FOOD >>

What do you eat when you tour by bike? I've only done one "tour" so far. It was a 400 mile ride with my girlfriend last May. We sufferred a lot more in the beginning before we realized what a huge difference it made putting a 50/50 mix of Gatorade and water in our Camelbacks. I also became really in tune with what foods made me feel good and what foods made me feel worse.

Anyway. I'm about to go on another little jaunt in a few weeks and I want to make sure I feel good the whole time. During my last trip a combo of trail mix, beef jerky, and Gatorade worked okay and was portable enough.

What do you all eat on long bike trips? What have you found that works best?

WATER>>

How do you carry your water? Last time I used a Camelback and two bottles on my frame with an emergency supply in a neoprene bag in my pannier. It was a lot of water but at times I drank it all.

Thanks!

- Tim

Here's a review of clif builder's bar
https://throughtheringer.com/2009/09/...-builders-bar/
I like to eat them on tours but if its hot they do melt a little, but not a big deal.

Breakfast: Muesli with apple juice
Through the day: Banana sandwiches
Evening: Beans and rice

ymmv

p.s I have two 1,5 litre PET bottles in cages...

edit: hihi, I just read what I wrote: I'm a vegan but have two PETs in cages!!!

A lot of peanut butter and jelly.

Anything that isn't nailed down.

And sometimes things that are.

when I'm drooping: fig newtons and chocolate milk.

You riding through the desert? One nice thing about most bicycle touring is that you don't have to carry everything you need. It's generally easy to fill up water on the way.

I wrote about that on our site a while ago - https://familyonbikes.org/resources/food.htm

As for water, we can't stand carrying camelbaks and getting even more sweaty. We carry a bunch of water bottles on our bikes and use them - between the three bikes and two BOBs we can carry 18 water bottles. (We use two of the water bottle cages for fuel bottles for the stove, so we really only have space for 16 water bottles, but that works!)

If we were passing through the desert and needed more water capacity, we would get a gallon jug and strap it on somewhere.

I'm heading south from Tempe through Tucson then to Bisbee. My first (and only) experience so far is the adventure cycling route that goes west from Tempe to San Diego. There were some ridiculously long stretches of empty desert where i actually drank all my water. I did make it into my reserve gallon in the back once but I never really came close to running out of water. Actually, it was my girlfriend that was drinking the reserve.

But yeah. I learned the first time that I was carrying way too much stuff. This time I'm going to carry a lot less, travel faster, and try to enjoy myself more.

Thanks for the reply. Nice site. You have some lucky kids. They must be pretty tough from all the cycling.

Anyway, I won't be cooking this time. So you have 3 bikes with 16 bottles of drinkable water. I guess I could just ditch the Camelbak and try to find room for 5 bottles. My frame has 2 bottle mounts so I suppose I could stick three more in the back and that would do it for me.

I'd like to try to do it as light as possible this time. I was hoping not to need panniers. Maybe just a handlebar bag, seat bag, and a trunk bag.

coffee, oatmeal, coffee, bagels, fruit, candy bars, coffee, bagels, coffee, bagels, peanut butter, coffee, and coffee.

energy drinks and caffeine pills if there is no good coffee to be had.

i find that after a few weeks on any trip, i get into this state where i'm constantly hungry and fantasizing about pork chops and ice cream and greasy bacon breakfasts. everything tastes good and i eat whatever is convenient and cheap

my water setup depends which bike i am riding and whether i am pulling a trailer. the capacity you need depends on variables such as distance between services, whether you free camp, temperature/weather/humidity, etc. i carry as many bottles as my bike has cages, and i often use a camelbak, as it is a nice daypack for off bike trips. i like to reuse 2 liter soda bottles for pannier or trailer water storage. they are cheap, durable, compactable, and, unfortunately, too disposable. i carry iodine or chlorine or whatever and bring a filter if i will be someplace remote.

If you want to feel good riding you need to fuel your body.

Breakfast: In camp, two cups of granola washed down with water or soy milk if I bought some the night before.

Second Breakfast: Ideally after riding 20 miles before 10AM. Pancakes!

Lunch: Peanut butter on whole grain bread and banana(s).

Dinner: Pasta with tomato based sauce and a 16 oz can of salmon (barely fits in 1.8L pot).

I stay away from Gatorade as it rots teeth and gets its calories from simple sugars. Instead I just drink water and get my "electrolytes" from the food I eat.

This page has 20 links to information about food and bike touring. Not all of them will be of interest to you but some of them will, especially the ones about food that doesn't require cooking.

I either buy bread, avocado, and tomatoes for lunch. If I feel like it and I am in an area with particularly good vegetables, I will buy red onions, carrots, celery, red pepper, olives, and feta cheese and make a salad.

If I am cooking dinner, I usually go for ramen and vegetables. On my last trip, I found dehydrated refried beans, where are very good.

