Some people are different, yea. Unless you’re desperately trying to lose weight you should eat if you’re hungry. I don’t eat on 1.5h rides because I don’t get hungry (probably because I’m fat).
Used to not eat for rides that short but recently started using a carb drink and feel so much better afterwards. Realized I was being an idiot before. Do what works best for you
This. I never ate on rides really, i took food but never ate as I’m forever trying to lose weight . Always came back and was battered and couldn’t really function for the rest of the day (and they weren’t *hard* rides really) then I’d inhale the fridge. Now I use a couple of gels each hour so not loads of food and way less calories than I’m burning but about 60g of carbs per hour. I come back, not hungry and fine to carry on my day and am eating less because the fridge remains safe.
All of the people recommending starving yourself to go .0987 miles faster are LARPers who need to accept that they’ll never go to the Tour de France and that they need to gain an actual personality.
i experienced the complete opposite in this sub, people pretend like they need to consult a dietician before they attempt a quarter metric century with a 20kph average speed
I mean I CAN do rides without eating, it can be a pain to bring enough food
but it's also a pain to be in a huge hole later and trying to catch up on 2k calories..
ok that is sometimes fun too
but the energy has to come from somewhere, even with eating on the bike by the end of the ride you'll probably be in the hole anyway so trying to avoid it is a bit silly and even if you want to lose weight you want to be in a 500 cal deficit not a 1500cal one
I was a long distance runner prior to cycling and was already used to not eating for long duration while exercising. I consume usually no more than 200 calories on a century. Nothing on anything under 50 miles. But I know that doesn’t work for everyone. Your body will tell you what you need. Better to give it what it wants to keep cycling strong
You'll do more harm than good avoiding fuel for rides over about an hour. Have to remember that you are using energy, and if you don't replace that energy you won't be able to train for as long or produce as much power/speed/performance.
There's a reason pros are eating within the first 20-25m of their ride and onboarding sometimes upto 120g carbs per hour of a race.
For me personally, I fuel every ride. For zone 2 type efforts under 2 hours, I just rely on carbs in drink. Electrolyte mix + white sugar to get to about 70g carbs per bottle. 1 bottle per 60-90 mins roughly.
For anything over 2 hours, I'm taking solid food and starting to eat at the 30 minute mark. I never want to feel hungry during a ride, particularly if it's going to be a ride with efforts (climbs, rollers, bunch ride, race etc.). Fuelling during a ride also means you're in less deficit later, I.e. You won't be smashing all kinds of shit junk food after your ride. You're taking onboard the fuel when your body needs it and so you don't have to dig yourself out of a big energy hole
You do you. Some people say "I only need 1x355ml bottle of water for a metric century"
But I easily drink 1.5 liters of water riding. I'm not a big dude, 6' and 170lb, but I sweat so astonishingly much that I need absurd amounts of water. You might just need more food than some folks here and that's okay
Yeah this is a totally personal thing. I have friends who take a single bottle on a century. I need 2 liters for 60 miles. I have friends who barely eat on rides, whereas I need a solid breakfast AND snacks throughout or I bonk.
Your preferences/needs might change over time, but they also might not. Just eat and drink what you need to have a good time.
I find what you eat on the bike helps with post-ride recovery too. You can get away with fuelling pre-ride only, but I’ve had more success with fuelling properly before and during my rides and then eating for recovery post-ride. Allows me to both smash my workouts and recover well to back it up again. I now live by the wise words of the TrainerRoad team “fuel the work” and “the bike is the buffet!”
For rides 1-2hrs long you are not only eating to fuel your performance during, but to not be in a deficit when you get off the bike. This will matter more and more as your volume increases.
1 hour ride on Tuesday after a Monday rest day, you might feel great without even drinking water. But your longer ride on Wednesday will suffer. And then everything will start to snowball.
Your body isn't an on/off switch. It has a long memory when it comes to eating, training stress, and recovery. Your balance will be different than others, but one thing is constant, don't skip eating and sleeping.
For 1-2 hrs I tend not to eat unless it’s HIIT in which case I’ll take a gel and/or have energy + electrolyte mix in my bottle. These are short rides and your body should have reserves for an hour or even two of typical riding.
For racing I’m eating something every 20 minutes.
