Energy on longer rides

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Sweep
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Joined: 20 Oct 2011, 4:57pm
Location: London

Re: Energy on longer rides

Post by Sweep »

speedster wrote:I would suggest getting enough sleep the day before; makes a huge difference in your energy level..


Very true. Have made the mistake of drinking the night before biggish ride. Alcohol disturbs your sleep.
Sweep
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foxyrider
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Joined: 29 Aug 2011, 10:25am
Location: Sheffield, South Yorkshire

Re: Energy on longer rides

Post by foxyrider »

Sweep wrote:
speedster wrote:I would suggest getting enough sleep the day before; makes a huge difference in your energy level..


Very true. Have made the mistake of drinking the night before biggish ride. Alcohol disturbs your sleep.


Damn! :lol:
Convention? what's that then?
Airnimal Chameleon touring, Orbit Pro hack, Orbit Photon audax, Focus Mares AX tour, Peugeot Carbon sportive, Owen Blower vintage race - all running Tulio's finest!
PhilD28
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Joined: 26 Sep 2016, 8:31am

Re: Energy on longer rides

Post by PhilD28 »

LittleGreyCat wrote:Everyone so far has been fuelling on carbohydrates.

The 'bonk' has been mentioned, which normally happens when your relatively small glucose store in your body runs out.
After a point it is also quite hard to take on more carbohydrates to match the glucose burn rate.

One alternative is to convert to burning ketones; to be 'keto adapted'.
This isn't training your body to switch to burning ketones during exercise when your glucose store runs out (as some have posted in the past) but to use ketones as your main energy source day in and day out.
Minimal carbohydrates and mainly protein and fat.
If you can adapt to this then your body has far larger energy stores in the shape of fat than it does in the shape of glucose.

Ultra athletes (which I certainly am not) are turning to this more and more (according to the articles I read).

For myself I can ride 50 miles at a gentle pace with rest stops fuelled by coffee with double cream and butter (so a high fat load and minimal carbohydrates). Eating Low Carbohydrate High Fat (LCHF) can improve endurance, and also help in weight loss; logical because the extra weight is fat and suddenly it is your main fuel source.

Not for everyone; I ended up here because of my T2 Diabetes and trying different eating regimes to avoid the dreaded pills. It seems to work for me but YMMV.


This! Myself and a few friends (all pretty good ex road racers now in our 60’s) have been doing this for years. We are all lean and fit and do 50-60 mile fairly brisk fasted morning rides a couple of times a week and then enjoy lunch together. It started many years ago with a couple of us missing breakfast because we were late and not noticing any deterioration in performance during the ride so we experimented and ended up adopting and benefitting from this kind of riding.
None of us have ever bonked on this regime nor on much longer rides with normal eating since. We are all convinced it has improved our performance and ability to burn fat as a fuel, which seems to be borne out by recent research and the adoption of the regime by a number of pro teams.
Of course do whatever you feel works for you but as you get fitter you may want to try some fasted rides, plenty of research evidence is now starting to trickle through on its benefits both on performance and health. Unless you are racing the gel culture seems totally unnecessary, if you are riding with a normal eating regime (not fasted) eat healthy food and keep off refined sugars, they are just bad for your long term health. Dried fruit such as figs and a handful of nuts such as almonds will do far more good.
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