Do you need to refuel for rides under 1 hour ?
 

For rides under 1 hour, is there a need to refuel glycogen (carbs) and get some protein into me or is this really for people only riding 1 hour +

I ride at a moderate pace. (ie noticeable increase in heart rate but can still talk)

After my rides iv been eating 2 slices of white bread with jam. Seeing as they say high GI carbs is what you need after a ride to replenish glycogen, im thinking im on to a good thing but I dont really know.

Iv been having a banana and a whey shake 1hour before the ride, a whole meal 3 hours earlier.

Thoughts ?

A couple times a week I ride 90' at tempo pace on a cup of black coffee. I bring a clif bar or gel in case I feel bonkish, but I have never had to use it.

If you're eating regularly, you probably don't need to refuel on rides under 2 hours. But bring something just in case.

Short answer, no.

Under an hour you don't really need to carry anything (local temp could make fluids a factor) if your only going out for an hour, your never more than 30 minutes from home at the farthest point. As #Machka it's always worth carrying something just in case, I do, but never have the need to use it.

Under an hour I wouldn't even need a water bottle. That short a ride wouldn't even be worth it to go through the trouble to get ready.

I just bring water for shorter rides. Pretty easy to fill a water bottle.
Water can be useful to squirt at dogs, drink, rinse off dirt etc...

1 reason to bring food is if there's a chance you will extend your ride to be longer once you get going.

Living up to your name :D

Not normally, but there have been a few times where my body crashed/bonked for whatever reason on my ride home from work (50 minutes) so I usually keep a snack in my bag just in case.

In the morning I have a coffee, biscotti and a protein shake (with milk, banana and peanut butter.) I head out on my daily ride of about 1.5 to 2 hours and all I need is my water bottle. I usually carry some trail mix but have never needed it.

On the weekends I will take longer rides and the only problem I've encountered is that I ran out of water on a 3.5 hour ride, but that was a case where I ended up going further than I had planned. Oops.

Most of my rides are between 2 and 3 hours with a 10 minute break about half way through. I usually ride with my club, at a pace of 17.5 - 19 mph. For me this is a fairly intense effort. I have 2 cups of black coffee before the ride, and bring some nuts or a peach or a banana in case the ride is faster than usual and I feel the need to eat. I usually don't eat during the ride. For an hour ride at a moderate pace I'd probably just bring a water bottle. All that being said do what makes you feel better about your ride.

At the level I ride I think the whole notion of refueling ridiculous.

Tom

I agree with the above. For an hour ride, my body doesn't sense that I've dipped too deeply into the reserves. So I just eat normally as I might throughout that day. Healthy snacks at the proper intervals, but nothing special for the ride.

Maybe a piece of fruit and a glass of water afterwards?

Unless you're trying to lose weight then yes you'll need to make up the calories you burned during the ride. For short rides, timing isn't particularly important so if you just increase what you normally eat you should be fine.

Eating within 30 min after a ride is more critical when you've come close to fully depleting your glycogen stores. In one hour you might burn 300-500 Cals of carbs (the rest come from fat) so it's not difficult to replenish.

For a fit cyclist, at an easy conversational pace, you are mostly burning fat reserves, and a fairly small proportion of glycogen. A good ballpark is about 30 calories per mile (including both fat and glycogen), which is 350 to 450 calories an hour at 13 to 15 mph.

I've experimented with a heart rate "zone 1 / zone 2" ride. It's riding at a pace below where my breathing starts to speed up. I think the average speed for the ride with short roller hills was a little over 13 mph. I finished a 40 mile ride and didn't feel hungry at all, which is unusual for me. It was an interesting experiment, and it was kind of hard to stay at such an easy pace. I normally go as fast as I can maintain.

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The "refueling" concept is probably okay for riders pushing the pace on long rides, and that also plan to ride hard the next day. Everyone else can just have a snack or a meal afterwards if they are hungry.

The "30 minute window".
If you google: replenish glycogen within 30 minutes workout, you see a lot of that same "30 minute" advice. I don't see any source for this. It might be like the "you lose most of your heat from your head" type of repeated advice.

In any case, it's for competing athletes. From one example:Oh, "experts have determined". Uh huh. 30 minutes. How convenient that it's not actually "90 seconds" or "3 hours".

And the sport drink companies like this concept a lot. For instance Hammer Nutrition Recovery products. Wow, they have a lot of them!

For an hour ride...nah. I won't bother for anything under 30 miles. When I do ride long enough that I need to refuel, I try to stick to real food and not gels and such. I have a century this weekend and I am thinking about loading up my Carradice with a baguette, some pb&j sandwiches, fruit, maybe some olive oil to dip the baguette into, maybe some dried meats - food that will be nourishing and tasty. Provided are granola bars and little ******* snack packs. I can only eat so many of those and don't really feel much of a benefit.

This is a valid point for those of us who have always been thin and find it difficult to gain weight. Reserves? What reserves? :lol: I have to keep eating.

I've had some people tell me it's not fair. :D

I usually take a little something with me. I'm new to the sport and am in "getting in shape" mode. So even if I only go out for an hour, I'm not sight-seeing. I go pretty hard in general, slowing down occasionally.

Regulation of muscle glycogen repletion, muscle protein synthesis and repair following exercise. Provides some guidelines for glycogen replenishment. For a 165lb rider it works out to eating 350-450 Cals/hr of carbohydrate with some protein post ride.

My usual ride is about 3 hours. I eat nothing, just the usual 3 meals a day.

Ive had the same issue. My ride to work is around 55 minutes on the average and I can do that on coffee. But the ride home after a day at work can get a little harder toward the end, especially since it's climbing the last three miles home. I've found that a gel about ten minutes before I hit the series of climbs powers me through.

Try it and see. If you completely run out of gas (bonk) then obviously you should have eaten, and if you feel like crap afterwards - sore muscles, excessively fatigued, etc, then next time have a little sumfin before or right after.

Depends on intensity of the ride. Towards the end of a 20 mile ride, psychologically there is that "light at the end of the tunnel". Water bottle with some kind of mix helps at the 15 mile mark. Even when you think there is no need for it. But you better be going very fast. Otherwise its not justifiable to drink anything, even plain water.

Riders who are not in reasonable fitness for intense rides, well its a different set of circumstances. Let them drink the mix.

It's pretty much impossible to deplete your glycogen reserves in an hour, however hard you go. So if you are eating normally, there is no need to take food on a ride of only one hour. At ordinary intensities I generally take nothing but water unless I'm going to be out for three hours or more.

Unless there were sprints and then something like sustained threshold effort, I'm not really worried about the glycogen stores for a one hour ride, so I wouldn't go out of my way to replenish them.

That censored word is *******. How a c r a c k e r a censored word? What is the politically correct term? Ridiculous.