Eating tips for Long rides

First I hope that the folks training for the CJBC's Longest Day have some mileage under there legs. There are only 30 days until the big ride (June 14th). A number of folks are report getting in about 200 mile weeks. That seems to be right on target for the big ride. I'm currently up to 230 miles/week but I'm a little ahead of schedule. I'm pretty sure that I have more than 1500 miles on my legs for the year so far (I haven't really kept a running total). I've already done a back to back 100/50 mile weekend and my legs seem to be fine so far.

A few folks at the last Longest Day meeting were asking about what to eat on the Longest Day. The first thing you need to know (my opinion and I'm not a doctor) is that on a 208 mile ride you will not be able to eat enough food. If you estimate that a near 200 lb rider, riding at around 15.5 mph will burn something like 700+ calories an hour (these are very 'loosey-goosey' numbers). That same rider will be riding for around 13.5 hours and end up burning around 10,000 calories for the day. That's like burning around 2+lbs of fat off your body in one day which would not be a good thing. This is not a day to worry about staying on your weight loss diet, so eat! I'd venture a guess that most cyclists would normally eat around 2500 calories in a single day. So to keep up you'll need to eat about 4 times as much food for the day. I doubt your body will have an easy time keeping up with the digestion needs. This is why it's important to experiment with food on your training rides. To stay even close you need to eat while you ride. So find out what you can tolerate and what you can't tolerate while doing your training rides.

I've discovered that on normal Centuries and Double Metrics (I do these all the time) I can drink my Lemon-Lime Gatorade mixed to about 50% powder/water (I prefer the mix). I can eat pretty much anything but no large quanti! ties. If too much food sits in my stomach for long periods of hard effort I tend to get an upset stomach which will ruin the entire ride. On a Double Century I've found that I can't drink the same drink all day long. I need different flavors and I like to have small amounts of soda at the rest stops (gives a different texture also). And don't forget that sometimes regular water is exactly what you need but don't drink it exclusively as it doesn't replace the lost electrolytes. Oh one last thing, a cyclist (thanks Ed) told me that he find bibs to cause less stomach problems than short because the elastic waist band on shorts restricts your stomach. I haven't tried a bib but this sounds like a good idea.

As for food, I've found that normal mix of gorp (mixed nuts, chocolate candy and dried fruits), bananas, PBnJ, gels and various cycling bars also work well. Again, I want real food during the ride so at lunch I'll order a mustard sub (I have some other things like Turkey, Swiss, Lettuce and Tomatoes with my Mustard) and eat part of it at one stop and finish it off over several stops. Various candy, pastries and cakes may work well for you as well. I enjoy rice/marshmallow bars as it's solid food, plenty of sugar and it tastes good. One thing I really recommend you avoid is heavy foods that may contain heavy creams or grease. Your digestive system may not handle these well on such long rides.

Now here's one thing I haven't heard asked about: Caffeine and these new 'energy' products. If you plan to use caffeinated gels I'd recommend you save them for the lower half of the ride. If you normally have a coffee or tea in the morning continue to do so but during the ride don't go nuts with caffeinated products. I've found that by saving them for the lower half (after Chatsworth or May's Landing) that I get a pick-me-up during the mental doldrums of the Pine Barrens. Use caffeine too much during the day and your body will just get used to it. As for these! new 'wo nder' drinks that only have 4 calories but work for '5 hours', I am more than sceptically about them. Where are they pulling this energy from? I've tried Red Bull but it has little boosting affect on me.

Oh one last thing, Ice Cream and Dairy products. Some cyclists can not handle dairy on long rides (I can). It gives them flatulence (gas, the winds, etc). My friend Mark and myself have found that Ice Cream works well for us on long rides so we'll be using it.

Longest Day Training

This past weekend was cloudy and a bit chilly but better than the previous weekend. The previous weekend was the CJBC's Farmlands ride. I did the Century (103 miles). I just couldn't seem to get my legs to spin. I just wasn't comfortable. So I rode to a 16.5 mph avg. Three weeks previous it was in the low 80's, I did a century and road the a 17+ mph avg. This last weekend was much better, my avg 17.3 mph for 105 miles. I did manage to strain a muscle and I had spin with my right leg to get up over a small steep hill in the back of Monroe. I then rode Sunday, the leg was still mildly sore but working quite well. So it looks like it's not serious damage.

This weekend is going to be an interesting ride. It's my ride down to Tuckerton (down the shore :-). It's a 129 - 131 mile ride. I thought the mileage would have scared off most riders because I listed it as 120 - 140 miles. I had two riders two weeks before the ride. I usually have to wait until the night before to find out how many riders I'll have on my Saturday ride. My usual riders will be riding the Montauk Century on Sunday so they won't be riding with me. The two gentlemen I'll have are tri-athletes. This will interesting as I try to teach them to work together (minor pace lines). They're used to riding alone and no pace lines. I think this will be difficult in the Pine Barrens. One of the two had suggested that they'd just put on their IPOD ear buds but I warned them that this is dangerous. At least I don't have to worry about dragging them around as they are at least a full mph faster than me. The next week will be another 120 or so.

Oh my god, I'm bald!

