World champion Magdeleine Vallieres has described the demeaning treatment that characterised the earlier part of her racing career, with a coach grabbing her stomach on a daily basis and "blackmailing us with food".

The 24-year-old Canadian became underweight, frequently ill, and obsessed with food, she said in an interview with L'Équipe. Her period also stopped for a time.

Things improved after she moved to current team EF Education-Oatly, but it still took her a long time to get back to a healthy mindset around nutrition, she said.

Referring to an unnamed coach at her previous set-up, the WCC Team, Vallieres said: "He told us we were fat, that we would be better off if we were lighter. He blackmailed us with food, saying that if we ate certain things, we’d have to run behind the team car.

"When someone grabs your stomach every morning to show you that you’re fat, it eventually gets into your head."

Vallieres said she was still learning the basics, and that she did not understand the importance of adequately fuelling training sessions.

“I restricted myself… he said we weren’t allowed to eat sugar, even though we actually needed it. I ate more salad than anything else; it didn’t do me any good, it only made me feel worse,” she said.

After two seasons at WCC, she joined EF Education-Tibco-SVB for 2022, where things began to improve.

But, she said: "It took a year before I had a healthy mindset around nutrition again. Anna, the team’s nutritionist, told me that getting my period back was becoming a priority – and that was also what I wanted, because I knew it wasn’t normal."

Proper fuelling and nutrition saw Vallieres achieve a healthy racing weight just before the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, and the way she celebrated was proof she had shaken her food anxieties.

"I celebrated by buying myself a small cake, and my team-mates came to congratulate me," she said. "Anna kept telling me how much stronger I was going to become."

Vallieres is far from the only recent story surrounding women's health in cycling. Only two weeks ago, Vallieres' EF Education team-mate Veronica Ewers announced a pause from racing after revealing she had not had her period in years and that she had become physically broken down.

"I’ve put myself into a hole by abusing my body for too long… My body needs a full reset before it can be at its best. I’m tired of being mediocre," Ewers said.

Previously, this year's Tour de France Femmes winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot's weight loss made the headlines with the French rider criticised for shedding a reported 4kg in preparation for the race. She was accused in social media of setting a poor example to young girls, and competitor Marlen Reusser said that Ferrand-Prévot's strategy "puts pressure on all of us".

As for Vallieres, she has her own opinions: "Being thin to win is not a good example for the next generation. It’s not right. My experience has taught me that being healthy is the best way to perform."

I peered dubiously at the plastic disc in my hand, with its little needle protruding from the centre. I have no major beef with needles, but this was different – I had to somehow find the gumption to press it in, all the way, and leave it there.

The disc was a CGM biosensor (CGM meaning continuous glucose monitor), and once stuck on the skin, it would transmit real-time blood-glucose levels to an app on my phone. All very Buck Rogers.

It had been sent to me by Lingo, a CGM brand produced by UK medical device company Abbott, to try out for a month. Beyond actually getting the thing applied (which we'll get to in a moment), I was looking forward to taking a look under the bonnet in a way that few people beyond your GP get to see.

CGMs are popular with diabetics, for whom blood sugar monitoring is absolutely vital. There is some debate over exactly how much benefit they can offer a healthy individual for training and exercise, but some swear by them.

Ultra-distance nutritionist Jill Mooney for example, who has appeared regularly in Cycling Weekly and the Going Long podcast, is a big fan of their use in ultra training and events.

As for me, a perennial surfeit of adipose tissue (let's just say it out loud – I'm overweight) meant I had extra skin in the game, and I was interested in whether real-time glucose monitoring might help me eat sensibly.

Pain-free gains

Applying the biosensor was, in the event, completely painless. The accompanying applicator that Lingo supplies certainly helped expedite the process (not to mention the fact that, unbeknownst to me, it was spring loaded). Once stuck on, the sensor began transmitting via Bluetooth and in a short while the data began appearing on the app.

Seeing the inner workings of your body appearing, in real time, on a line graph in front of you is quite impressive. Anyone who has ever used a heart-rate monitor will be familiar with it, of course, but this is a little different in that the actual content of your blood is being examined. It's not like a pulse, which you can take by placing a couple of fingers on your wrist.

The Lingo app is easy to use and easy to read, and allows the user to add 'events' throughout the day, such as bouts of exercise and meals, which are then used to annotate a rolling glucose line graph which continues 24/7.

Each biosensor lasts two weeks before it stops transmitting – I was initially sent two. Enough, I hoped, to give a little insight into my body and exactly what it made of that second beer or that doorstep sandwich, and of course how the healthier parts of my diet were affecting it.

No drama

As a fully signed-up member of hypochondriacs anonymous, when the initial figures came through I was gratified to note that there was no apparent need to head immediately to A&E. I studied the little line for a while as it… did not very much at all. I watched it meander across the screen with an almost disappointing lack of drama before putting the phone down and getting on with some work.

It will come as no surprise that snacks, meals, exercise, all affect blood glucose (sugar) levels. We're constantly being told to avoid sugar spikes and associated crashes by choosing foods that are lower on the glycaemic index, or perhaps to pair sugary foods with fats or protein to reduce the spike, or to take a short walk after a meal to help reduce boost glucose control.

According to ZOE, co-founded by preeminent nutritional scientist Tim Spector, repeated large glucose spikes can be inflammatory and put heart health in jeopardy. Blood sugar that is consistently too high can also ultimately lead to diabetes, as the body becomes slowly less efficient at responding to it. There's no doubt that blood sugar matters.

It isn't only diet that affects blood sugar. Exercise, as you might expect, also plays a part. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself even as I was pulling on my cycling kit for my first bout of Lingo-assisted Zwifting, imagining the line on the graph falling to baseline levels that could only indicate some sort of mega-healthiness.

Imagine my surprise when it did no such thing; instead, it began rising steadily, staying within healthy range but only beginning to tail off once I'd stopped. It didn't take much Googling (plus a little common sense) to realise that, of course, the muscles need glucose when they're being tasked with exercise, and it is delivered via the blood. Despite the temporary spike, exercise leaves the body with long-term glucose-control benefits that are great for health, and is most definitely a good thing.

