Don’t mock me, I have 53/39 and 11-23 on my TT bike and 53/38 and 12-25 on the road bike. My 23 mm Contis run @100psi; should I quit cycling?!
Seriously, I did squeeze a set of 25mm tires on a few years ago so I might be good to go? Where i live ( Varberg-Sweden look it up) is pan flat so a straight cassette makes a lot of sense.
Screaming * in science * 
So you should be eating at least 300kcal/hour. Because that’s what’s coming from blood glycogen.
I ride with more experienced guys on a weekly MTB ride that is pretty damn fast. They never eat enough, and I’m OK with that since it makes it easier for me. Just because people have been riding longer than yourself, doesn’t mean they’re doing it right automatically.
Don’t mock me, I have 53/39 and 11-23 on my TT bike and 53/38 and 12-25 on the road bike. My 23 mm Contis run @100psi; should I quit cycling?!
Hahaha, this was me circa 2012-2015. I weighed 65 kg and was riding tires pumped up to 120 psi.
Re: The original post
I’ve ridden with a lot of older riders who can gut it out, but just because you’ve been doing it a long time doesn’t mean it’s the best way. I’ve been able to apply so many lessons from TR podcast/forums that have greatly improved my riding. If I’m out with some of these old school types, I just do my own thing and don’t listen to a bunch of “folksy wisdom” from people who haven’t learned anything about exercise science since 1985.
FWIW, I usually only eat one or two gels (~180-200 calories) and drink only water for rides up to 3 hours (depending on the temperature). I haven’t bonked in years and finish feeling really good. These are usually smooth and steady efforts though. If I were racing or attacking the group constantly, I would eat more.
In the context of this conversation, he’s right. We’re not talking z2 adaptations here, we’re talking group rides with plenty of efforts.
oops, sorry!
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Meh, I do big rides and runs all the time with minimal fuel and/or water without adverse effect. I have even experimented with my performance, doing an XC race with water only vs fuel and I performed the same.
I started doing that stuff because I had a long bike commute when I first started riding (2+ hours) and just didn’t eat or drink anything on the commute and just kept doing it.
I listen to/read about all these people who can’t hit their intervals without fuel and I just don’t understand it. I can win a Cat1 MTB race (I race at the Pro level, but my results are closer to C1 performance) with just a snack bar before and drinking water only during and not feel bad at all. The podcast the other day was talking about how this woman was fueling poorly with a burrito during 100 mile rides, I used to do that EVERY Tuesday after work; ride 100 miles hitting up Del Taco for a bunch of cheap tacos every few hours when I felt like stopping. I would still smash the group ride I would show up to mid ride.
I did eat a shit load of cake last night before doing VO2 max, but, that just tasted good.
Unfortunately the whole thing of everyone being different means everyone is different, insisting everyone MUST EAT all the time to perform ignores the fact that not everyone needs to in order to perform.
i’,m with @IvyAudrain on this and screaming in science.
I can’t tell if @redlude97 is being pedantic or not, but i’ll be clear: lots of things are not necessary. Helmets in many jurisdictions are not necessary, but that is very different than being optimal which is the point others in this thread, including myself, are trying to make.
If you dont want to eat food, that’s fine. But be clear that it is sub-optimal.
That’s great your N=1 feels you wouldn’t perform or recover any better with fueling 
but that never worked for my N=1.
TR’s takeaways are that appropriate fueling is beneficial to performance during the workout and speeds recovery so enhancing future performance. Appropriate fueling is not insisting everyone MUST EAT all the time. It’s not a binary choice between insisting everyone MUST EAT all the time and starvation 
Why would you not want to? What is the upside to not eating?
Calorie intake is largely rate limited. And the rate that you can take in calories is higher during activity. If you keep your blood/glycogen stores topped off then you have less catch up to do prior to or after the ride. If you ride 3 hours per week, sure you can be ‘fine’ without fueling your ride. But when you are doing 10, 15, 20, or more hours a week the rate at which you can replenish your blood and muscle glycogen stores becomes a limiter.
Beyond the science which I think is pretty strong, I simply feel better post-ride by eating ~50% of calories burned during the ride. Haven’t really noticed a big performance difference during a workout, but most of mine are 90 minutes to 3 hours.
Have you tried fueling in training, especially long term? How did you measure performance? You can easily get by on water in an xc race so that really doesn’t say much. Also, most people find when they fuel on the bike they don’t each a bunch of garbage before bed. Idk, sugar during a ride seems much healthier than during sleep.
I used to not eat on rides… I lost a lot of weight and had non-existent testosterone levels.
In hindsight, it was dumb.
I have experimented with a lot of stuff. The only thing that really works for me is the classic form of training; lots of big miles. Performance was measured with power, perceived effort, and comparing rivals race results.
More my point is that so many people seem to think that if someone isn’t fueling “properly”, they can’t perform. I can. I don’t think everyone else necessarily can or should do what I do because it may not work. But as much as I don’t insist that people should ride like me I also don’t think people should insist that my method CAN’T work.
I also do most of my hard efforts during the nights or evenings also, unlike most people. I hate mornings (granted my bike commute starts at 5:30am now). I will gladly sleep in until noon and ride into the night, but getting up early for anything absolutely sucks.
People are different. Just because a group of guys like to suffer on four hour rides without fuel doesn’t mean they are wrong, though they may be. Do what works for you.
Same here, did a lot of fasted or no-feed endurance rides. Chasing those special adaptions, making each second more valuable.
What a dumb idea this was. Lost an entire season because of this. This is not sustainable under a higher training load. Even if it is “only” riding endurance. At some point endurance is not slooooow anymore. You got to fuel the engine. Not necessarily for a single workout but to tolerate the workload of a block.
People are different, but pretty sure the maximum capacity for stored glycogen is a fairly narrow band. One person is not going to be able to store enough glycogen for 90 minutes and another for 4 hours. I’ve not seen anywhere that glycogen storage capacity is a differentiator for performance athletes and I would think folks that “don’t have to eat” would have a huge advantage that I would think professional athletes would form around. If it’s not intensity, then perhaps you are fat adapted and burning fat for fuel, but there are pretty clear limitations for burning fat for fuel that inhibits high intensity work. I don’t think “people are different” is a good enough explanation for your N=1.
This is old-school, bro-science. If anything, keep encouraging them to continue that fueling strategy and then crush them…
Look, I frequently push back at the 90+g/hr or your life will suck crowd, but this is just the pendulum going the complete other direction. Not eating or minimizing drinking because of some dogmatic reason from the 80s doesn’t make much sense to me. Do they still believe that air conditioning shouldn’t be used in the summer because it will make you sick or you should wear knee / leg warmers under 70F? People used to believe that stuff.
Do you think an amateur rider who has 5 years of experience should be trying high-risk / low-reward strategies to make some marginal gain or spend time picking low-hanging fruit that are low-risk / low-effort / high-reward?