Took me 2.x bars and 2 x gels to complete May Austin -1 on Sunday.
On top of that I was drinking Maltodextrin and Fructose (with a bit of lemon juice) in a 2:1 ratio.
It may have been a bit of an excess but most certainly helped with being able to get through the workout.
Dentists reading through this thread…
)
One option is to use fake ones that you’d keep in a glass cup on a bedside table. No teeth - no problems.
I think this thread has helped me realise why attempting to do fasted VO2 max workouts before work was always going to be a world of pain. At least that is one thing that I have COVID-19 to be thankful for now I can schedule my rides more flexibly! 
Bloody good yarn that 
Another trick I use is squeezed orange/apple/pineapple juice diluted with water. Fruit juice is high in sugar/carbs and, personally, I find it easier on the digestive system.
I also use sis mix for a lot of rides because it’s more convenient to have a tub in the cupboard than a fridge full of fruit juice. But, I find it is a useful trick if you’re travelling abroad and also sometimes a nice bit of variety.
That’s bonkers. Glad you’re still with us!
When I was young and even more dumberer than I am now, I made an espresso with coffee instead of water. Yes, on purpose. Same deal, my heart was jackhammering my ribs for a good hour. Scary.
Oh those e-athletes! 
Muscle glycogen questions: of the glycogen stored in skeletal muscles, how much of that is stored in/used up by cycling specific muscles?
Is it as easy as approximating the % mass of those muscles by total carbs stored?
Let’s say I have 500g of muscle glycogen stored, how much of that is stored in the legs/glutes (obviously not 100%)?
Can MG be “shuttled” to muscles in need or is it a locally fixed resource?
Do we just go with the conventional 90g/hr carb theory in order to keep the legs and heart topped up and accept the “loss” of unused carbs?
Thanks for the answers!
MG is localized. From my skratch feed zone portables book, a 187lb person at 20% body fat on a moderate carb diet stores about 1400 calories of glycogen in legs. For high carb diet for that same person it goes up to 2400.
And then you have whats in the liver, which isnt localized. I have to check, but off top of my head I remember that being around 400 calories.
Obviously the guys in the back are not pros based on how their helmet straps are tightened. Don’t forget to floss too!
This ^ for sure.
Eating enough on the ride has been a game changer for me. After a recovery shake i can pretty much just eat normally for the rest of the day rather than have to eat random enormous sandwiches & bowls of cereal and be a miserable sod with low blood sugar all day.
aside from probably losing my teeth the main noticeable differences for me are:
I am not hammering the amount that has been described here though. Given I have GI issues I am limited with what I can have, and there is only so much SiS gel action I can really partake in without feeling like it’s been overdone.
Still, porridge and jam, give me more.
I follow a HCLF diet and have for the past few years but I think where I actually fall short in terms of taking in carbs is during my workouts. I am starting to realize I need to fuel more during my sessions, especially SS and above when sessions are 1-2 hours or longer
what do you take in for those currently?
Saw this today by the curb on my lunchtime walk…19.48 K-I-L-O-S of maple icing goodness.
That’s the equivalent of 608 standard GU energy gel packets (at 32 grams per packet)!
That’s a crazy amount of weight to gain. Could some of that be glycogen and water? Especially if you were under-fueled before.
Gaining that much weight in two weeks means you were at a 2,200 calorie surplus per day. That’s like 5.5 100 gram bottles of carbs per day of extra.
If you’re gaining weight on 50 grams/hour and keeping your overall calorie intake low you’re most likely low on glycogen and your low weight is in a weakened state for yourself. I’d suggest that you’d most likely be faster if you were fueled up (even with the extra weight gain).
Question on sugar and ‘addiction’/craving. I’ve found that eating sweet things makes me want to eat more sweet things. In the context of sugar craving, is it just the sweetness in the mouth that triggers this, or are other metabolic processes in play as well.
Basically, if I use maltodextrin alone to add carbs, I end up with a drink that has lots of sugar, but isn’t sweet. Will this be less likely to contribute to a sugar ‘habit’?? (I likely can’t hit the 100g/hour mark on just glucose, but that’s a separate issue.)
Thats an interesting question. My uninformed impression is that a sugar ‘addiction’ is more tied to blood sugar spikes than the taste sensation of sugar. Which is good news and bad news…
Maltodextrin will spike blood sugar in nearly the same way that a pure hit of glucose will. May just come a minute or two later.
But…I also believe (hope…) that sugar intake while on the bike never results in a big blood sugar spike, as you are pulling sugar out of the blood as fast as you’re putting it in while exercising.
Your cravings could be from other issues.
Your only ‘fast carbs’ (aka sugar) should be on the bike, but you’re (hopefully) burning through those and your insulin levels (probably) aren’t being spiked and dumped. Off the bike, eat ‘slow carbs’ as these are non-sweet – oatmeal, sweet potato, pasta. Mix these with veggies and it’ll reduce things even further.
n=1, the first time I went from a “normal” diet to a HFLC diet, I went through crazy sugar detox for a week or so. Wife even made me a huge batch of keto cookies (i.e. no sugar) which I feasted on just to trick my brain. After being LC for a while, when I did eat anything sweet, it was sooooper sweet. So your tastebud preferences can wax and wane.
Experiment.