Once I'd realised that my body seemed to respond in a generally healthy way to both diet and exercise, it felt like the job of the CGM had largely been done. The only thing left to do was to refine my food choices and smooth out the spikes that did exist. I learned that much of my standard diet left the CGM with little to shout at me about, although perhaps a breakfast of Greek yoghurt and berries was slightly better than a bowl of low sugar muesli.

Call of the cake tin

However, when things went a bit sideways and the call of the cake tin proved more powerful than my own will, the line on the chart reacted with a predictably sharp upward spike. As such, wearing the CGM and being linked up to the app had the effect of making me eat more carefully during the time I was wearing it. No bad thing.

It's worth pointing out that CGMs may not be perfectly accurate. A 2025 study by the University of Bath found that they tended to read higher than fingerprick blood tests, which are still deemed to be the gold standard, and could lead to unnecessary or poor dietary changes in healthy individuals. However, the study still rated CGMs as "fantastic tools for people with diabetes".

The Lingo CGM comes at a cost, of course, and in the realm of CGMs it's very reasonable – you can buy the biosensors for as little as £48 per two weeks if you sign up for a 12-week bundle. A one-off purchase will cost £59. A pair costs £99.

Would I spend my own money to sign up again? Not right away, but I could definitely imagine investing for, perhaps, a month a year. £99 doesn't get you much in cycling (or anything else) these days, and for a potential annual health boost it sounds like remarkably good value.

Cycling is full of rites of passage, whether it’s falling over sideways outside a crowded pub garden in clipless pedals or, on a more positive note, riding your first century. Somewhere along the line, you're also likely to experience the bonk for the first time. Often memorable but never fun, it's a need for food, or sugary drink, that goes way beyond hunger or thirst – rather, it's a feeling of having been hollowed out and completely drained of energy.

The usual remedy involves repairing to the nearest garage forecourt and consuming your bodyweight in confection and sugary drinks. Once you’ve experienced it, you’re unlikely to forget the importance of fuelling your riding – and what happens when we don't consume enough. The idea for sufficient energy is obvious enough, but there is a vast array of options on where exactly that energy comes from. Should we choose 'real' food – bananas, home-made flapjacks and the like – or pre-packaged sports nutrition, gels and powdered drinks?

Some riders stick rigidly to a fuelling plan, at least for certain sessions. But if, like me, that just sounds too much like being organised, your reality is probably closer to simply grabbing whatever is at hand. There's a banana in the fruit bowl? Great. One last gel in the pack? Lovely – into the back pocket it goes. Just to complicate matters, modern nutrition science is calling into question how exactly to classify foods as ‘real’ or not.

If you're planning to fuel your ride with multiple petrol station forays, a lot of what you might be stocking up on has come to be known as UPF – ultra-processed foods. This is the sort of stuff that has long lists of ingredients, many of which are a far cry from anything you'll find in your kitchen. This type of food comes in a packet, and is increasingly being implicated in global health concerns (see panel) – and can’t be considered ‘real’ in any meaningful sense. The same goes for almost all sports fuel products: they fall under the UPF umbrella too.

There are, of course, different reasons for choosing one type of fuel over another – among which health is only one. Expense is certainly one of the chief reasons riders might choose non-sports food. With gels costing between £1.50-£2 each, even when bought in bulk, the outlay quickly mounts. In its favour, sports fuel is widely regarded as the most efficient way to deliver high energy loads rapidly into your bloodstream, which might mean you consider it a worthwhile expense.

Ida Bergsløkken is a performance nutritionist and former performance chef at EF Education-EasyPost who advocates using both real and sports nutrition in combination. "I see real food as super important as a baseline for everyone, whether you're a top-level [athlete] or an amateur," Bergsløkken says. "Everyone needs a certain amount of micronutrients and with sports food, you're just thinking about carbs, proteins and fat – you're not necessarily getting the magnesium, zinc, B-vitamins, etc, that you need.”

On the issue of sports fuel being classified as ultra-processed, Bergsløkken emphasises that most of the food we eat should be unequivocally real. "Everyone should make a bigger effort to prepare meals using real food,” she says, “and then the [relatively small quantity of ultra-processed] sports nutrition in itself wouldn't really be a problem." For hard training, Bergsløkken advises that it is hard to beat dedicated sports nutrition for getting energy to the muscles as efficiently as possible.

"If you do a hard interval session, you’d not want to be trying to eat a flapjack. You would want a drink or gel. If it’s once or twice a week, its being ultra-processed is not an issue. The problem comes if you consume lots of sports drinks and gels, and then don't eat proper food at home. If you only eat fast food meals, then you're in for really big trouble."

That trouble, explains Bergsløkken, may manifest in the form of sub-optimal mitochondrial health. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells and crucial in athletic performance. Too many UPFs may also result in a lack of vitamins and magnesium, and the antioxidants that help buffer training stress. That’s not to say the occasional takeaway spells disaster. "In the end, what you do most is what's going to matter," says the nutritionist.

As most cyclists know, taste fatigue on long rides can be a real problem. After four or five hours of hoovering up the sweet stuff, many riders find themselves desperate for something savoury. This is why pro riders are often supplied not just with gels and drinks but also with savoury rice cakes or paninis. Someone who is used to prescribing fuel for the longest rides is endurance nutritionist Jill Mooney (BarrUltra.com), who concisely says, "the fastest way to a DNF is through the gut." Though some of the riders Mooney works with do use gels and bars, she is a strong advocate of real foods, both on and off the bike.

"The meals at home are nutrition," says Mooney, "and the food on the bike is fuel." What is her fuel of choice for on the bike? "You can carry a few little croissants and sandwiches, but keep it simple. Jam, butter, ham, it doesn't matter – you just want simple food that you know works for you. A banana is just a gel in a skin – it's about 30g of carbohydrate. Any chocolate bar will do – as long as it doesn't melt, and holds form in your pocket." Mooney takes a similar stance on pre-made cereal bars: "Find a bar that works for you. Any bar will do, any kind of muesli bar," she says.

