Originally Posted by Spudmeister
I eat crap on long rides - cheeseburgers, burritos, moonpies & everything else. My nutritional plan (
and it is a plan) is to eat the same stuff I eat every other day. I've seen riders with only liquid fuels get sick after 50 miles. Seems to me that the only time they they go with all this liquid fuel is the day of the 'big ride' - so not only is their body stressed by the effort of the ride, but the stomach is asked to handle food it is not in the habit of digesting.
I'm no expert, but I try to keep my stomach happy on long rides by consuming familiar food.
+0.5
I do a mix of real food and 'tech' food. I have a diluted mix of Hammer gel in my water bottles, a hydration pack that is pure water, and a half-dozen packets of gel that I take straight with a water chaser for most of my regular mileage. But then I'll pillage farmstands and delis along the route whenever I feel like it. Of course, I ride non-competitively, so my standards aren't quite up to the bar that some other posters hold themselves to.
However, for me, riding through the farmland of Vermont and New Hampshire, it seems an awful shame to pass up on some fresh strawberries or apples along the way; and I wouldn't be having as much fun if all I had in my mouth was that off-sweet, slightly tacky tang of supplement.
It is important to train with the diet that you plan on using, and I do use the gels when I go on my training rides, and haven't had a problem with mixing and matching. I think that, for me, sticking to one side exclusively is to ignore the benefits of the other. The liquid diet stuff is good for even, dependable energy. Real food is good for morale. I might not be finishing in the lead pack, but I'm still having fun, stopping along the route and enjoying the terrain that I'm travelling through.