the 5 hour was to see if it could give a slight physical "kick" to help me over that phase.

Carbonfiberboy 

Emotional fatigue is a symptom of not eating enough. It's well-known among randonneurs. You want to shoot for 250 calories/hour. By your description, you don't eat enough. If you like fig newtons, Heathpack took 1000 calories of them with her on her recent century, plus eating from the rest stop foods. You'd need a gel every 20 minutes, average size gels. The first three hours are the most important for nutrition: you really want to scarf down the food during that time. 1 Clif bar/hour is a good metric. Eat 1/4 of one every 15 minutes. One of the difficulties one must surmount is finding foods that agree with one's stomach in that quantity for those hours.

Louis Le Tour

Thanks for that idea, I hadn't thought of it.