I carry food on every ride. If I don't need it, I save it for next time. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, there are no stores, so one has to be prepared.

This area also has lots of serious climbs. Bonking in terrain like I ride is not my idea of fun.

I prefer to stay fueled up!

I notice that at around 2 hours I start to need something. Clif shots, bars, bananas, or my peanut-butter and nutela on wheat sandwich.

I guess it depends what you eat. (What do you eat?)

If you have to unwrap a solid, you'll be fiddling with it a bit - no such task when it's in your water bottle. The caveat though is that you can carry alot more solid calories than you can liquid calories. I haven't done a dbl century, but I'd probably go solids for something like that since you're def gonna stop en route.

For my 3 hr rides, I prefer to minimize all stoppage, so liquid calories is great.

Typical foods include bananas, fig newtons, homemade power bars, and/or the mini-wiches I described above.

Anything I make is wrapped in aluminum foil. I will also re-package the fig newtons into foil pouches as well. The way I wrap the food makes it slightly more difficult to eat than a banana, but certainly not to the point of needing to stop or really even slow down for that matter. Opening these with one hand is very much doable. About the only time I wouldn't attempt to open one of these pouches is whilst descending any moderate grade.

If i'm riding over 2 hours i'll bring food, and ill try to eat about 200 calories an hour. It's simple math, if i burn 720-900 kjs an hour (so 792-990 calories an hour), i can go through my energy stores pretty quickly. Also if you're out burning 3000+ calories in a ride, what's 600 calories of food so that you don't need to come home and nom on everything insight, or go through bonking/getting overly exhausted for a simple z2 ride.

cliff bars and hammer bars are my favorite btw

We have an established protocol for this. See rule #91 . You are all to fat anyways.
http://www.velominati.com/the-rules/

The gel folk also tend to use sports drink. Sports drinks can run 100 calories per hour too, depending on concentration of mix etc. So between the two, they can consume approx. 200 calories per hour.

I'll also mention that 200-300 calories per hour depends on a lot of things like hills, wind, etc. but also depends on fitness. The fitter you are, the less you may need to consume.

Anything over 20 miles I bring GU. You never know when you'll bonk.

Yes! Same here, bring it and its there in case I need it. If I am going over 2 hours, I will start to eat at 1.5 hours, and continue through ride. When doing intervals, and shorter rides under 2 hours, again, I bring it in case but normally do not eat. Best way is see what your body likes, and bring more food then yuo think you would need. Good luck!
Dave

At a min I'll take a gu on anything over 20 miles. Most rides over 30 I'll take a couple gus and a bar. Just water for fluids so far.