I rode for years on what would now be considered massive under fueling. So, I’m jumping on board and working on dramatically increasing carb intake before and during all rides.
On a zone 2 ride this is fairly easy, even eating regular solid food after the first hour.
However, during group rides, or VO2 Max type rides on the trainer, it’s is way more challenging. Eating solids just makes me struggle for breath because I eat between intervals. And, clearing the mouth is totally distracting.
So far my best solution has been to get all or most of the fuel from my bottles (testing 50g per bottle). I’m already used to drinking plenty (one bottle per hour, more on hot days), and it’s literally only a second or two of breathing interruption. The problem is that it makes my mouth so freaking dry and I just feel thirsty for the whole ride. I also don’t like the overly sweet taste. I’m definitely well hydrated before workouts.
I really want to avoid the cost of gels, although I would consider supplementing with them on hard group rides.
I just do all liquids, but don’t have the same issue of dry mouth. Usually for road rides, I’ll just hydrate well enough beforehand, then load 2 bottles up with 100-150g each (depending on ride length), then can do a third in the jersey pocket. For a long road ride, I’d just plan for stops with water fill ups. For gravel/mtb, USWE pack with 2 bottles, I usually do carbs in the pack, plain water in one bottle, and sodium citrate and water in the other. I do a 2:1 mix of maltodextrin:fructose, ~100g/hour if I’m going race pace, and sodium citrate (I forgot the scoop size that I keep in the bag, maybe 1/2 teaspoon per hour and adjust based on temperature?).
Plain maltodextrin doens’t have that sickly sweet taste. For a 3 hour group ride, I’d put as much malto and gatorade orange powder (for a little taste) as I could tolerate in one bottle (150g) and water in the other bottle. No water stops on this ride. I’d start off with a bar and a banana as well. I’d eat the banana at the start of the ride during the 30 minute warmup and eat the bar at the final regroup spot.
This is still like 800 calories injested on a 2000kj ride. Plus I’d eat before and after, of course.
I’m not sure I would go with hammer for fueling, their drink mixes and gels contain far lower amounts of carbohydrates than pretty much any other brand and much lower than what most people consume nowadays.
I’m with @wake on the maple syrup. It’s very carb dense, and you can mix at any concentration you want. I also add some salt to mine, so that I’m getting my electrolytes, too. I put the salt in my bottle, add a bit of warm water to help it dissolve, nuke the syrup a bit to thin it out, add it to the salty water, shake it all, then add room temp water to fill the bottle.
Added bonus: every drink tastes like you’re eating pancakes!!
Another vote for maltodextrin. It’s not very sweet compared to table sugar/fructose. Put it with warm water in a shaker bottle to dissolve it. I do 2:1 malto to fructose, but ymmv.
Also, just fyi, 50g is not much carbs in an hour. I’d up that to more like 90 for those hard rides.
If that makes your bottle too sweet, you can always do 60g in the bottle and then a flask of maple syrup to supplement the other 30g. As others have said, it goes down easy, even on my sensitive stomach.
I’m currently going with Tailwind at 60g per bottle, and supplementing with chews, either Gu or Precision Hydration, for 90 to 120g per hour. Tailwind at that concentration isn’t too sweet, and doesn’t lead to dry mouth.
Lower carbohydrates per what unit? Per gel packet? Do they just use a smaller calorie serving size? Do you only consume gels and mixes per the manufacturers serving size on the label?
I put as much maltodextrine powder and sodium citrate as I need in my bottles, and use the nutrition label to determine how many grams or tablespoons it takes to get that many grams of carbs (wherever I buy my carb mixes from, usually just bulk product from Amazon). With gels, I just swig as much as I need out of the graduated flask (that I refill from the 28 serving bottle…a serving has varying 22-25g of carbs of the flavors I use, and I pay about $1 per). Need 80 grams per hour, drink an ounce per 15 minutes.
You can check their website, but I thought most people were aware that hammer nutrition is pretty behind the times in their carb mixes.
To compare one of their gels has 22g of carbs and their recommended fueling is a measly 1.5-2/hr for someone weighing 70-86kg. So you would be intaking a maximum of 44g of carbs.
Basically everyone else is selling gels that are at least double that if not more.
Additionally they use only maltodextrin in their stuff because apparently sugar=bad.
There is plenty of great research out there showing a combination of something like maltodextrin and fructose is much better for overall fueling and anyone ignoring it at this point is doing their athletes a disservice.
I do either a bottle with 100 grams maltodextrin and 50 of table sugar and some electrolyte tab for flavour, or that same carb mix plus a big pinch of salt and the juice of a big lemon in a trail running flexible flask. I don’t remember if I’ve got the 150 ml or 250 ml one.
I do the carb bottle for shorter or cooler weather rides where I won’t be drinking so much water, and the flask for hot weather rides where I like to have one bottle for drinking, and another for pouring over my head
Being a big guy with a high power output, I am not to fuel adequately or affordably with gels.
I use mainly maltodextrin mixed with either dextrose or table sugar.
I use 70% maltodextrin and 30% sugar. I blend it with water at 50c, along with some electrolyte powder, 5g of creatine, a splash of concentrated lemon cordial (diluting juice or squash, as it’s also known).
My baseline intake is 80g an hour for a really leisurely, social ride. Usually it’s 100-130g/hr for normal training and I’ve gone up to 160-170g an hour for faster rides (I did a 100km road ride the other day at 340w, and this required high carb intake).
I’m gradually increasing the intake (I’ve only been focusing on in-ride nutrition for about 18 months) and I expect I’ll end up close to 200g, which is a touch under 2g/kg.
Either way, the nice thing with the mix I’ve described is that you can also make it really dense (600g carbs in a 900ml bottle is no trouble) and it’s effectively like a homemade gel for 10% of the cost.
I got a sample pack of gels from The Feed, and one of them was maple syrup flavored. It is by far my least favorite flavor so far . I’m thinking about seeing if I can find some of those small honey packs that coffee shops often have. They are pretty small, but would be super easy to eat. Also, probably a lot cheaper than maple syrup or gels!
This is excellent. I found a recipe somewhere with your recommendation for maltodextrine and dextrose. I’ve only done one ride with the mix so far, but I already noticed an improvement in recovery.
Mixing in some flavors and/or extras is also in the works in my kitchen
I have some electrolyte powder that I drink every day and it’s perfect for flavoring bottles. Another option I’m going to try is lemon or lime juice, with a generous amount of quality salt.
I’m also going to add caffeine in my second bottle! I have some capsules I can empty into the bottle.
I’m glad to hear about your process of increasing the amount. It’s often mentioned with just the final amount, but there’s no way going from almost nothing to 100+ gr is going to end well… So far I’m fine with 60g in each bottle plus some honey when I head out. I’ll build up to 90-100 during the summer.
Trader Joes Fruit Candies. This is a new find. 162 carbs in 7 ounces. Certainly enough to supplement a 2-4 hour ride. They are similar to your standard gummies, but they are less sweet and not sticky coming out of your jersey pocket. So easy to crab a handful (6) for 30 grams of carb. The difference appears to be about 40% of carbs are from “modified potato/tapioca starch”. Pretty cheap for less than $2.
. I’m thinking about seeing if I can find some of those small honey packs that coffee shops often have. They are pretty small, but would be super easy to eat. Also, probably a lot cheaper than maple syrup or gels!