Eating on the bike

[Audax67]

@mjr:

(emoticon courtesy of YACF)

[PH]

Play around with it and find what works for you, we're all different but the advice to eat before you're hungry probably applies to us all.
I like peanut butter and jam sandwiches on nice white bread, I can ride all day on a couple of them.

What was the point of posting that?

What's the point of any of it? It's a forum!
Someone below liked the suggestion, which made posting it worthwhile.
How you get from that to the idea that it's boasting is beyond me.

[Sweep]

Apricots half price at lidl this weekend.

[Cyril Haearn]

Play around with it and find what works for you, we're all different but the advice to eat before you're hungry probably applies to us all.
I like peanut butter and jam sandwiches on nice white bread, I can ride all day on a couple of them.

What was the point of posting that?

What's the point of any of it? It's a forum!
Someone below liked the suggestion, which made posting it worthwhile.
How you get from that to the idea that it's boasting is beyond me.

+1
These fora are like a department store with thousands of products
Some I love and some I dislike, do not need, so what? I really love reading how other cyclists have different opinions, not only about food
Lift going up now, hold very tight please, DingDing

PS these fora are the best things since white bread

[yostumpy]

Agree with the peanut butter and jam thing, BUT with marmite as well, gives it a bit of zing. Cut into quarters they ate easy to eat on the fly, easy to digest, protein, carbs, sugar, taste and zing, all in one scrummy little triangle. Also peanut butter and cherry tomatoes.mmmmmm . I hate club rides where they stop for a big feed at a cafe or pub mid ride, I like to pack my own, and find a lovely spot, even a bus shelter in the rain can be an enchanting place, one can imaging oneself on tour.

[Cyril Haearn]

+1 for bus shelters, church porches, telephone boxes are good too, enclosed, it is best to take a break standing up because one sits far too much when cycling

[hemo]

When I ride south I like to stop on the promenade to eat, watching the surf and seagull and also any other birdlife that may be around though they aren't usually about until it gets warmer

[PH]

Agree with the peanut butter and jam thing, BUT with marmite as well, gives it a bit of zing. Cut into quarters they ate easy to eat on the fly, easy to digest, protein, carbs, sugar, taste and zing, all in one scrummy little triangle. Also peanut butter and cherry tomatoes.mmmmmm .

Graeme Obree swears by mustard and marmite sandwiches - not for any taste or nutritional reason, but because when he offers them round no one else wants one

[yostumpy]

Ah, I'll have to try that one, English mustard of course. OT, but the origins of the phrase 'keen as mustard' eluded me, until one day in a junk shop, I spied a very old wooden packing box, with "KEEN'S MUSTARD' printed on the side. My father once offered me something from his wartime youth, an Ammunition sandwich! When I asked what was in it, he replied, 'Whatever we got in the cupboard lad.!
Sorry, for digressing , I know folks will moan, but they always will. Happy cycling.

[mattsccm]

Ex phone boxes are very good as well. Around here they are used as book swap libraries. Sometimes its hard to leave when you get into a good one.

[Cyril Haearn]

Ex phone boxes are very good as well. Around here they are used as book swap libraries. Sometimes its hard to leave when you get into a good one.

Same here, there are half a dozen nearby, +1

[sloyd]

I think you need to grab a bit of perspective, I haven't read anything that sounds like anyone is trying to prove anything. What the thread proves is we're all different and there's plenty of suggestions for anyone interested to try. Insulting people who have a different experience to you doesn't make them wrong, just different.

I think that's more of a lack of perspective as there's been more than suggestions. There's been some direct instructions which seem like rather dodgy advice to me, at best not applicable to everyone, mixed up with insulting suggestions that eating or drinking is bother, a desire or weakness:

you'll be fine without too much food
[...]
remember, you're not going into the Mongolian steppe, you're on a ride in the UK

Unless the weather is warm, I wouldn't even bother with water in 35miles.
Nice and hydrated before I leave, and that's it. Drink when I get home.

(similar things have been reposted several times...)

And not forgetting:

Play around with it and find what works for you, we're all different but the advice to eat before you're hungry probably applies to us all.
I like peanut butter and jam sandwiches on nice white bread, I can ride all day on a couple of them.

What was the point of posting that? It didn't really support us all being different, as it was very similar to some earlier posts, but seemed like it was trying to one-up them by going further on less and that seemed to continue until we finally went completely foodless with:

[...] for a ride of 35 miles which you ride and you can still talk freely you do not have to eat.

However some people like to do this so my advice are simple cheap jelly babies ...

I'd call it a micturation contest, but we've already had a more real one of those in this topic!

I love how you don’t want a contest and then go about picking other posts apart. Can’t you just accept people are different from you, and not take everything so personally and seriously. The op was getting strung out about an apparently irrational need to take too much food and drink on a ride. Some people offered their three pennoth worth. That’s what you do on a forum. It is what people come on here for - opinion. Like buttock-orifices, everyone has one.

[mjr]

I love how you don’t want a contest and then go about picking other posts apart. Can’t you just accept people are different from you, and not take everything so personally and seriously. The op was getting strung out about an apparently irrational need to take too much food and drink on a ride.

A handful of jelly babies in hour three of a ride is not exactly an irrational amount of food!

That's the contest I want to stop - the "I rode further than you on less" one.

And it's not personal but serious to mislead new riders into bonking.

[sloyd]

And it's not personal but serious to mislead new riders into bonking.[/quote]


Well, if you read what I suggested, you would note what I told him / her I did for a ride. There was no suggestion not to eat. In fact, I gave OP a pretty comprehensive menu, but said in my case I'm OK for a few hours with very little.

This is not to suggest I'm better than anyone for riding further without a sandwich in my hand. Just trying to help the OP relax into cycling. All this furore over choice of flapjack in the first hour and banana and one jelly baby in the next hour is just rollocks.

I'm off for a bike ride. I've fashioned a makeshift helmet from cold pasta with carbonara sauce "glue", in case I either get peckish or fall off, whichever comes first.

[mjr]

Well, if you read what I suggested, you would note what I told him / her I did for a ride. There was no suggestion not to eat.

And if you read what I posted, I did acknowledge that you were right at the start, merely a bit dodgy, implying one should rather carry too little food than too much, but it seemed to lead to a Four Yorkshiremen game of eating less and less to go further and further...