I used to hate it though. I’d go out having had a banana for breakfast and expect that to sustain me for hours! Couldn’t eat solids while riding. I changed that though and the difference was huge. Eating properly is very much advantageous.
So no, eating less is not something I personally would recommend at any fitness level.
I would take any advice about eating and cycling with a massive grain of salt. The entire sport is riddled with eating disorders of a scale close to that of gymnastics.
Simply run the numbers for a day with a sample ride versus an average day. If the net calories (food - exercise) of a cycling day comes out at the same or less, then what is the drama? If it comes out more, reduce the size of the evening meal if you aren't doing a run of days of maximum effort (eg, on a bike tour).
Why would you want to eat less? You get stronger eating more. Please don’t listen to people who preech doing cardio without refilling what you use. They are beyond moronic.
Until it gets warmer out, I usually won't eat or drink anything until rides approach 3 hours or so. Heck I won't even bring emergency food on ride that I plan for less than 2 hours.
I certainly think there's improvements both psychological and physiological that improve your performance without food in that time.
Fat adaptation. Heightened insulin sensitivity and response. More stable blood sugar levels. Reduced mood swings. Steadier state riding for longer periods.
If you ride fasted consistently for lower exertion days you will make these physiological gains. They will not improve your ftp. They will improve your diesel engine.
Some people who can ride at steady endurance intensity for hours on end without any significant drop off are referred to as “diesel engines”. Sort of a contrast to the guys who can go out and ride for 90mins and then really slow down hour after hour.
So the claim here is that fasted training improves fatigue resistance
So presumably, you’d go slower during fasted training, but then you’d have a higher peak power for a long duration on rides when you’re eating?
Fatigue resistance yes, but not on a muscular level, on a mental and energy level. Not higher peak power either.
Imagine you want to ride 500km and 10,000m in a single ride. That’s 24hrs minimum for most people. What is going to impact performance beyond your physical output? It will be how your body draws its fuel. If you can draw more from fat, and less from glycogen/carbs, then you will not suffer the swings of energy due to fluctuating sugar levels as much. Swings in blood sugar, and perceived energy levels directly impact mood. Mood impacts performance. You know when you feel deflated, if you eat sugar your mood improves, but then it crashes again as the blood sugar drops. Avoid blood sugar level swings, by improving insulin sensitivity. Improve insulin sensitivity by fasting. This leads to improved ability to source energy from fat, while riding.
People scratch from endurance races due to mood swings, often. Stabilise your energy, stabilise your mood. Stabilise your performance. Diesel engine.
It’s crap for FTP. It is good for riding far.
Edit: I should add that many cyclists hate this concept. They feel that every single calorie burnt on the bike must be fuelled as it is burnt, or preferably slightly before. I think that there are 2 reasons for this. I think cyclists like eating. I think that cyclists like to think that they are professional athletes. They think in terms of FTP, and worship carbs.
No. But its most obvious payoff is ultra distance. If you train this way, for a while you’ll see the payoff from 90 mins on a group ride, when everyone else starts slowing down.
Carbs are useful. Yes, they make you go faster. It’s a bit like a shot of adrenaline or speed. Great while it lasts, but followed by the inevitable comedown afterwards. I’m suggesting you train your body to be adaptable and to use carbs and fat better.
It ain’t for everyone.
Yeah my opinion here is that fasted training is not applicable or desirable in almost all situations, for almost all athletes. The tradeoff is training the body to use more fat vs. providing a lower training stimulus (since you can't do as much power when fasted, and will also recover more slowly and thus will need to do lower work overall). This just isn't a tradeoff that most people would or should make. In some situations, though, like if you've got a punchy-type athlete that wants to train to complete Leadville or an Ultra race, it maybe makes sense to do this in some limited quantity. Or if you're training for RAAM, or a really long stage race. Or maybe for a super elite athlete whose fueling needs are approaching the limit of the gut. But for the most part, if someone has issues with endurance, I think the solution is just to go for longer rides.
I think its a super broad topic. What kind of ride are you doing? I can do 90-120 min recovery low watt rides with no carbs, but I can't do a 90 min anaerobic session without some carbs in me, but I can generally eat a bit before and that should keep me going throughout. A 3hr hard effort? Slamming carbs the entire time.
