In my continuing experiments to figure out how my body works, and to optimize my riding, I went on my standard 60 mile ride yesterday and only drank water (and had a cup of coffee en route). I also had some of my DIY Endurolyte powder. My breakfast was two eggs and two slices of bacon a few hours before the ride, and a cup of coffee (my doping) just before heading out. I had cream in the coffee but no sugar.

I'd recently concluded that perhaps I wasn't eating enough during my rides, so I expected this one to be a tough experience, with lots of suffering towards the end.

Not so. I had a really good ride, and felt strong right until the end. My speed was slightly higher than during the last normal ride, and I climbed the hill at 40 miles slightly faster than usual. I intentionally kept my heart rate low (my max is 160 BPM).



I realize that there's a lot of random variation in how I feel on a ride, but this suggests that what I eat on the ride isn't as important as I'd thought.

My limit is 3 hours, more than that and I need about 250 calories per hour. I notice that I need more food when I'm out-of-shape than when I'm lean and well-trained.

On a 60 mile ride, I usually have no food, but drink plenty of liquids, I feel fine.

I suggest "Sport Nutrition for Endurance Athletes" by Ryan. Given that as background, you'd be in a much better position to evaluate your own personal nutritional idiosyncrasies.

OP, how many hours of cycling was that?

This.

I've responded to this in the training and nutrition forum, but since there are two threads...

I've ridden 60 miles on just water a number of times. I suspect I could do a food-free century, as long as I kept the intensity down.

Intensity is key. When training for racing I couldn't hack a low-carb diet, I couldn't hit the numbers on interval sessions and couldn't recover adequately between training days. But when just tootling along at touring speeds, one mainly burns fat and bonking isn't an issue for hours.

Much of the advice to newbies on these forums is misplaced. People are told they must eat every hour when on the bike or something terrible will happen. And then they're disappointed when cycling doesn't seem to help them lose weight. A ride of two or three hours at cruising speeds doesn't really need food.

what was your average speed, Al?

I alternate riding with two clubs. The rides for both clubs are 40-50 miles long. I have to eat more when I ride with the faster club (17-18 mph ave) than the slower club (15-16 ave).

I ride in part to get rid of the food I already eat, so there's no way I'm carting along food on my bicycle trips!

Bingo. OP.. try riding 60 miles, climbing nearly 100 feet per mile and averaging somewhere around 20 mph. I bet you'll be pretty hungry way before you hit 60 miles.

Hmm. But to be fair, even at my fittest I couldn't average 20 mph, solo, on a 100 ft/mile 60m climbing ride, food or no food.

Neither could I. Reduce the avg mph by 1 or 2 and the total climbing by a couple thousand feet and the results will likely be as I described.

I just did a solo metric with only a cliff bar at ~1/2 and water as the drink. I wasn't too hungry or spent at the end so I imagine there are folks that could do it easily. I imagine if you are already riding a lot guaging the effort wouldn't be too difficult. My ride wasn't super hard in terms of climbing but there was a some wind which was a pain but it was mostly on the way out. Judging what to eat is something that I don't have since my typical ride is 30-40 miles and I don't ever bring anything to eat on those rides. I was pretty much guessing on the metric. If I ever do a solo century I think I would have to guess high though since you never know what you might actually need and when depending on the intensity as mentioned

+1

Lots of energy floating around in the bloodstream.... and plenty more available for most people. As long as a cyclist, runner, soldier, whatever doesn't burn fuel faster than the body can draw it from it's reserves you should be fine.

For me... I can plug along at about 12MPH with no more regard for meals (or other food) than at any other times.

But a friend of mine that worked in the diet industry once told me that some people have trouble accessing fat/food/fuel reserves. That after years or even decades of being over-weight. Some people never actually knowing real hunger (a day or two without food)... a body can seem to forget how to access the stored food/fuel reserves. So... a new cyclist/dieter may experience something like a bonk.

You can train yourself to use less glycogen and more fat on your rides by, strangely enough, eating less on your rides. This must be done gradually. The longest ride I've done on plain water is 80 miles at just over 18 mph; I could probably do a century if I needed to, but have no desire to try it. I commonly do 60 mile training rides on plain water or water with electrolytes.

