I have a love/hate relationship with The Rules, #91 of which is where I assume OP’s “hardmen” ridemates are getting this from: https://www.velominati.com/
Some of the “rules” are great, like keeping your sunglasses on the outside of your helmet straps, but others are just plain stupid and exist for ego boosts and nothing else.
In order to get increased fat oxidation during a ride, you have to come into it with depleted glycogen stores. This is not the same as fasted training. So not eating on your endurance rides is NOT oxidizing more fat than fueling during it. This is a common misconception that eating turns off fat burning.
Its suboptimal in a lot of ways. Your recovery tanks, do less watts, end up eating a ton after the ride, and mood is worse.
This is a good example of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
I have a suspicion that your riding buddies think their bodies will just run 100% on fat stores, with the conversion happening fast enough to not run out of gas. Dehydrating oneself isn’t something to be proud of, neither is under-fueling and inviting a bonk. Sounds like they’re being macho and/or ignorant.
Its high risk because of decreased recovery. What is the benefit of not fueling during? It’s NOT increased fat ox, because you have to already have be in a glycogen-depleted state for that to happen. If you fuel the endurance rides, most riders will do more watts, increasing the aerobic threshold, burning more kJs, and having better recovery.
I’ve heard a lot of stories of people ruining seasons (or careers) because of restricting fueling. Are there any stories of the opposite? Anyone who ballooned up in fat because they were fueling too well on the bike? Anyone?
I don’t think anyone has gotten fat on the bike.
This is in the context of someone with 5 years of riding experience and some assumptions about the ‘average’ rider as I do not know the particulars of the OP. I would rather put my effort and motivation towards these things:
My understanding of the literature is similar to @Dschlag. What I have seen on just not eating is no confirmed long-term benefit to fat oxidation or related signaling and most of the studies that indicate their might be improvements or at least signaling that could lead to improvements is with subjects in glycogen depleted states. Even coaches who recommend those types of workouts suggest fueling after 1hr or even limiting those depleted workouts to 1hr total.
I do a 3.5-4 hour ride most weekends.
I experimented with and without fueling for these rides, and while I could do the rides unfueled, I recovered better with fueling. And better recovery afterwards means my body can tackle harder structured workouts during the week.
Just because you can do it unfueled, doesn’t mean it is the best way of doing things.
He was talking about 1 hr recovery rides - quite a difference
Your approach seems pretty sound - do you end up eating a ton after, or are they easy enough for you to not be hungry?
they adhere to old “broscience” based on nothing. It just sucks that these dudes are still fast, so it gives their advice more merit than it deserves. Fuel properly, it makes the ride better, the recovery better, life better.
I think most things have been covered but i’ll add:
like the TR team always say on the podcast, just because you can make it through a workout without fuelling, doesn’t mean you should
the more you fuel, the harder you can ride, the more adaptations you can make and the faster you recover
steadily fuelling your body keeps your cortisol levels lower which overall means less breakdown of muscle post-ride
I regularly ride with a few people who don’t eat anywhere near as much as I do but in any given week i’m the only one who reaches 200km of riding (my weekly average). We ride the same pace during longer rides and nobody gets dropped during climbs but I’m usually the only one ready for the same big ride the next day. And I weight probably 10-15kg more than my riding friends (30/F/167cm/70kg.
Actually they have… Or well getting fat is relative here but it’s quite common for (less experienced) Grand Tour cyclists to actually gain weight (like 4kg even) during the 3 week period because they were overfuelling out of fear of bonking and/or not making it through the full 3 weeks. Now with the introduction of a lot of the food apps that teams are using this likely will be less and less of an issue but it’s happened to quite some riders over the years. Both GC contenders, people going for stage wins or the rest of the peleton.
Exactly this! I won’t show them this topic, that’s for sure 
But that’s the thing, their take is: “you have to let your body adapt to it” Which is what they’ve done over the years. Given that I’m used to fuelling, I know for sure I would feel terrible if I went out for a hard ride without fuel…
Very interesting discussion! To be fair, they’re definitely not doing it to be macho or show off, it’s really more an “I’ve been doing it for this many years this way, so I’ll keep doing it that way”.
Thinking more about it, their endurance is definitely (way) better than mine, given their years of riding and the extra amount of Z2 they’re doing during a week (older kids/no kids = more time). This results in them being fine on the ‘slower’ Sunday rides where we’ll probably ride closer to their Z2. However, on the Thursday smash fests it is effectively the case that they start to fade 1h-1h30m in (those ride are under 2h), which is usually where I feel like: “this is hard, but let’s go, I can do this for another hour” 
My take-away: I still have progression left (which might not show directly in my power curve, but more in ride feel), and with that progression comes the need (or at least the feeling) to fuel less on endurance rides. With that, I’m going to keep fine-tuning my fuelling in order to make sure I can ride the way I want it. If that means riding with stuffed pockets, I’ll take it, and I’ll happily hand out gels if one of my riding buddies bonks 
There’s so much dangerous information on nutrition on the internet.