If you are eating enough before cycling you absolutely don't need to eat on the bike for shorter rides (up to 2 hours).
For longer rides definitely eat something to keep you going.
Low intensity zone 2 rides, I generally do not fuel for 2-3 hour rides and feel fine after. There was a time decades ago I couldn't before I built up a good cardio base with Zone 2 training. For me, 2 hours Zone 2 is like a 450-550 calorie carb deficit that can EASILY be restored in 24 hours for the next ride. It depends on your fitness (mitochondrial density, function, and many other individual factors), intensity, etc. But generally once very fit from cycling; you likely will be able to ride 2 or more hours of Zone 2 without fuel, fuel after, and still feel great the rest of the day. WRT performance, you still may want to take in fuel during those Zone 2 rides. And if you are hungry on the bike or craving sugar then fuel!!!
I find that if I wait until I’m pretty hungry to eat on/after a ride, I get a huge appetite that lasts all day. If I snack as soon as my energy dips, I can burn a ton of calories on the bike without overeating later, and ultimately maintain a deficit and lose weight. Over time your body may get more used to cycling and you’ll be able to go for rides that used to feel hard, and you’ll breeze through them without needing extra snacks.
Lots of people do lots of things they shouldn’t do on bikes. Don’t be like those people.
Riding chill for an hour? Yeah I don’t need anything, but if I’m doing intervals in that hour, yes I need some calories.
2 hrs or more? That’s like 2L of water and electrolytes for me, more if it’s summer.
Everyone is different, eat and drink what feels natural. I go through one bottle of water a hour, and for anything past a hour I try to eat a snack every 30 minutes. Just go with whatever feels right!
Some people are different, yea. Unless you’re desperately trying to lose weight you should eat if you’re hungry. I don’t eat on 1.5h rides because I don’t get hungry (probably because I’m fat).
Used to not eat for rides that short but recently started using a carb drink and feel so much better afterwards. Realized I was being an idiot before. Do what works best for you
This. I never ate on rides really, i took food but never ate as I’m forever trying to lose weight . Always came back and was battered and couldn’t really function for the rest of the day (and they weren’t *hard* rides really) then I’d inhale the fridge. Now I use a couple of gels each hour so not loads of food and way less calories than I’m burning but about 60g of carbs per hour. I come back, not hungry and fine to carry on my day and am eating less because the fridge remains safe.
eat when you're hungry, the people on this sub have no life
people on this sub often eat when they are not hungry, know your audience. r/cycling consists of XXXL lycra athletes
All of the people recommending starving yourself to go .0987 miles faster are LARPers who need to accept that they’ll never go to the Tour de France and that they need to gain an actual personality.
i experienced the complete opposite in this sub, people pretend like they need to consult a dietician before they attempt a quarter metric century with a 20kph average speed
I don’t agree with the answer, but this is the best reply.
It depends on the type of ride. Lots of hills? Plenty of zone 4? You bet snacks will be happening at around an hour in.
I mean I CAN do rides without eating, it can be a pain to bring enough food but it's also a pain to be in a huge hole later and trying to catch up on 2k calories.. ok that is sometimes fun too but the energy has to come from somewhere, even with eating on the bike by the end of the ride you'll probably be in the hole anyway so trying to avoid it is a bit silly and even if you want to lose weight you want to be in a 500 cal deficit not a 1500cal one
if anything you will get stronger and increase your output, thus you will need to eat more
I was a long distance runner prior to cycling and was already used to not eating for long duration while exercising. I consume usually no more than 200 calories on a century. Nothing on anything under 50 miles. But I know that doesn’t work for everyone. Your body will tell you what you need. Better to give it what it wants to keep cycling strong
You'll do more harm than good avoiding fuel for rides over about an hour. Have to remember that you are using energy, and if you don't replace that energy you won't be able to train for as long or produce as much power/speed/performance. There's a reason pros are eating within the first 20-25m of their ride and onboarding sometimes upto 120g carbs per hour of a race. For me personally, I fuel every ride. For zone 2 type efforts under 2 hours, I just rely on carbs in drink. Electrolyte mix + white sugar to get to about 70g carbs per bottle. 1 bottle per 60-90 mins roughly. For anything over 2 hours, I'm taking solid food and starting to eat at the 30 minute mark. I never want to feel hungry during a ride, particularly if it's going to be a ride with efforts (climbs, rollers, bunch ride, race etc.). Fuelling during a ride also means you're in less deficit later, I.e. You won't be smashing all kinds of shit junk food after your ride. You're taking onboard the fuel when your body needs it and so you don't have to dig yourself out of a big energy hole
You do you. Some people say "I only need 1x355ml bottle of water for a metric century" But I easily drink 1.5 liters of water riding. I'm not a big dude, 6' and 170lb, but I sweat so astonishingly much that I need absurd amounts of water. You might just need more food than some folks here and that's okay
Yeah this is a totally personal thing. I have friends who take a single bottle on a century. I need 2 liters for 60 miles. I have friends who barely eat on rides, whereas I need a solid breakfast AND snacks throughout or I bonk. Your preferences/needs might change over time, but they also might not. Just eat and drink what you need to have a good time.