Mooney makes reference to her husband Joe Barr, the veteran Northern Irish ultra-distance racer, former RAAM age category winner and World Ultra Cycling Association champion. In Joe’s multi-day epic rides, Mooney explains, he needs energy delivered at a slower and very sustainable rate – 30-40g of carbohydrate per hour, compared to the 60-90g/hr prescribed for high-intensity sessions.

Eating for recovery

Beyond fuelling rides, nutrition also has an impact on the improvements we make afterwards while recovering off the bike. This is an area where 'real' foods are as effective, if not more so, than sports products, although you still need to think about what you're eating. "Recovery starts with how well you fuelled your ride,” says Mooney. “If you're coming in really depleted, in a hole, that's a different recovery from getting home after having fuelled your ride well.”

In either case, "the first thing you want to do is give your body a little bit of easy to access carb and a little bit of protein." Mooney recommends standard, shop-bought 1% fat chocolate milk. "If you can handle dairy, it's brilliant," she says. "It has a three-to-one ratio of carbohydrate to protein." After a hard training ride, Barr downs some chocolate milk, has a shower, then tucks into a simple wholefood meal such as a tuna sandwich.

Bergsløkken is also a fan of wholefood recovery meals: "Instead of a protein shake, egg-fried rice is really simple. You can even pre-cook the rice before your ride, then just fry once you get back. Add the eggs with maybe some onions and peppers and some spinach, and then you have a meal made in five minutes.” It’s not only simple, but nutritionally optimal too. “The carbs are easily absorbed and, made with three or four eggs, you have around 20 grams of protein."

Both of our experts come from different areas of cycle sport, but there is one thing they agree on: the importance of real, whole food meals away from the bike. Neither shies away from recommending ultra-processed options as on-bike fuel, believing that any potentially harmful effects are mitigated by a good off-bike diet.

In the end, fixating on whether to fuel with gels or flapjacks during your ride misses the bigger picture. Both have their place, and neither will make or break your performance on their own. What matters more is the quality of your everyday diet. A nutrient-dense, wholefood approach off the bike has a greater long-term impact on your training, recovery and long-term health than any mid-ride snack ever could.

Ultra-processed – but is it ultra-harmful?

Thanks to high-profile doctors such as Chris Van Tulleken, TV presenter and author of Ultra Processed People, ultra-processed food – UPF – is on more people’s radar than ever before. Research has shown it is seriously implicated in societal health issues, with campaigners calling for tighter regulations and even bans.

The globally recognised Nova food classification defines UPF as follows: "Industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients… Processes and ingredients here are designed to create highly profitable, convenient, tasteful alternatives to [less processed foods]."

So which foods are considered UPFs? The usual suspects, biscuits, crisps, ready meals and confectionary, but also some you might not suspect, including supermarket bread and putatively healthy fat-free flavoured yoghurts. In South America, Chile, Brazil and Colombia have all moved to regulate UPF, with policies including black 'Stop' octagons on food packaging, taxation and bans in schools – the latter followed by Spain too.

A key argument against UPF is that it is highly engineered, from packaging to flavour to 'mouth feel', to be moreish – essentially, making it easy to ingest far more calories than you might if eating whole foods. More overeating means more profits for UPF makers. The safety of some ingredients is also being called into question.

A study by Naimi, Viennois, Gewirtz et al in the journal Microbiome demonstrated that some emulsifiers – an ingredient found widely in ultra-processed foods including low-fat yoghurts and bread, can adversely affect the all-important gut microbiome. The hazards of UPF are still being grappled with, and we can expect it to climb to the top of the health agenda in the coming years.

DIY energy drink

Want to save the pennies? Fuel like the tightest northerner at CW…

If you like the idea of the efficiency of dedicated sports fuel but are put off by the expense, you could try making your own – the preferred approach of CW’s group art editor Daniel Baines. He regularly rides long distances, both on and off-road, and makes his own drinks using maltodextrin and table sugar.

"I wouldn't say I'm an expert on this – it's more about me being too tight to splash out on energy drink," Dan jokes. "I bought maltodextrin at £8 for 2kg, which I mix 50/50 with table sugar and then add some electrolyte mix – hot water makes it mix well – then I'll add some squash to flavour it."

Dan finds this combination of sugars easier on his gut than the maltodextrin and fructose mix usually found in sports drinks. One of the advantages of making your own energy drink recipe is that you can adjust it to suit the distance or intensity you plan to ride. "I try to plan for intensity, and weigh it out," Dan says. "I know I can put up with about 90 grams per hour, but I rarely ride at this intensity now – 50 grams an hour is more suitable for my longer, steadier rides.” He adds: "If I know there are water replenishment places, I’ll take a bottle of really concentrated mix, which I then divide with a full bottle of water. I can get about 300 grams in a 500ml bottle, which lasts about six hours.”

His verdict on taking the DIY route? "It just makes sense financially. For any 'A' races I'll use a commercially made sports drink, just for peace of mind. But for a four-hour Sunday ride pottering along, I don't need to spend a fortune."

This feature originally appeared in the 12 June 2025 print edition of Cycling Weekly, on sale in newsagents and supermarkets, priced £3.35. You can subscribe through this link here.

Cyclists chase watts per kilo with obsessive precision – but what’s the real cost of pursuing extreme leanness? While stories of disordered eating in the pro peloton occasionally make headlines, the true scale of the issue remains dangerously under-acknowledged, especially among male riders. I know this from experience.

In 2020, I was diagnosed with anorexia. Now, looking back, I realise the first signs I showed of an eating disorder came in 2018, at the age of 22. I had started controlling what I ate as a way of coping with adult life, having finished my education and stepped into the wider world. I felt a sense of solace and achievement in limiting my food, and I was motivated to continue, particularly as society rewarded the ‘discipline’ of my slowly shrinking frame.