Looigi - I sort of agree, but the reference is at least two, probably more like 3-4 years out of date by this time and it doesn't focus on the older athlete and potential health problems.

TromboneAl - Yeah, sure, four years ago I could have done a ride like that standing on my head (and I don't mean that in a World Cup goalie sense, but, I digress…) and now I'm totally not the same person WRT endurance sports. Trust me - don't screw around with nutrition, it can really come back to bite you in the ass. Instead of posting about how little you can get by on, please post tips on how to maintain a healthy diet, including in ride fueling, for aging endurance athletes. You're a really good athlete - don't abuse your gift. It can disappear all too soon.

Actually you did nothing more than runners have been doing for generations. With great success I might add. THE key is to pay attention to your body and your feelings. Most reliable feedback your brain can get.

Not exactly the same thing but I've traveled via snowshoes in waist deep snow for nearly a half day on nothing but a Cliff bar and a liter or two of water. Felt fine and no particular adverse after effects.

All these "studies" aren't really worth a bucket of warm spit if taken beyond the "take a look at this and see if it is applicable" level.

I have to say that now that I'm 68 refueling on a ride is much more critical than it used to be. I find that I dehydrate quicker than I ever have and waiting for my body to tell me it's time for food is too late. I adhere to the old cyclist adage of "Eat before your hungry, drink before your thirsty." I'd be curious to know if there is generally an age factor that influences what we can do in this regard.

Moving time: 4:49 and total elapsed time 5:14. Average moving speed: 12.6 MPH. Elevation 3,884.

I'm just not very fast, and never was, no matter what I ate.

I've done metrics on nothing but a bucket of warm spit. It's really not that bad once you get used to it.

The literature I've seen on past-50 cycling (and my own experience) certainly agrees with this. Riding below lactate threshold burns a lot of fat, but riding harder burns glycogen that isn't readily replaced except by eating easily digestible food. A fit body may have 95,000 calories of fat but only 1500 to 2000 calories of glycogen which you can burn off in 2 hours at high enough intensity.

Riding a century without eating is all about the balance between intensity and time. 100 miles at 12.5mph moving average will take 8hrs, not counting time off the bike. At 15mph it will take 6hrs40min, and at 20mph 5hrs. How much daylight will you have and how hard must you work to maintain those averages? On flat land you may be able to do 15mph indefinitely, but throw in a half dozen 10% grades and your glycogen consumption goes way up.

Since you metioned weight loss as a goal, FWIW I started a new job this year where I could commute 30mi round trip, with about 750ft of climbing each way. Between that and our tandem riding on weekends I've been doing about 200-250 miles a week since, oh, mid-March. I've lost about 10lbs during that time, a bit more than the weight I put on between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year but couldn't burn off because we had a non-existent x-c skiing season. My commute riding is split between trying to take it easy and riding hard for one reason or another. Also FWIW, I'm 65.

What?? We never ride our tandem without carrying a picnic. Having a nice picnic is the whole point!

I think the point that most seem to be missing is that if you're just going the bread & water route, you won't replenish those stores.
So when you try to repeat the ride/workout you're under fueled.
If you're riding/training with high volume/intensity you have to think about what you're doing to be able for it to be repeatable.
If you plan to just ride along at 12mph then yes you may not need to fuel during your ride but you also wont drop as much weight
or burn many Kcals. Fat burns in CHO fueled fire!

The club Metrics I've done here are considerably more hilly and are usually done between 14-16 mph. If I tried to do one replenishing as you did I'd bonk by mile 40. I just can't pull that off.

Yes, but...

In my experience, if I burn 800 kcal in a 2hour ride at easy pace I will be less hungry at the end of it than if I burned 800 kcal in a hard hour. My theory (it's no more than that) is that the former ride leaves my glycogen stores relatively intact, so my system doesn't demand that I eat to replenish them. So in my view, if weight loss is the aim, extensive rather than intensive workouts are superior - if you have the time.

Of course you're right about recovery. As I said earlier, when training intensively it's impossible to sustain the training load unless one fuels properly.