Ray

Trail mix, super oatmeal, coffee, peanut butter, jelly, bagels, cheese, Snickers, pasta mix, tuna, apples. Plus a restaurant meal most days.

Last trip I took thru the desert, I had 5 btl cages plus a couple of more liters on the rack. Turned out the 5 caged btls were plenty as it was late spring and not real hot. Very few places in US where you can't find a water faucet, or an RVer that you can bum from in a pinch.

A sample of food threads here in this touring forum ... the last one gives a comprehensive list of foods I can "make" and eat on a tour.


https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=food
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=food
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=food
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=food
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=food
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=food
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=food
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=food **

PB and honey...I like honey 'cause you can buy it in smaller quantities than jelly, and, I think, it is healthier!

Stoves are not needed for most touring. Yes way to many food threads. I wish we had more threads on finding water in the desert . I always hate myself when there is a gas station I didn't know about.

I carry a 1.5 liter and 1 liter in the frame. .5 gallon on top of the rear rack. 32oz Gatorade on fork. This is normal operation.

In extended periods one gallon and 2X 1.5 liters can go in my panniers (or strap them on). I use two rear panniers which are half empty.

Camel backs are too easy to drink from. I want something that will make me pause. Hiking is a different story.

You route should follow normal operations. Considering you are never more than sixty miles from services. Finding the optimal service between stops, may be the harder choice and I always fail at this part. Which is why I am so interested in your water stops Tucson to Bisbee.

The Coronado Trail has 90 miles of no services. Unless you consider the overpriced lodge at 70 miles and 10,549 of climbing with limited hours a service.
I ate two small meals and had 6-7 days of food with me. I also carried 3 gallons of water and asked a fellow car camper for .5 gallons more. I use my Gatorade bottle to steep food. Not shown in picture.

quick question: what size are fizzy drink plastic bottles in the USA? Here in Europe we have 0.5, 1, 1,5 and 2 litre PET bottles. Thanks

My Three "B"s
Bread, Beans, & Bananas

We have 12 ounces, 20 ounces, 24 ounces, 1 liter, 2 liter, 3 liter. The 20 oz bottle is the most popular. Followed by 2 liter, then 1 liter.

20 fl oz(US) = 0.591470 L

cheers bokerfest... and your 3 B's seem very familiar

It varies but I try to eat a box of cereal and a quart of milk sometime in the morning and then a loaf of french or italian bread during the afternoon so I don't have to snack quite so much. Today it was a coffee cake. Peanutbutter, honey, apples, bananas, carrots, and baked beans are also staples. I'll also try to eat some protein/fat/greens at a diner or cafe almost every day. I don't carry a stove.

I've tried camelbacks with water and with water+gatorade but came to the conclusion I didn't like anything on my back, and I don't like gatorade in favour of real food Now that I tour by recumbent I could put a camelback in my chair bag, but I don't like the plasticky taste of the water so carry two stainless steel bottles on the bike, and two more that fit in the rear pannier pockets. If the pockets are otherwise occupied (wine bottle!) then I caribiner the bottles somewhere off the back of the load.

My boyfriend and I do camping touring and we carry a stove. Breakfast is usually oatmeal and french press coffee. Sometimes toast with almond butter, and the occasional omelette when we risk keeping eggs unrefrigerated overnight with home fry potatoes. We fill up a multicompartment container before we leave with our favourite spices. We often stop for second breakfast/brunch at a diner and eat pancakes and/or eggs. Snacking through the day we have bananas, cashews, trail mix etc. If we are carrying a loaf of bread we may stop and make sandwiches.

Supper is usually veg pasta or a stir fry of rice and veg, rice and beans, etc. Salad too if we have the energy. Good organic chocolate for dessert. Bottle of red wine. We've even made bananas foster by campfire before. Its nice eating local to where we are touring as well. Ie. buying fish from a market right on the lake. Shuffling the load so we can fill an ortleib with ice to keep it cold until we are ready for dinner.

We eat well when we tour

Main thing for me is access to food. If the area I am riding through has little towns with grocery stores periodically, I just walk through the isles and scoop up the stuff I need day by day. In that case I normally pick up cold foods like veg., fruit, tuna, yogurt. I think it pays to listen to your cravings to some extent. Your body will tell you what you need as you stress it in ways you might not normally.

The other extreme is to be going through areas without obvious food sources, and have to pack on the basis of weight, nutrition, ease of reconstituting, etc... In order to be able to carry the required amount of food.

I think some people have the idea that it's like hiking, you typically go weeks on end without seeing any kind of settlement. Realistically there are not that many areas in North America where if your riding 80km a day, you will go more then a couple of days on the road without coming across a city, town, village or hamlet of some kind. If your camping in campgrounds, many of them have some kind of store in or near the campground.

This gives you much more flexibility weight wise when it comes to selecting foods. Where a hiker wouldn't dream of carrying a can of soup, it's less of an issue for a cyclist.