Well-meaning friends and family told me I was beginning to look like a “real athlete”. To almost everyone, I was thriving, young, and keen to stay fit – a perception that suited me fine. The shame that accompanies an eating disorder turned me into a great liar, an expert at hiding my struggles, and over time, as my behaviours continued to go unchallenged – or were even praised – they gradually became more pronounced.

I first found joy in cycling when I hopped on a Wattbike in the gym. It allowed me to switch off, escape the world, sweat and move. In a short time, though, I became hooked, and with the arrival of Covid-19 in early 2020, I began to spiral, spending hours upon hours every day on the stationary bike in my family home. I rode on little to no food to fuel my body, and only really stopped to shower, sleep and go out for a short walk. I was caught in an exhausting routine that I knew was killing me, but I was petrified to step out of it. Only now, after years of treatment and therapy, am I in a place where I can again ride competitively and begin to speak out about eating disorders in men.

It is impossible to say how many men in the UK suffer from an eating disorder, as the research does not exist. The basic estimate widely cited is 25% of the number of females affected – but this seems to me to be far too simplistic. A more realistic estimate suggests that men may represent up to 40% of eating disorder cases but are less likely to be identified and treated. Even among women, though there is greater awareness, the diagnosis and care of eating disorders remains far from perfect.

When it comes to male cyclists, eating disorders are severely underreported. Way back in 2007, a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that 19.7% of competitive male cyclists surveyed were at risk of disordered eating behaviours. Notably, only a fraction of these men self-identified as having an eating disorder, suggesting underreporting and lack of awareness. The estimated figure of 20% of male cyclists being at risk of developing an eating disorder may be far too low.

Tip of the iceberg

In 2020, research comparing cyclists and triathletes revealed that 17.1% of male cyclists were at risk of developing an eating disorder, compared to 15.6% of male triathletes. Based on my conversations with cycling insiders, 17.1% is unrealistically low. The British Journal of Sports Medicine has reported that, of male athletes with eating disorders, less than 10% seek professional help or receive a formal diagnosis. The known cases may be the tip of the iceberg.

The intersection of performance obsession, weight-consciousness and metrics culture in cycling is the perfect recipe for disordered eating and body image issues. Cycling by its nature rewards a leaner, lighter frame. Performance-minded cyclists are innately highly motivated individuals and if they see improvements linked to weight loss, that can become addictive to the point where there is still a drive to restrict food even after gains cease. For many, cycling is not just a hobby but a way of life inextricable from self-worth, discipline and identity.

Watts per kilo being a core performance indicator in cycling is a huge factor in cyclists restricting their eating. Cycling’s ‘metrics culture’ – with Strava, TrainingPeaks, Garmin, MyFitnessPal, etc, to measure everything – encourages constant tracking. The lighter the athlete, the higher the watts per kilo – but getting ever lighter is not sustainable. Once a rider becomes preoccupied with weight loss, they are at far greater risk of developing an eating disorder.

Privateer racer and CW contributor Joe Laverick has been candid about his experience. “Negative food relationships became part and parcel of the job,” he says. Over time, Laverick learned the cost – burnout, especially after the five-day Redlands Classic in 2024. His coach’s mantra now rings in his ears: “What’s the return on investment?” If underfueling won’t help him, it’s off the table. While Laverick hasn’t witnessed overt purging behaviours among pro riders, conversations about “eating too much” were common. Encouragingly, he believes awareness is growing. “Nutrition is left to nutritionists now,” he says, “not coaches.”

Slave to the calorie counter

At the peak of my eating disorder, I would go as far as counting out cherry tomatoes and weighing salad leaves in order to keep my MyFitnessPal calorie tracking as accurate as possible. This kind of obsessive behaviour begins to take over your life. I had been ‘functioning’ with an eating disorder since late 2018, but was forced to confront it when, during the rolling lockdowns of Covid-19, I became critically unwell.

I had left London and returned to our family home in Ireland, with no job and confined to the house and a small patch of Irish countryside. I would cycle for hours, eating very little food. I may have started riding a bike to keep fit, but my mind made a lethal shift to using cycling as a way to exert control over my body. Gaining weight became a really unsettling prospect, missing one of my many daily sessions was anxiety-inducing, and eating became a shameful experience.

The double whammy of depression and anorexia was becoming a life-threatening mix. Without help, either suicidal thoughts or chronic under-eating were going to kill me.

It wasn’t until the end of September 2020 that I finally showed signs of being open to intervention. It was the moment my parents especially were waiting for. Without their emotional and financial support I would not be here today. Before I knew it, I was sitting in front of a psychiatrist for an assessment. I don’t remember much about that appointment, but I do remember the official diagnosis. Being told I had anorexia, depression and a form of exercise addiction didn’t feel cathartic; instead, I sat there blank-faced and just said “OK”. It was all too much for me to fully comprehend at the time, and I had become so despondent that I just went with the current, which thankfully led me to recovery.

Since my diagnosis, while no longer on antidepressants or in formal treatment for my eating disorder, I remain in therapy. Having spoken to cyclists and experts for this feature, I’m hopeful that pro teams are developing greater awareness of the risk of eating disorders. Coaches need to be vigilant of their athletes’ eating habits, and any concerns should prompt referral to an eating disorder specialist or sports psychologist. There have been improvements. For example, British Athletics coaches suspend the training of any female athlete who has not had a period for two months. No such protocol exists for male athletes, of course – but there are tell-tale signs in men. Loss of libido and absence of morning erections indicate that the male body is seriously short on energy.

The problem is not solely that men are reluctant to open up – the research needs to catch up too. If men like me are willing to revisit the darkest days of our eating disorders to help raise awareness, our impact is limited by outdated, insufficient and, in certain areas, non-existent research.

If there’s one fact we can’t afford to ignore, it’s this: eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. An estimated 5-10% of people with anorexia will die from the condition. I’ve been lucky – sustained by the steady support of family and friends, I’ve learned to live with and manage my illness. But no athlete, male or female, should ever find themselves on that dangerous path. We need to talk more, act sooner, and do better – because for some, the stakes are nothing less than life itself.

