KidTruth

Hey gents, ladies. I took a 50 mile ride last week, and at about the 30 mile marker I started to get intense leg cramps in my thigh and inner thigh; I had to stop several times and ended up limping home. My average speed went from 17 to 15.5 between miles 30 and 50.

I'm not the best cyclist, 5' 9.5", 165 pounds, do about 40 miles during the week and another 50 during the weekend. I ate a power bar at mile 30 and had two 30 ounce bottles of water; by 30 miles in I was through with one of them.

It was 95 degrees outside and extremely humid (I live in Houston) was I not drinking enough water? I have had exhaustion problems before but I've never started cramping before I was even tired. I took a Vitamin B supplement and drank a 5 hour energy shot before I started the ride. I stretched a little bit, but maybe not enough.

I had a bowl of some instant rice mix before I started (about 600 calories worth) and did not drink alcohol the night before.

Or is it the heat? What do you guys think? Much appreciated, sorry for the long post.

RIC0

lack of electrolytes during the ride.

Pugsly

+1

KidTruth

How should I fix this? One 30 ounce bottle of gatorade and one of water?

arterture

+2

Try a sports drink like gatorade. When it's hot out you sweat more and electrolytes will keep the water in your body.

MONGO!

Heed

arterture

I will usually fill two bottles with a 50/50 of water/gatorade.

KidTruth

Good deal, thanks guys. I will repeat this ride this weekend and hopefully that will make the difference. Cramps SUCK.

jc33

the same exact thing happens to me, I discovered i am a salty sweater and lose more salt than i can replace with just gatorade, add a 1/4 tsp of table salt into one of your gatorades and drink it on the later part of the ride. It tastes kind of nasty but it was the only way i stopped cramping, that and stretching more.

ShadowGray

Pocari Sweat.








Now to find some in the states.

Ralleh

I was getting some bad calf cramps on my last ride that I had to keep stretching out. I was eating Clif bars on the ride (which luckily gave me stomach cramps too). I'm going to go back to hauling around a bunch of bananas like a GD ape.

Brian Ratliff

If it's 95 degrees with humidity, you need to be drinking, like, twice or three times what you drank. Gatoraid works wonders as well. For a 50 mile ride in hot weather, I'd be drinking at least 3 bottles, 4 if possible. And that's in the dry heat in the PNW. In humidity, you sweat a lot more than in dry air, so you will need to stop a couple times during your trip to refill the water bottles. I'd say drink 6 bottles in 50 miles and 95 degrees with humidity.

Another solution, if you don't want to drink as much, is to start early in the morning, before it heats up. This will decrease your water loss in the form of sweat.

Generally, you want to down at least one bottle an hour. In 95 degree heat and high humidity, you might need twice that.

RIC0

I love me some gatorade but not when I'm riding on hot humid days. HEED is gatorade on steroids, get it along with some endurolyte pills and you'll be golden. Hammer Nutrition products are da ****.

Lazyass

Cytomax. I live off it.