Eating for the evening bicycle ride

Posted by Bryan on Mar 23, 2009 in Blog, Nutrition | 10 comments

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To be honest, I’ve never paid much attention to what I eat before or after a ride. Why? Because I always found it so confusing. Everybody has opinions on what you should and shouldn’t eat, when you should eat it, how much to eat, and what percentage of carbs, proteins, and fats it should be. It’s serious information overload in my opinion. Unfortunately, I think I’ve paid for my inattentiveness to my intake and need to start giving it the attention it deserves.

Up until now I’ve done almost all my bicycle riding in the mornings before breakfast. Now that I have nothing to prevent me from riding in the evenings I plan on doing my riding after I get home from work. That’ll put me on the bike about 6:00 PM and getting off, depending on the length, anywhere from 7 to 8.

The big question I have is what should I be eating that’ll fuel me through the evening ride. It needs to be something simple to fix and fast to eat. How soon before riding should I eat? I leave work around 5 so should I eat before leaving work?

What about post-ride? I’m leary about stocking up on food after the ride if I won’t be eating until 8 PM or so.

Please leave any comments, advice, personal experience below. If you have a link to a good no-nonsense article on the subject that would be great too.

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http://mildstallion.wordpress.com Al

Be prepared for plenty of opinion on this subject.

We have similar ride times – almost all of my rides come after work. I find that whatever I eat at a normal workday to be sufficient for at least a two hour ride. I eat a mini bagel when I get home, as I’m getting things ready (bottles, clothing, SPF, etc.).

I think for your purposes – two hours or less – you can get away with sports drink on your ride to fulfill your needs. Over two hours you’ll be in danger of bonking without some extra calories.

Overall, you should let experience be your guide. You will know if you feel lethargic midway through your ride. As for post-ride? It’s not as big a deal as you may think. For someone who races, it’s imperative to recover and refuel as quickly as possible – for shmoes like us, if you’re not riding the next day and you didn’t tax yourself too much, just eat normally. I traditionally have a cup of oatmeal, but I could just as well have chicken and rice or whatever.

http://bikingtolive.com Bryan

Great stuff. Something small, like a mini-bagel, just to tide me over and then dinner when I return. Sounds like a no-brainer. I seriously doubt I'll be doing longer than 2 hours on the weekday. The weekends are a different story.

http://www.wirewd.com/bike/ Wirehead

I’m slowly working on a no-nonsense article for my blog. I was quite annoyed when I realized I needed to think about nutrition while doing what was supposed to be a recreational activity.

The big thing, IMHO, is that there are certain things you *need* unquestionably for a bike ride and a lot of stuff that’s largely speculative and probably only useful for real competition if it’s true.

2 hours of riding is *nothing* as far as food needs, really. You should already have a lot of stuff stored in your body ready to be used up. You need to make sure you drink some water. And you need to eat some carbohydrate calories that won’t mess up your stomach. And maybe some protein. Big requirement is that it’s not going to screw up your tummy.

Things you might consider are: Pasta, oatmeal cookies, toast and peanut butter, a handful of M&M’s, a banana or two, an orange or two, nuts, etc. You can also buy things like the Clif Shot Block (which is a fancy sort of gummy bear, IMHO) or a energy gel or sports drinks or energy bars (which I view as being either especially distasteful granola bars or especially dry oatmeal cookies).

If you have gummy bears or energy gels or sports drinks, they are designed so that you can eat them while in the midst of a ride, being mostly sugars and other carbohydrates that don’t require much effort on the part of your digestive system.

If you ever want to do long distance cycling, you might consider starting to eat some of your food on the bike, because that’s the key to riding for longer than 2 hours.

Afterwards… maybe a glass of milk for protein and carbs and maybe some dinner?

http://MildStallion.wordpress.com Al

I agree with Wirehead. Some of the products out there are more marketing hype than anything else. Have you heard of Sport Beans? Jelly Belly makes them. They're just rebranded jelly beans. Genius.

As for energy bars, it's all about the convenience of the packaging (easy open, won't melt, etc.). I tried a PowerBar in my first year – it did the job, but as for taste and texture, I might as well have eaten my tires.

http://bikingtolive.com Bryan

Yes, I like the sports beans. I try and carry a pack with me.
http://www.wirewd.com/bike/ wirehead

Well, it's somebody with a vested interest in the subject and thus should be taken with a grain of salt, but here's the Clif SHOT blocks vs. gummy bears: http://www.cranksports.com/products/eGel/comp/cli…

My boss (very accomplished triathlete) gave me some of the SHOT blocks to try. The ergonomics are actually worse than gummy bears, IMHO. The blocks are a little sticky, whereas gummies are dusted with cornstarch so they don't stick together. Also, you get 6 blocks per package, all of the same flavor. Whereas gummies come in all sorts of flavors.

Plus, the gummies are cheaper.

What I do is bake a batch of oatmeal cookies and stick 'em in the freezer in little baggies. I'll grab a baggie of cookies from the freezer and stick 'em in my trunk bag and munch along the ride. They are cheap and tasty and are so much better than powerbars.

I also have some of the energy gels, because they are palatable and don't go bad. I always keep one in my under-seat bag just in case a quick errand turns into a deathmarch.

Oh, and for 2 hour rides, unless you have really messed up body chemestry, you likely won't notice the difference between sports beans and regular jelly beans. All of the ingredients added to make sports beans, IMHO, are either electrolytes that you don't need for such a short ride or things that don't have massive amounts of scientific evidence that suggest that they do anything other than give you expensive urine.

And the real jelly beans come in more flavors and cost less.

The problem for me is that if I have gummy bears, jelly beans, or just about anything with that gelatin-ish nature to it, I will eat far too much of them even when I don't need 'em. Just like you and your energy bars, Bryan.

Ugh. Must write up long and complete article on the subject for blog.

http://bikingtolive.com Bryan

Great stuff. Thanks. I've tried the powerbar energy gels and they seem to be ok. They aren't something I feel compelled to eat too much of either!

http://bikingtolive.com Bryan

First off, thanks for stopping by and dropping a comment.

I like your suggestions about some nuts or fruit. I want to try and stay away from the energy bars because I have a bad habit of eating them whether I need it or not. You bring up a good point about water too. I have a bad habit of not drinking before I get thirsty.

jaxgtr

You know I would ride right after work before dinner and I kept finding that I would bonk about mile 15. So that is really when I started riding after dinner. Seemed to help me a lot. Also helped as the heat and humidity was a lot less at 8 and 9pm. As far as bars, gel and the lot, I only use them if I am riding over 20 miles and have not had a good meal before hand. I like the Hammer Bars and on occasion will use the Jelly Belly beans. Also, since you will be in extreme heat, make sure you get some electrolyte replacement in your water. I use Hammer’s Heed for 2 hrs or less when the heat\humidity starts to get up there.

http://bikingtolive.com Bryan

Brian, nice to see you again. Hope everything is going ok. I’ve never used any kind of electrolyte replacement on the bike but I think you’re right. With the high heat/humidity here I’m probably going to have to. Where do I find Hammer’s Heed?