If you’ve been affected by the issues raised in this article, help is available from Beat: beateatingdisorders.org.uk

Eating disorders: the stark statistics

17% The estimated percentage of competitive male cyclists at significant risk of disordered eating behaviours.

6% The estimated percentage of competitive male cyclists who have fallen prey to disordered eating.

5x Reported increase in male cyclists referred for eating disorders over a single year (2019).

79% The estimated percentage of male cyclists reporting having deliberately tried to manipulate their body weight in the last 12 months, with 95% of these doing so with the aim to lower their weight.

69% The percentage of cyclists who reported using deliberate reduction in food intake as a form of weight loss strategy.

46% The estimated percentage of male cyclists who’ve felt pressure from coaches or team-mates to lose weight.

Spotting the signs

To better understand how disordered eating can take hold in cyclists, I spoke with sports psychologist Dr Josephine Perry. She outlined the ‘three Ps’ that coaches, friends and family can use to spot the signs.

1. Predisposing traits
Cyclists often exhibit the classic triad of anxiety, sensitivity and perfectionism. These traits can drive athletic success – meticulous attention to detail, relentless effort – but they can also lead to unhealthy behaviours. When these tendencies become obsessive or trigger defensiveness, they may be early signs of trouble.

2. Precipitating behaviours
A single, seemingly innocent comment such as, “If you lost a bit of weight, you’d climb faster,” can trigger harmful behaviours. I know from experience how easily such comments can stay with you, resurfacing years later and derailing progress. Coaches must be mindful of their language – the smallest remark can have lasting consequences.

3. Perpetuating patterns: The ABCDE
To intervene early, be alert to the following signs:

A: Absence – Withdrawing from meals, eating alone or gradually restricting intake.

B: Body – Frequent comments like “I feel fat” are red flags; “fat” is not a feeling – it’s often a mask for low self-esteem.

C: Control – Obsessive eating habits or restrictive patterns (e.g. intermittent fasting) may be rationalised but are risky for athletes.

D: Diet – Cutting out food groups without medical reason can signal disordered thinking.

E: Exercise – Overtraining or “calorie accounting” via rides or workouts is a hidden form of purging.

Matteo Jorgenson grinds to a halt after his Tour de France time trial and parks up along the barriers in Caen. Exhausted and gasping with thirst, he reaches for a bottle from his soigneur, and sips at its contents. He’s then passed a blue carton, its cap already unscrewed, and, in a gulp, necks all of the liquid inside. When Jonas Vingegaard arrives shortly afterwards, the ritual is repeated again.

You might have spotted the blue cartons on the television. Visma-Lease a Bike aren’t the only ones drinking from them – EF Education-Easypost are too – while other teams' riders swig dark red liquid from plastic bottles beyond the finish line.

So what are they drinking? What’s the mystery fluid? The answer isn’t as scientific as you might think: it’s cherry juice.

“They say it’s a good dose of antioxidants,” Jorgenson tells Cycling Weekly. “We’ve been using it for years – the team’s been using it for a long time, even before I joined. I think it works well.”

The blue cartons of Visma and EF come courtesy of nutrition brand Amacx, and contain a recovery product with sour cherry extract, a substance rich in anthocyanins, which help stave off body cell damage.

According to EF’s team doctor, David Hulse, the extract first cropped up in the peloton over a decade ago, and is now used widely.

How, then, do cherries help? “They contain extremely high concentrations of antioxidants and flavonoids, and have two functions,” Hulse begins. “One is to reduce inflammation, which is an important part of recovery for multi-day stage races. The other is to mop up the free radicals [unstable molecules], which are potentially harmful and can cause further inflammation.”

In the past, Hulse explains, riders might have received a small can of Fanta at a race finish. “The idea was to deliver a high amount of simple sugars to take advantage of that refuelling window,” he says.

“Now, we’re making use of the fuelling window, but the first thing we’re using is a high dose of antioxidants and flavonoids, so we’re starting the recovery process right on the finish line.”

At this year's Tour, EF’s riders have been taking two doses of Amacx cherry juice every day – one immediately after each stage, and another in the evenings.

Other teams have different ways of consuming the substance – UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Tadej Pogačar, for example, has been drinking a similar product made by Enervit, concentrated into a plastic water bottle.

“It’s really a good product to get down you,” Hulse says. “It’s also very palatable.” Jorgenson concurs: “I like the taste. The taste is good.”

Recovery products can often feel like chemical potions. Sometimes, though, they're as simple as cherry juice.

It was about 11.30pm and I was 16 hours deep into a 24-hour ultra event. Standing in a queue composed largely of boisterously belching gentlemen fresh from a night of beer swilling in the local boozer, we were all lining up for a serving of mystery meat at a kebab van parked in a layby.

Despite a collective hankering for highly calorific fare, our reasons for consuming it couldn’t be more different; The boozers wanted something that would soak up an evening’s worth of ale. I wanted something that would allow me to get back on my bicycle, boost my cycling performance and pedal with a little more urgency than I’d be able to muster for the last hour.

Of course, decked out in Spandex, I was suitably heckled: “What have you come as?” a chap in a neatly pressed Ben Sherman shirt enquired. “Shouldn’t you be on the energy bars?” another asked as I shuffled from side to side on my cleats.

Then I dropped my order. “A large kebab, a large portion of chips, two bottles of water and three cans of Coke, please.” It was a concise, calculated and cold delivery. A delivery that was met with gasps of confused admiration from my fellow patrons. “But, but, I didn’t think cyclists actually ate,” Ben Sherman stuttered.

“Oh, we eat, Ben,” I replied. “We eat a lot…”

You may think that I arrived at this juncture having poorly fuelled my ride prior to queuing up at the van. In theory I suppose I had. But it hadn’t been through a lack of trying. A 24-hour TT demands almost constant fuelling and hydration if you want to keep power up and the speed high. Aside from having a working pair of legs and a beating heart, the most important part of ultra long distance rides and races is your stomach – and, more pertinently, what you put in it.