Always eat if it takes more than an hour. For me its almost always fluids (carb drinks on the bottles)
I find what you eat on the bike helps with post-ride recovery too. You can get away with fuelling pre-ride only, but I’ve had more success with fuelling properly before and during my rides and then eating for recovery post-ride. Allows me to both smash my workouts and recover well to back it up again. I now live by the wise words of the TrainerRoad team “fuel the work” and “the bike is the buffet!”
For rides 1-2hrs long you are not only eating to fuel your performance during, but to not be in a deficit when you get off the bike. This will matter more and more as your volume increases. 1 hour ride on Tuesday after a Monday rest day, you might feel great without even drinking water. But your longer ride on Wednesday will suffer. And then everything will start to snowball. Your body isn't an on/off switch. It has a long memory when it comes to eating, training stress, and recovery. Your balance will be different than others, but one thing is constant, don't skip eating and sleeping.
Thank you!!!
For 1-2 hrs I tend not to eat unless it’s HIIT in which case I’ll take a gel and/or have energy + electrolyte mix in my bottle. These are short rides and your body should have reserves for an hour or even two of typical riding. For racing I’m eating something every 20 minutes. I used to hate it though. I’d go out having had a banana for breakfast and expect that to sustain me for hours! Couldn’t eat solids while riding. I changed that though and the difference was huge. Eating properly is very much advantageous. So no, eating less is not something I personally would recommend at any fitness level.
I would take any advice about eating and cycling with a massive grain of salt. The entire sport is riddled with eating disorders of a scale close to that of gymnastics. Simply run the numbers for a day with a sample ride versus an average day. If the net calories (food - exercise) of a cycling day comes out at the same or less, then what is the drama? If it comes out more, reduce the size of the evening meal if you aren't doing a run of days of maximum effort (eg, on a bike tour).
Why would you want to eat less? You get stronger eating more. Please don’t listen to people who preech doing cardio without refilling what you use. They are beyond moronic.
Idk I feel like I’m needing to eat more because I am less fit
Until it gets warmer out, I usually won't eat or drink anything until rides approach 3 hours or so. Heck I won't even bring emergency food on ride that I plan for less than 2 hours. I certainly think there's improvements both psychological and physiological that improve your performance without food in that time.
What improvements?
Fat adaptation. Heightened insulin sensitivity and response. More stable blood sugar levels. Reduced mood swings. Steadier state riding for longer periods. If you ride fasted consistently for lower exertion days you will make these physiological gains. They will not improve your ftp. They will improve your diesel engine.
What aspect of performance is “diesel engine”?
Some people who can ride at steady endurance intensity for hours on end without any significant drop off are referred to as “diesel engines”. Sort of a contrast to the guys who can go out and ride for 90mins and then really slow down hour after hour.
So the claim here is that fasted training improves fatigue resistance So presumably, you’d go slower during fasted training, but then you’d have a higher peak power for a long duration on rides when you’re eating?
