Fat Boy

Ain't that the truth. If they're mixed in with a bunch of other stuff, they get lost in the shuffle, but you have to have a lot of flavoring with them. If I'm doing a 'low-cal' drink, I'll do BCAA's (4:1:1) with a bunch of Crystal Light. There's still a bitter something in there, but you can at least drink it. The only way to get it to sort-of mix is just to leave it for a couple hours.

Fat Boy

Ice cold it's just sorta palatable, and I'm not picky. Warm it just turns into absolute garbage.

saratoga

I don't like Accelerade. If you mix it full strength it has a horrible aftertaste and sits like a rock in your stomach.

That and it takes a wire brush to scrape the funk it leaves behind out of your bottles.

beatlebee 

rkwaki: Thank you for your insights.

You state either get fast or get lean. But what about those of us that are focusing on Hill Climb TTs and RRs with lots of climbing. Any other tips?

johnybutts

lean.

jsutkeepspining

lean and powerful duh. Just start dieting, get less fat, but keep on working out. fool.

mattm

We're all too fat for this sport.

jsutkeepspining

yeah, none of us are truly at a point where we can't lose any more weight (or lose anymore weight without losing power). i could probably get down to the high 130's low 140's before i noticed a real drop in power, i would just hate life because i like chocolate too much.

revchuck 

I certainly am!

I'm following this with interest. I'm trying to find the balance between stuff like gels and other stuff like Clif Bars for long rides/races. I've got a 106 mile race in March that I'd like to have this balance figured out for.

Fat Boy

It's all about W/Kg, so you have to balance it all out. About a year ago I was rail thin while preparing for a couple road races. It was too much and after the races I kinda 'crashed'. I screwed myself up for a couple months with absolutely _no_ strength. It was literally hard to hold endurance wattage at times. Now I'm 10 pounds heavier, much happier and about the same power (lower W/Kg). The difference is my recovery is _much_ better.

I really don't know how the pro's do it. Balancing food and training must be an absolute obsession for those guys. I couldn't handle it. I bet the eating issues that they leave cycling with is crazy.

MDcatV

+ 1, i remember it invoking gag reflex for me during a hot hilly race. i once won a jug of it during a prime, i gave it away.

on the topic of eating pre ride or pre workout, i do most of my M->F training between 4:45 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., i never eat prior to that, just a cup of coffee while i'm warming up, water during training, then eat greek yogurt and muesli or steel cut oats post ride.

beatlebee 

Okay, making it personal: I am just shy of 6 ft at 155, was down to 152 a few weeks ago. I have a background (we are talking at least 15 years solid) of lifting weights. I was at 185 in college and very little fat. I stopped lifting on my upper body in September (was only lifting light for a year or so) but still swim (front crawl) to keep tone.
My body feels great like a single muscle when I am at 152 (end of base phase) and I loved it. But the last few weeks, I have rebounded and I am hoping that it turns out to be a lack of protein as that is easy to fix. Also, hoping that after a few more months, I will drop upper body mass as I am built on the smaller side and always struggled to stay muscular.
I understand it is all about W/kg.
Actually not sure what I am saying....end rant...

rkwaki

When I was getting ready to be a 'real' bike racer I probably could not have been any thinner. I am 5'11" and I weighed 156 pounds. My arms were somewhere around 9.5" (that's what she said) and I had a sub 28" waist. I was riding 20+ hours a week and consuming +6,000 calories a day. I lived in sweatsuits to try and stay warm. If not on the bike I was constantly eating. It would be nothing to put back 5+ plates of chinese food at a buffet but I still looked sick. I did not at the time understand nutrition and didn't really have anyone to guide me though I wish I had.

In a perfect world you try and lose the weight/fat during your base phase then maintain it after that. Offseason should be used for dieting and/or putting on muscle. Then when it is go time it becomes about maintenance. At this point of the year as you guys are getting ready to start racing your diet should be stable and weight loss kept to a minimum as the focus should now be about speed.

beatlebee 

Can you tell us where you are at now and how your performance changed? Are you focused on Crits?