My quest to eat as much food as humanly possible over a 24-hour period started the day prior to the event. A carb-heavy breakfast (double portions of porridge oats), was followed by a carb-heavy lunch (rice and bread) and a carb-heavy dinner (half a packet of spaghetti). This is what’s known as carb-loading. It’s also what’s known as being a fat b**tard. But ridiculously long bicycle rides offer the perfect excuse to overindulge and I was far from done for today.

A trip to the supermarket with my daughter between lunch and dinner turned into a bit of a game – a game in this case we simply called ‘Calorie Hunt’. The plan was to find – pound for pound – the most calorific items in the shop. Sound boring? Surprisingly it was extremely entertaining, particularly for my daughter – we spent an inordinate amount of time perusing then purchasing chocolate.

Aside from lard which offers a phenomenal 900 calories per 100g, the next best, and slightly more palatable option was chocolate. But not just any old chocolate. After leaving no packet unturned it was the Bitsa Wispa at 550 calories per 100g that proved the heaviest hitter. I bought three bags and decanted them into the food pouch on the cockpit of my steed.

After adding some macadamia nuts and two bags of Haribo I had what you might call a Trail Mix deluxe – a compact mélange of snackables weighing in at the best part of 5,000 calories. So that’s breakfast sorted.

0-6 hours

My first meal of the day then was a protracted affair, which I finally polished off after around 120 miles in the saddle. So six hours deep into the ride the hunt for more sustenance began.

I had emergency rations on me in the form of my favourite gels, but taste fatigue had set in and the thought of any more sugar filled me with actual revulsion. Fortunately the course was based on a loop that took in a series of small towns and villages, and on the outskirts of small towns and villages one can generally happen upon the long-distance cyclist’s best friend – petrol stations. Don’t worry, I wasn’t about to lift a nozzle and pump myself full of Shell V-Power – that would be far too costly – rather take advantage of the competitively priced junk food on offer.

6-12 hours

A meal deal yields a big hit of carbs in one nifty little package. I bought two, and a Greggs steak bake just in case. Meal deals, to those unfortunate enough not to know, comprise a main (usually in the form of a sandwich), a side (a chocolate bar or a packet or crisps – they also have packets of fruit and olives apparently), and a drink. If I’m feeling particularly decadent – today being a case in point – I’ll plump for the triple cheese sandwich on white bread, a packet of Monster Munch and a bottle of Cherry Coke. So I ate one on the petrol station forecourt and secreted the second meal deal in various places around my person and bicycle. The steak bake was eaten on the move – not the easiest fare to consume at 20mph, I spent the next two weeks sneezing out flakes of puff pastry.

Let’s break down the energy in that little repast, then: 2 x triple cheese = 1,400 cals; 2 x Monster Munch grab bags = 900cal; 2 x Cherry Coke = 600cal; 1 x steak bake = 600; for a grand total of 3,500 calories. Add to that the gels in my back pocket and I do believe we’re set for the late afternoon shift.

12-18 Hours

Four thousand calories came and went and by now I had 250 miles on the clock. They were relatively fast miles, The course was a gently undulating affair which never really trouble the fast-twitch fibres, so my legs were feeling reasonable, my backside was middling to fair but once again my stomach and muscles began muttering something about supper.

Seriously? More? Yes, more. I was already a couple of hours deep into the night shift and the Cotswolds was drawing the curtains for the day. I had no other option than to descend upon the last refuge of the interminably hungry.

And so it was that Ben Sherman ribbed me for my attire and his mate asked me why I wasn’t eating energy bars before I dropped the large kebab and chips bombshell. Had I had the energy and the inclination I would have explained that an energy bar was a waste of time that wasn’t going to fuel a further six hours of cycling, whereas what I’d just ordered – large kebab (2,000 cals), large chips (900cals) and three cans of Coke (450cals) – probably would.

18-24 Hours

In hindsight, the kebab was a bad idea. Yes, I needed salt but I didn’t want half of the Dead Sea in my dinner. My gut started revolting. It simply refused to process what I’d just offered it and there it sat, sloshing around in my stomach refusing to budge. I found a likely verge on a country lane and lay down on it. Dew already forming on the grass teased my bare neck as I parted with a long and meaningful groan.

There’s a very good reason sports nutrition and supplements are so popular among athletes. It offers a fast-release form of energy that can be easily processed by the gut. Regardless of what you eat during long-distance rides, fuel should be factored into training. Your stomach can’t be taken by surprise by a sudden onslaught of calories it’s hitherto never been required to process.

So practice eating, find out the kind of food that works for you and, of course, avoid the kebab van.

Regardless of my little setback I managed a fairly commendable 335 miles and, more importantly, learned another lesson about the highly nuanced world of ultra riding.

Professional bike racers are faster now than at any point in history. This is in part due to aerodynamic advancements but also because today’s riders are consuming better fuel—and a lot more of it. In the past, professional cyclists either didn’t understand how to fuel for endurance sports (i.e. the pre-and post-war brandy and roasted chicken era) or else were “fueling” with injectable substances (i.e. the oxygen vector doping era). As far as we know, we’ve moved past these eras and now find ourselves in a period defined by advancements in (legal) sports science.

Fuel like a pro

When it comes to fueling, the latest and greatest is specially formulated sports nutrition that provides significant caloric value without creating digestive issues (a.k.a the dreaded “internal mechanical”). Further, there is scientific evidence that supports the process of adapting the gut to tolerate more calories, combined with monitoring systems to precisely match fuel intake with racing and training demands. These are the tools pro riders are using, and they seem to be working.

Broadly speaking, this focus on fuelling and recovery has been a very positive change for endurance sports. It means faster, more dynamic racing and happier, healthier athletes. Instead of riders starving themselves to hit a certain weight or riding long days without fuel, pros have learned that the right fuel equals speed.