Particularly, from us. Totally untrained know it alls, happy to dish out our ‘researched’ knowledge.
I’ll dish out mine now 
The latest science is very mixed on fasted training. Yes, they are finding measurable ‘markers’ of positive response. However, nobody has yet confirmed an actual increase in performance. So, yes it stimulates the body more aggressively, but it does not appear to offer any increase in performance. More stress, no increase in performance.
Most of the cycling world is still dealing with systemic under fueling. Many professional riders and amateur’s have been very negatively affected by this ancient and pervasive mantra of weight, weight, weight.
Obviously, weight matters. However attempting to lose weight, while riding is both complex and almost certainly the wrong approach for almost every rider alive. Don’t diet on the bike.
Diet off the bike.
Eat well, use whatever system works for you. Be that, continuous calorie restriction, intermittent fasting, whatever allows you to slowly and sensibly meet your body composition target. Do this the entire time you are not riding. You’ll find that this is a majority of your life…
Please, please, before you post how incredible you are at riding without eating for 780hrs. Just think. Who does this help? Is it some kind of boast?
Using Adam Hansen as an example, of all people on Earth, we chose Adam Hansen as the true North? Like he has any correlation to a totally unremarkable amateur riding 10hrs a week…
Folks. Please be very careful who you take nutritional advice from. Certainly don’t take it from me or anybody else here, unless they can thoroughly demonstrate their actual expertise.
To the OP. Your riding friends sound like SO MANY of the older riders I have ridden with. Living 20 years in the past. Many of the riders in my club were like this, some still are. Over the last few years I’ve dramatically progressed, while most, particularly the riders stuck in these prehistoric loops of knowledge, have plateaued, or even regressed.
At the end of a 3/4hr spirited group ride I smash riders like that. It’s not even a contest. I’ve ridden the entire ride at 80g+ an hour, since the very start. In the final hour the riders that haven’t matched my fueling, cannot compete. It’s the same in races. Train like you want to perform.
If you’re on a group ride, particularly a spirited group ride where you want to perform at your best. 1,000,000,000% fuel before, during and after. Why on Earth would anyone run low carbs on a group ride? If you’re attempting to lose body fat, why would you do it on a ride where you want to excel and drive strong adaptations?
If you want to run low carb or even no carb, there are 6 other training days in a week. Anyone of those is a far better option.
Personally, having done a lot of fasted training, I wish I knew what I know now. I’d never have done it. Be very careful with fasted training, it really isn’t necessary for a majority of riders.
If you do really think it’s absolutely necessary, apply it how the best current science dictates its use. Only use it on your own solo rides, where you can strictly control intensity. Only stay fully fasted for the 1st hour, then use low carbs for each additional hour. It seems anything more than an hour of fasted riding has no real functional benefit.
Better yet, take the advice of Inigo San Milan and many of the best coaches on Earth. Don’t bother with it. It’s simply too risky.
perhaps, but that almost certainly isnt from eating on the bike. 100g of carbs an hour is roughly 50% of the calories you burn, so not likely the source of the weight gain. if they overate at dinner and breakfast, that isn’t what we are talking about. almost the opposite. maybe if the had fueled their stages better they wouldnt be so hungry after.
Listening to San Milan was pretty much the nail in the coffin for me really wanting to try fasted training. Him and other coaches have stated (with science to back it up) that riding non-fasted does little to discourage fat oxidation. As it has more to do with the intensity you are riding at and not what you are eating. And that the research shows very little and infrequent upsides for fasted training with huge and easy to achieve downsides.
So until I’m a GT contender with a team of coaches and nutritionists behind me the only fasted training I’ll do is my brisk walk to the bathroom in the morning or if I bike to the store to get bacon for my Saturday breakfast.
I ride ~300 miles per week (430 last week) and don’t ear / drink anywhere near as much as my buddies. I simply don’t need to…did ~50 miles yesterday AM and didn’t even go through one bottle of drink mix.
I’m not advocating what the riders in the OP are saying, but I also don’t agree with the 90g / hour regimen often repeated here. I just simply don’t need that much…and I am the guy who gets stronger the longer the ride goes.
I have definitely increased my caloric consumption over the last 2 years, but it is still pretty low by TR standards. Haven’t really noticed any change in my performance, however, but I agree it makes recovery easier.
Yes, you should rule on the bike, especially if there is intensity. No, you don’t need a 90g bottle for a one hour trainer session.
Hey - I’m down to 110 and 25, so I’m evolving, ok?
This is getting more and more embarrassing. I have 130mm BCD, what’s a guy supposed to do? I did change to a 50T, so there’s that.