Thanks.

rkwaki

I am now retired (again )
I raced last year at 182 pounds. At that weight I can climb like the wind due solely to my strength/history/base.

Had this year come to fruition I my goal would have solely been crits at a race weight of around 190.

Our team this year is very strong and we do have pure climbers (over 6' tall and sub 160 former pro (BMC) among them) so for me to have focus to be able to support them in their discipline I would have to be 170ish which at this stage would be very difficult.

Though we tease a lot I am not fat just big. At 227 pounds today I still maintain vascularity all through my quads, calves, biceps, triceps, traps, delts and lats. Abs will come once I stop putting muscle on.

As for my performance I will relay this to a race weight of 182 pounds. FTP was somewhere north of 400 and though I could climb (I could climb with most but would not have been able to attack a true climber, required too much power) where I really noticed the performance was that my power was relentless. Long climbs that were not super steep (i.e. less than 7%) are a true power climb and the ability to pull or to bridge gaps was great. When I was much lighter climbing was a breeze but my power on the flats would suffer.

If I were to be in the sport serious (i.e. NRC Stage race stuff) I would have to be somewhere around 171.
If it were NCC racing only I would come in around 190.

ericm979

When I first started riding seriously and training to race, I got down to 128 lbs. I'm 6' tall. I did not realize how much more I needed to eat.

That was 27 years ago. I've learned a little since then. I feel that around 142 lbs is about as low as I can go. I've accidentally gotten lower when work distracted me from eating, and then I feel that I am lacking in resilience.

jsutkeepspining

pfff thats all dough boy?

rkwaki

That's all I had

jsutkeepspining

no wonder i kept dropping you

rkwaki

True enough...

MDcatV

true. another way is to keep track of calories in/calories out, and maintain a small steady deficity of a few hundred kcal/day and be patient with weight. this takes a bunch of planning, like, i'm doing gila in may and it's now feb, i need to be X# and am currently X+#, so assuming 3500 kcal = 1# of fat, i need to run a daily deficit of # for this long to get to X#.

rkwaki

Yep, this method allows you to lose it very slowly without a yo-yo effect.

Creatre

Wow I'm 6'0" and dangling around 135-136lb atm. And I would not want to go much lower, I'm scary looking. I find the 138-140lb range very comfortable. Light, but not really unhealthy.

Fat Boy

I would say that when rkwaki first wrote this I didn't agree with him because I really didn't understand what he was saying. In the right situation, I think either could be 'fast'. Maybe it would be better to write it:

1. Get Strong
2. Get Light

In either situation, a cyclist is likely to be lean. To get light, you will probably have to get rid of some muscle. It's rare that anyone can lose weight without. To get strong, you'll likely put on a little fat, but muscle as well. If you can gain weight in ratio greater than 1:1 muscle/fat, you've done a pretty good job. Then you try to get light and lose weight at greater than a 1:1 ratio. At the end of the whole deal, you've got the same amount of fat on you and more muscle. It's a hell of a tough proposition in my experience.

sstang13

First off, great thread! I was actually thinking about asking my coach about nutrition just before you posted this, thanks rkwaki!

I have a question though, I've noticed here, and it's also kind of common sense that everyone is different when it comes to nutrition in all aspects (fluid intake, food intake, when to eat etc.) But as I told you in the training status, I'm awful when it comes to all of the details of eating and drinking!

I'm 6' 2" and about 160-165 lbs (very slim/lanky!), but it always changes (probably water weight, eh? ). I usually drink one bottle per hour on a solo ride which is usually around 2 hours. When I go harder it could end up being up to a bottle and a half per hour, but never really more than that. Especially since 2 bottles is all I can carry and don't have anywhere where I ride to fill up. It's also hard to eat one rides though, sometimes it's easy to get in a banana because it's soft because for some reason after a while of the bike, my jaw seems like it locks up (TMJ) so it's hard to eat things like protein bars or any granola bars. And I'm a veryy slow eater, someone told me to just shovel it down once when I was eating a cliff bar as I was falling back on a fast group ride, but with a dry mouth and slow eating it's hard.

If you don't mind taking the time, what liquid/food should I normally intake before/during/after a day/ride?

Thanks a lot.