Getting fuelling roughly right
Most riders under-eat and over-think this. The useful rules are short.
Anything under about ninety minutes needs water and not much else. If you have eaten properly beforehand, you have the fuel on board already.
Beyond ninety minutes, you need carbohydrate coming in, and the number people generally aim at is 60 to 90 grams an hour. That is more than it sounds — roughly a gel every 25 to 30 minutes, or a mix of drink and solid food adding up to the same thing.
Start before you feel like you need it. By the time you have gone hollow on the climb out of Hout Bay, you are half an hour behind and it is very hard to catch up mid-ride.
Drink mix, gel, bar or solid
These are four ways to solve the same problem, and the reason to carry more than one is that palates fatigue. Four hours of the same sweet gel becomes genuinely unpleasant.
- Drink mixes carry fuel and fluid together, which is efficient and easy to
- take in steadily
- Gels are fast, concentrated and convenient in a hard effort
- Bars and solids sit better on longer, steadier rides and stop the stomach
- feeling like it has had nothing real in it
Maurten's approach uses a hydrogel to carry a high carbohydrate concentration that stays comfortable to drink — which is why it is so widely used at the sharp end of racing. Amacx cover the same ground with a broader range of flavours and formats, including caffeinated options.
Caffeine, and when it helps
Caffeinated gels genuinely work for late-ride fatigue. Two things worth knowing: save them for the back half of a long ride when they will do the most good, and try them in training first. Race day is a poor time to discover how your stomach feels about caffeine at hour four.
Common questions
What should I try first?
Test everything in training. Gut tolerance is individual and it is trainable — the riders who take on 90g an hour comfortably built up to it. Start at the lower end and work up.
Which brand?
Both are good. See Maurten and Amacx separately, or ask us at the bike shop on Main Road — we will tell you what people around here actually get on with.