But this can also create issues. Not every rider is mentally or physically capable of eating concentrated carbohydrates for hours on end. Top athletes consume upwards of 100 grams of carbs per hour, and processing high volumes of sugar can not only create stomach issues in the moment but also disrupt sleep and cause tooth decay and blood-sugar variability. Eating copious amounts of carbohydrates will especially cause problems for amateur riders, who have been known to mimic pros in any way they can because ‘if it works for Tadej, it’ll work for me,’ right?

Wrong.

Professional riders can fuel at impossibly high rates because they train at correspondingly high volumes. For amateurs fitting in their training around day jobs and families, eating hefty quantities of carbohydrates can create more problems than it solves.

A learning opportunity

I experienced some of these problems during my last cyclocross season. By focusing too heavily on fueling, I actually hindered my training. While I did succeed in teaching my body to process carbs during hard efforts, I often found myself missing the power I knew ought to be there. Further, I could feel blood sugar dips after riding. It turns out my training volume simply wasn’t high enough to warrant the focus I put on pre-ride carbohydrate intake.

This was corroborated at my annual physical, which included a blood sample. When the results came back, I received the following message from my doctor: “Your blood sugar and haemoglobin a1c have increased a bit since our last round of labs. Has your carbohydrate or sugar intake gone up in the last year?”

Yes, yes it had.

Once my race season was over and I was back to eating a more balanced diet, I felt better. It wasn’t that I was eating too much, per se; rather, I was eating too many simple carbohydrates. For amateur riders, eating a mix of whole grains, proteins and fats is a better nutrition strategy than trying to maximise glycogen stores at all times. Fortunately, I was able to make this correction before it turned into a more significant health issue.

An Expert's Take

In order to delve deeper into these subjects, I spoke with sports nutritionist and cycling coach Kristen Arnold.

(The conversation has been edited for length and clarity)

Cycling Weekly: How has fueling changed within cycling over the last ten years?

Kristen Arnold: Culturally, athletes and coaches are starting to understand how important it is to make sure they are meeting their daily calorie needs. Where we used to spend a lot of time breaking down misconceptions about how much athletes need versus how much they are eating, we now can focus on other strategies for optimal performance.

CW: What downsides are there, if any, to high carbohydrate fueling?

KA: If and when athletes jump into high-carb fueling too quickly, especially during workouts, they are likely to experience symptoms such as nausea, bloating and indigestion. It's important for athletes to work up to higher amounts of carbs per hour and make sure they are drinking enough fluid with the carbs.

CW: Does high-carb fuelling work better for some riders than others?

KA: High-carb fueling works better for riders who are riding over two hours and at a high intensity. Cyclists who are riding at a moderate intensity for under two hours do not necessarily need to fuel with more than 30-45g of carbs per hour. Any more carbs per hour than 45 g/hour for two hours or less could lead to gut distress as well as inhibit performance because the blood flow will go toward digestion and away from the limbs.

CW: Are there long-term health risks from eating increased amounts of carbohydrates, and how can these be mitigated? (e.g. higher blood sugar levels, tooth decay, gut microbiome issues, insulin control issues)

KA: While we don't necessarily understand the long-term effects of high intake of simple sugars during exercise, there are a few things we know for sure related to its health impacts. Eating simple sugars leads to poor dental health and cavities. To improve dental health, consider brushing your teeth after rides to remove any excess sugars from gummies, sports drinks, etc. And shift to lower sugar fueling options for low- and moderate-intensity rides, such as bars and sandwiches.

CW: Outside of high-level amateur competition, does high-carb fueling provide benefits?

KA: Research shows that most athletes will not benefit from more than 90g of carbohydrates during exercise per hour. This is because these athletes are not exercising at a workload that requires this amount of fueling, and their gut is not trained to digest and metabolise carbohydrates above 90g per hour.

Conclusion

Arnold’s analysis provides some useful context for my own experiences, as well as some more background on how these techniques are used by professionals. The main takeaways seem to be that high-carb fueling can be impactful but mostly for riders pushing the limits of time and intensity.

An extremely tough endurance event, such as a Grand Tour, can be viewed as much an eating challenge as it is a bike race. Clearly, getting fuel requirements right is critical for performance. And if you make a mistake? Game over. For the rest of us, it’s important to pay attention to what you eat, but there’s no need to overdo it.

Once sceptical of athletes adopting vegan diets, Michelin-starred chef Alan Murchison has had a change of heart, and is now encouraging cyclists to try plant-based food to diversify their meals.

Murchison, a world champion duathlete who works as a performance chef for mountain bike squad Specialized Factory Racing, has this month released a new book – ‘The Cycling Chef: Plant-Powered Performance’ – setting out recipes to help people transform their diets.

The decision to write it, he says, came after “a bit of a mind shift change”.

“In 2019, I published my first book with Bloomsbury, and I had a paragraph in there about how there’s no way you could actually be a plant-based athlete at any level,” Murchison tells Cycling Weekly. “But it’s just evolved, it’s changed over time.

“There was quite a lot of misinformation out there. For me, it’s been an educational process, and it’s also been about responding to the athletes that I work with. More and more people are becoming vegan-curious.”

Last season, the chef prepared nearly 50% of food as plant-based for his riders within Specialized Factory Racing. “We had our most successful year in the history of the sport,” he says, pointing to a trend.

“Ethically and environmentally, it makes sense,” he continues. “It’s really difficult to get really good quality chicken or fish that you’re comfortable giving to athletes when you’re travelling. You go into a supermarket... are you comfortable with where the products come from? I would say nine times out of 10, no.”

Instead, Murchison suggests using grains, nuts, seeds and pulses – “real food” – over low quality meat or ultra-processed vegan meat substitutes.

“We’re trying to incorporate different protein sources in there,” he says. “If I go into my fridge now, I’ve got tofu, I’ve got tempeh. Those things are pretty much my stock products that I have all the time.”

He also recommends preparing meals with chickpeas, kidney beans, butter beans and lentils, all high in protein and cheaply bought from the supermarket.