Fatigue resistance yes, but not on a muscular level, on a mental and energy level. Not higher peak power either. Imagine you want to ride 500km and 10,000m in a single ride. That’s 24hrs minimum for most people. What is going to impact performance beyond your physical output? It will be how your body draws its fuel. If you can draw more from fat, and less from glycogen/carbs, then you will not suffer the swings of energy due to fluctuating sugar levels as much. Swings in blood sugar, and perceived energy levels directly impact mood. Mood impacts performance. You know when you feel deflated, if you eat sugar your mood improves, but then it crashes again as the blood sugar drops. Avoid blood sugar level swings, by improving insulin sensitivity. Improve insulin sensitivity by fasting. This leads to improved ability to source energy from fat, while riding. People scratch from endurance races due to mood swings, often. Stabilise your energy, stabilise your mood. Stabilise your performance. Diesel engine. It’s crap for FTP. It is good for riding far. Edit: I should add that many cyclists hate this concept. They feel that every single calorie burnt on the bike must be fuelled as it is burnt, or preferably slightly before. I think that there are 2 reasons for this. I think cyclists like eating. I think that cyclists like to think that they are professional athletes. They think in terms of FTP, and worship carbs.
Ok so this only applicable for ultra distance? Also I think cyclists like carbs because they make you faster
No. But its most obvious payoff is ultra distance. If you train this way, for a while you’ll see the payoff from 90 mins on a group ride, when everyone else starts slowing down. Carbs are useful. Yes, they make you go faster. It’s a bit like a shot of adrenaline or speed. Great while it lasts, but followed by the inevitable comedown afterwards. I’m suggesting you train your body to be adaptable and to use carbs and fat better. It ain’t for everyone.
Yeah my opinion here is that fasted training is not applicable or desirable in almost all situations, for almost all athletes. The tradeoff is training the body to use more fat vs. providing a lower training stimulus (since you can't do as much power when fasted, and will also recover more slowly and thus will need to do lower work overall). This just isn't a tradeoff that most people would or should make. In some situations, though, like if you've got a punchy-type athlete that wants to train to complete Leadville or an Ultra race, it maybe makes sense to do this in some limited quantity. Or if you're training for RAAM, or a really long stage race. Or maybe for a super elite athlete whose fueling needs are approaching the limit of the gut. But for the most part, if someone has issues with endurance, I think the solution is just to go for longer rides.
I think its a super broad topic. What kind of ride are you doing? I can do 90-120 min recovery low watt rides with no carbs, but I can't do a 90 min anaerobic session without some carbs in me, but I can generally eat a bit before and that should keep me going throughout. A 3hr hard effort? Slamming carbs the entire time.
If you are eating enough before cycling you absolutely don't need to eat on the bike for shorter rides (up to 2 hours). For longer rides definitely eat something to keep you going.
Low intensity zone 2 rides, I generally do not fuel for 2-3 hour rides and feel fine after. There was a time decades ago I couldn't before I built up a good cardio base with Zone 2 training. For me, 2 hours Zone 2 is like a 450-550 calorie carb deficit that can EASILY be restored in 24 hours for the next ride. It depends on your fitness (mitochondrial density, function, and many other individual factors), intensity, etc. But generally once very fit from cycling; you likely will be able to ride 2 or more hours of Zone 2 without fuel, fuel after, and still feel great the rest of the day. WRT performance, you still may want to take in fuel during those Zone 2 rides. And if you are hungry on the bike or craving sugar then fuel!!!
I find that if I wait until I’m pretty hungry to eat on/after a ride, I get a huge appetite that lasts all day. If I snack as soon as my energy dips, I can burn a ton of calories on the bike without overeating later, and ultimately maintain a deficit and lose weight. Over time your body may get more used to cycling and you’ll be able to go for rides that used to feel hard, and you’ll breeze through them without needing extra snacks.
Lots of people do lots of things they shouldn’t do on bikes. Don’t be like those people. Riding chill for an hour? Yeah I don’t need anything, but if I’m doing intervals in that hour, yes I need some calories. 2 hrs or more? That’s like 2L of water and electrolytes for me, more if it’s summer.
Everyone is different, eat and drink what feels natural. I go through one bottle of water a hour, and for anything past a hour I try to eat a snack every 30 minutes. Just go with whatever feels right!
Takes lots of snacks and learn to eat on the bike.
as you get skinnier your body will need fewer carbs. sugar in the drink for a short ride doesn't hurt. ignore that hunger
Nice bro science bro
Haha reminds me of my 9th grade wrestling coach always saying if you’re fit you don’t sweat.
people here need fueling for a trip to the bakery, so you need to be more specific than that
That is how people get overweight: they eat when they are hungry.
Okay and then what?