It was a wonderful weekend for riding in NJ. Saturday's ride (2008/4/12) was a 76 mile flat ride down to Pemberton. The weather was predicted to be rain with thunder storms and low 50's F for a high. Instead we started out with fog and 58F. Within 15 minutes the sun came out. Another 30 minutes and it felt like low 70's. After a short climb in Assunpink Park we removed the excess clothing. Shortly we were on our way enjoying one of the first nice weekend days this year (there have been several really nice weekdays). We diverted from my original route a little bit when one of the riders forgot his Camelbak but had water bottles. That ended up shorting the ride a bit but I didn't realize that until after the ride. Anyway, this meant we had to fill up more often. We soon got into a comfortable pace and were riding and joking like we always do. The miles tend to tick off fast and I was enjoying the sites (wild life and the Pine Barrens in Ft. Dix). We stopped in New Egypt, a busy town, popular with Cyclist. The WaWa is very friendly towards cyclist and they have plenty of goodies (good and bad ;-)). We then stopped in Allentown, I was a little disappointed when they didn't have gallon size water for sale (don't use the tap water). I know of a store that has water just outside Allentown so I'll stop there next time. I instead picked up two small Gatorade, Berry flavored drinks. That lasted the final 11 miles until the end. During the ride there were four of us riding, JD, Sandy, Mark and myself. We each took a turn at the front of the pace line and we were doing quite well. Also the last half had a nice tail wind (I rarely see those). Mark surprised Sandy and myself when 'Sir Issac Newton' (as I like to call him) rocketed over the Rt. 195 over pass on Old York Rd. Sandy and I had trouble catching him and JD. Once we caught on Mark pulled for about four miles (it's how we train for longer rides like the Longest Day). Anyway at this point the corner of one of the thunder storms began to catch us and ! we got a little rain. Apparently we just missed a heavy down pour as the roads were soaked. So only a few rain droplets, very wet road, sun, warmth, sun burn (we didn't apply sun block) and an 18 mph avg for 69 miles. That was a great day. Here's Saturday's route.

Sunday's ride turned out to be almost as nice. It started out sunny in low 50's and windy (from the West). I wasn't leading this ride, Ken Leon was. He had 22 riders for the 16 - 17 mph avg ride. We started out by leaving Cranbury and heading West into the wind. That split the group in two but we soon pulled ourselves back into one group. After a while we started to pull ourselves together but the 'pace line' had a huge problem with yo-yo-ing. I decided I'd spend a bit more time towards the front (although I wasn't on the front too often). There were a few sections where I got on the front but I kept pulling he group apart so I kept it to a minimum. Most of the ride I kept hearing this weird clicking noise. When we reached Clarksburg Deli (Le Chateau to the locals) it became a little more obvious that my tire was bald, the threads were showing through and the tire began to bulge (in several places). I only have around 5K miles on the tire (I got the bike last May). I've never worn out a tire before I tend to buy cheaper heavy tires and replace then when they begin to crack. Well it seemed obvious that the tire had to be replaced right away (I have two spare tires, three spare tubes in my Camelbak). The rest of the ride we a lot more quite. We averaged 16.7 mph for the day. Not a bad two day total. Here's Sunday's route.

Next week, I'll be doing a century on Saturday. I hope we can get to 18 mph but more likely it will be in the 17's. The tail wind on the last 28.9 miles on Saturday's ride really helped with the 18 mph pace. I think I'll be doing the Cranbury - Sooey Rd.

Nice weekend for a ride

Thos (a visiting rider) had a bit of a bad day as he broke his handle bar early on my weekend club ride. Luckily he wasn't leaning on it when he discovered it was 'loose' (broke). He refused to turn around and continued the ride. He still had the left (front) brake but he couldn't shift or use the rear brake. He still managed to keep up (good work Thos) and we averaged a nice 16.8 mph pace over 65 miles. Early on Mark had suggested that we cut the ride back to the 50's because a few of us couldn't ride this last week (it was very windy) but I was determined to hit a metric (hence the extra meandering above). Next week it's going to be about 75 miles so I have several choices:

• East to Allenwood via Farmingdale(74)
• West to Sergentsville(70)
• South to Pemberton (75)

It will depend on which way the wind blows (literally) but I'm thinking Allenwood. I wanted to do that this weekend but with Easter the local roads would have been too crowded. So I opted for the lesser traveled roads South. I'll probably do Sergentsville in two weeks and only add a little more mileage since it's so much more hilly. Pemberton the week after with more mileage to put it in the mid 80's (I'll post a new route). The reason for the early long mileage is that I'm training for the Longest Day (register here). That and I like long miles. ;-) This year I have a nice 130 - 140 mile ride but I'm not sure how well that will go over. I'll need to discuss that with my riders.

This year's first commute!

Yesterday was a good day to commute (19 miles one way). It started out at 30F and quickly rose into the low 40's. I think I was slightly over dressed as I would get hot from time to time. The wind would make me a bit cold but the hills would block the wind and I'd heat up nicely. I had forgotten how difficult it was to ride my Truk (Trek) 1100.

The reason for the name Truk is that have a BOB trailer that I tow behind the Trek and the thing handles like a truck. My Trek 1100 hails from 1995. It was my first 'expensive bike' that I picked up at a year end sale. It was the bike I did my first Longest Day with. I didn't like it for the Longest Day as the seat sits flat (I tend to go nose down, a lot).

Anyway, the triple helped with the hills as the trailer really slowed me down a lot. The trailer changes the bike's handling in a big way. When you hit bumps in the road you feel it on all three tires. If you're not ready for it it can cause you to lose your grip. When you hit a small dip the front wheel becomes light as the third wheel dips and the center wheel becomes the pivot point. This can cause you to lose control when going you're going fast so you have to take it easy on the descents. Turns are interesting because as you lean the weight of the trailer wants to straighten you back up. The faster you go the more pronounced the effect. And finally it take a lot longer to slow down and stop because of the added weight. Still the trailer is very useful as a training tool. My legs are still feeling the climbs, 2214 ft total over 40 miles. That's more than most of my centuries (I'm a flatlander, which means I ride in an extremely flat area). I'll have a few more hilly centuries this year and this should help.