Managing and Planning for Nutritions on Long Rides

A lot of riders thinks cycling is about strength and speed. It might be true in short distance ride of 50km or less, but on rides of 80km or more, nutrition management is very important and preparation for this kind of ride is very important. In the recent ride, I watched quite a few gung ho riders (who may have thought they are strong) cycle with very little care for drinks and eating. You can see the fatigue and tiredness sets in on the 100km mark especially when some joker decides to "test" some of the cyclist in the peloton with 50km/hr dash into Ijok. Strong headwind sometimes does not help as well, when u are pacing at 32-34km/hr.

On long rides, it is good to have two bottles of drinks, one bottle with energy/recovery drink while the other with plain water. This has to be consumed at a rate of one or two sip every 10-15 minutes. It will also be good to have carbo loading either in the form of the 50 sen bun every hour or so or at stopping station. Always remember that as rides gets into the late morning towards afternoon, your body tends to loose a lot more water and the water bottle need to be filled up more often.

If you eat or drink when your are tired, you are already drinking/eating too late and this will affect your performance. In some cases, this can bring onset of cramps and this will be most difficult to recover from. Do bring a sachet of powergel/or powerbar in case of emergency.

Cycling is about keeping constant pace, having to slowdown and speed up waste energy, so try to minimise changes of speed. Manage and plan your nutrition on long rides please.