KPREN

I get cramps , usually after a long ride but not always. Sometimes during a long ride. One of the main reasons I went to an e bike. E bike did not solve the problem because I increased my riding distances and times a lot.
I did not use to get cramps when I was younger but started to get them over 55 years old. I tend to get low on sodium very easily and eat salty chips while riding. I hydrate as much as possible. The amount of sleep that I get is a big predictor of when I will get cramps.
Here is a product that works. When I think I might be vulnerable to cramps I keep this in my pocket. When I feel the cramps coming on I put three of these little pills under my tongue, I do not swallow or swish them around. In about a minutes time the cramps will release. You have to have them within reach or its misery to get to them. Available over the counter and on Amazon. No real limit on how many you can take.

bikebikebike

"Whenever you see multiple approaches to a problem , it means nothing is working."
Surgical maxim

De Sisti

How about trying tonic water, which contains quinine.

Paul Barnard

Sport Legs have worked well for me and for every person I have talked to that has used them.

https://www.sportlegs.com/

bradybunch84

I've had problems with muscle cramps all my life. In my fifties they were getting pretty painful. When I hit 60 they were just down right painful and felt as if my muscles tore from the intensity of the cramps. There would be pain from the original cramp and it would last for almost 2 weeks. I finally went to the doctor about these cramps. I was afraid I was causing permanent damage to my muscles. He prescribed over the counter Magnesium. 500mg a day. Maybe bump up to 750mg a day he said. And of course he told me to drink lots of water which I had already been doing. Bingo! That did the trick! If I ever got another muscle cramp it wasn't very painful and I got over them real quick. Not like before where I would be in agony for hours. I really don't even get many cramps now but I take those Magnesium pills every day, you can believe it. I am 64 now.

bikebikebike

There is an old surgial maxim,
" If you find more than one approach to a problem being used, it means that nothing is working.
It means everyone still has it wrong."

If you find the right approach, nobody uses anything else.


PS: oops, first post got disappeared for a while

CliffordK

The only cramps I can remember was a very long time ago, when I was 21 years old, I think, I rode the train all night from Perugia Italy to La Spezia or Tellaro on the Mediterranean.

Hot day on the rocky beach, and swimming in the Mediterranean. At times we'd take a shortcut swimming across a small bay. Then 50 yards or so from shore, Bam, one leg. Then Bam, the second leg. Fortunately my arms didn't cramp, but it scared me. An hour or so and I had recuperated, but for the rest of that trip I kept relatively close to shore.

It is hard to say what caused the cramping, but I blame it on a lack of sleep and too much espresso. That may have been the last red-eye to the coast.

As far as cycling, I can't ever remember a critical cramp on the bike.

I'll occasionally twist a knee getting up or down, or in or out of something. And it will knock me to the ground. But I don't think of it as a muscle cramp. Those knee problems started in my late teens or early twenties, and then more or less disappeared for a few decades, but have now rarely returned. Again, I don't think it is cycling related. And, for me, I believe cycling is the best thing I can do for the knees.

shelbyfv

GhostRider62

Fluids and minerals are no substitute for fitness for the task.

How do you measure your progressive increase in weekly training load?

RobbiRobbi

I don’t know how to actually resolve leg cramps, but please don’t waste your money on homeopathy or support companies that sell fake medicine. Even herbal stuff can sometimes be effective, but homeopathic tablets are literally sugar pills that at one time came in contact with an incredibly diluted solution of some substance. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/reference/homeopathy/

Ryno317

I have started taking a Potassium supplement along with my One a day Multi vitamin and increased my water consumption during the day prior to a big ride or a hot ride. I have also started drinking Body Armor sports drink mainly due to it using coconut water as its base, as a post ride drink.

Milton Keynes

I've had cramps before, but not lockups. I used to ride with water, and I would make sure I drank plenty of water on my rides. But I didn't realize that I was washing all the electrolytes out of my system. So I started carrying Gatorade powder with me and that basically got rid of all my leg cramps. I'd mix the powder in one bottle, and leave the other just plain ice water because sometimes I'd get tired of drinking Gatorade and so I"d have a choice. I'm going to start carrying electrolyte tabs because they're more convenient to carry.

GhostRider62

I had cramps once, the day after doing 200+ and 26,000 feet feet of climbing. I guzzled a couple gas station packets of mustard and relish which fixed me.

livedarklions

We're talking about exercise-related cramping, and no one actually knows what triggers those kind of cramps. Our muscles get tired and we cramp, or they get tired and they don't cramp. No one really knows why the same tired muscle will only cramp once in a while, and it's too random to reproduce the effect under laboratory conditions.. The trigger suspects that people name, like dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, are almost certainly not the triggers as attempts to prove that they are have not borne fruit at all.

Basically, these threads just become museum displays of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. People say "x causes cramps because I was doing x when I got the cramp" or "y cures cramps because I took y and the cramp went away". What's interesting about that is that almost no two people in the thread will agree on both what x and y are, and they're often completely contradictory.

Ghazmh

I sometimes get bitten by the cramp monster.

Bill in VA

I have always heard pickle juice is effective. It worked for me when I got a leg cramp AFTER the ride. I have never had a during the ride cramp, but have had them at night after an early season ride or a longer than normal ride. However fortunately they are rare.

genejockey 

Only if gin and limes are involved.

genejockey 

I must not get 'muscle lockups' because I have no idea what that would be. I get occasional cramps, but only after my 3-4 1/2 hour Sunday rides, never during the rides. They often hit when I do something like crouching to pet the dog or that sort of thing. Sometimes I get cramps in my feet, too. If I lie face down with my feet completely on the bed, I get them. If I can hang my toes off the end of the bed, I don't. Go figure.

Pratt

I've gotten them all my life, in legs, arms, fingers, etc. Sometimes while riding, sometimes after, sometimes when I haven't been near a bike for a month. Sometimes associated with use, sometimes at rest. I've ridden drinking Gatorade, avoiding Gatorade, taking co Q-10, taking magnesium, drinking vinegar after rides, with no noticeable difference in indicence.

bikebikebike

Muscle metabolism is complex and there are lots of genetic and environmental variables.
Add to that inconsistent timing and input on the variables.
Lots of stuff becomes rituals, in the same way that I make it rain by washing my car.

Quinine(s) have been found to have an unacceptable safety profile, and dubious effect.
Water and electrolytes can be misused.
Easy problems are easy , hard ones are hard.
Just be methodical, and don't do dumb stuff, if you can,
since it's hard to really know what you are treating
Unless you know what G-protein calcium gate or protein morphology your genetics produced
or it just went away.