Due to work reasons I’m basically riding once a week only, while I try to throw some running and calisthenics in the mix during the week.
My eating habits before my ride are : small slice of pizza 2 hours before riding and then a small gelly,sugar bar for the ride. The ride is about 40/50 kms with about 400/600 meters of climb, so nothing really challenging, but I have to say for the las 5/8 kms the gel bar gives me enough boost if I’m feeling bonkish.
What if I skip the gel bar and fill up my bottle with carbs instead ? Would that be too much carbs along with the pizza slice ? Tried carbs in the bottle for the first time last Sunday and actually appreciated how they performed, it was a early morning ride with an empty stomach tho, except for an espresso.
Do both the bar and carbs in bottle would be my opinion, you’ll burn more than that during the ride unless its somehow a ridiculous amount of carbs between those two combined but I’m assuming you’re talking around 100g if its only one bottle. Normally that would be important for recovery but not an issue for you with one ride a week. But you still want that one ride in the week to be high quality I assume and more carbs will enable that.
Per this video its good to eat some carbs right before ride also, they’re saying it gets the blood sugar on an upward trend rather than the downward trend that would normally be happening 2-3 hours after a meal.
Surely that depends on what intensities you are tackling this ride at? Riding at 90% of FTP, fairly hard, riding in your Z2, moderate
In my case I find it’s better to over fuel than under fuel. If I don’t have enough fuel during the ride, I want to eat a ton of food before dinner time. Cravings drive me crazy.
I’m usually between zone 3 and 4.
In that case I’d just find carbs in the bottles works better, you don’t have to think about it. But then I’m not a fan of gels and avoid them.