“Diversity is key,” Murchison stresses. “If you can get more vegetables, pulses, grains and fibre in your diet, you just have a bit more variety.

“Let’s be honest, you could have chicken, rice and broccoli twice a day, and porridge with banana and honey, and you could have all your macros as an athlete, easily. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to be healthy, robust, and actually have a long-term positive relationship with food.”

Although Murchison is not vegan himself, he chooses to eat plant-based a few days a week. His intention with his new book is not to be “evangelical” about veganism, he stresses, but rather to encourage better and more diverse dietary choices.

“What I’m not expecting is for every single person that sees a green cover on a book to suddenly jump on the bandwagon and go, ‘Fantastic, I’m going full-vegan tomorrow.’ That would be really hard to do,” he says.

“It’s really difficult for me to say, ‘Go plant-based, and you’re going to get 5% [better on the bike].’ I can’t say that because I don’t know that to be true. But what I will say is that diversity in your diet is only going to improve you as a cyclist.

“That overall health is more important than any gains that you’re going to find in a wind tunnel or in a skinsuit. The consistency absolutely comes down to how well you look after yourself, and that comes from food.”

Murchison's knowledge comes from over a decade's experience as a sports chef and nutritionist. Before that, he spent 25 years working in “fancy pants” restaurants, where vegan requests were often frowned upon.

“I’m going to get a lot of shit over this,” he laughs of his new book. “I think this is going to be fairly divisive. I could get a little bit of grief with this, which I’m happy for, because I’ve also admitted to changing my mind.”

Murchison’s new cookbook ‘The Cycling Chef: Plant-Powered Performance’ (£22.00, Bloomsbury) contains over 60 recipes and is available to buy now.

Grand Tours and multi-day stage races are among the most physically demanding sporting events in the world. Riders push their bodies to the absolute limit, racing day after day across vast distances, burning thousands of calories in the process. To keep performing at their peak, these athletes follow a meticulously planned diet before, during and after each stage.

But their strategies aren't just for professionals—many of their nutrition habits can be adapted for anyone looking to optimize performance, whether you're a weekend warrior, an amateur racer or simply health-conscious.

We caught up with Kieran Creevy, the performance chef for the EF Pro Cycling men’s and women’s teams, to find out how he fuels these elite riders at a Grand Tour — and how you can apply some of their nutrition strategies to your own routine.

A day in the life of a performance chef

EF Pro Cycling's approach to fueling its athletes is highly structured. The program currently employs several travelling chefs and two nutritionists and will add two more nutrition experts in the coming year.

“Margins for performance gain in equipment are so small these days, so they’re looking to nutrition to make additional gains,” Creevy explains.

While some teams entrust the race hotels with their daily meals, most top-end teams, like EF Pro Cycling's men's and women's teams, travel with their own chefs and a mobile kitchen to have complete control over what goes into the riders' bodies.

Creevy and the other chefs will create the team’s menu a week to ten days in advance, in coordination with the nutritionists.

“I put it in an Excel spreadsheet and [the nutritionist] will look at it and make adjustments where needed like adding fats here or cutting fibre there,” Creevy said.

This means that when the race gets underway, the chef knows exactly what's on the schedule for each day, whether it's an eight-stage Tour de France Femmes or three-week-long Vuelta a España.

In addition to focusing heavily on macronutrients, the chef also needs to prepare meals in bulk. The caloric demands of a Grand Tour rider are immense. Creevy shared that on a typical race day, including breakfast, ride food, post-race recovery meals and dinner, riders consume around 4,000 - 5,000 calories. But on mountain stages, where the intensity is ramped up, that number can rise to 5,500 to 6,000 calories for women riders and up to 8,000 for male riders.

“That is quite a lot of food to take on. And bear in mind that some of the small riders, especially the women, are like 55 kilos or even less, so to try and take on that amount—it's pretty tough,” said Creevy.

In addition to the sheer quantity of food, Creevy shared that the biggest challenge riders face is the monotony of food.

“Riders on a long tour just get bored with the food,” Creevy said. “So instead of rice, rice, rice every day, we’ll trade out pureed potatoes or quinoa to give them options."

We caught up with Creevy at his mobile kitchen 7 a.m., at which time food prep was already in full swing.

Post-race smoothies whirred in the blender, chicken breasts browned in the oven, overnight oats chilled in the fridge, and Creevy was whipping up pancake batter as we spoke.

Creevy spends the early hours of the day prepping breakfast so a full spread of items awaits the riders as they come down to the hotel's dining room for breakfast. He'll also make omelettes or eggs for the riders who want them, one by one.

The morning prep also includes preparing on-the-bike foods like rice cakes, and post-race fuel, which is transported and dished up by the bus driver and soigneurs at the day's finish line. This may include smoothies for immediately after the race and a race-and-protein meal to be eaten on the bus during the transfer.

After all the riders have finished their breakfast, it's time to clean up, load up and transfer to that evening's hotel, where dinner prep commences. If he's lucky, there may be a small amount of downtime to watch the end of the race or get some exercise in.

Dinner will again be served buffet-style. That particular evening the menu consisted of a tomato sauce, spaghetti Aglio e Olio (no cheese!), grilled chicken, roasted zucchini and a fruit salad.

By the time clean-up is done, it will be quite late, so it's off to bed and getting ready to do it again the next day.

One day of meals

Breakfast:

The day typically begins with a carbohydrate-rich breakfast. Riders fuel up with overnight oats, pancakes, rice and/or rice pudding or rice cakes, and fresh berries. Eggs are also served, though riders limit their intake to avoid excess protein or fat.

On the bike:

While on the bike, riders consume energy gels, bars and carbohydrate drinks to maintain energy levels. The EF Pro Cycling teams are sponsored by Dutch nutrition company Amacx, which provides the team with an extensive range of on-the-bike products, allowing riders to consume as much as 90-120 grams of carbohydrates an hour.

Creevy also ensures riders have natural snacks like rice cakes. These are easy to digest, ensuring riders maintain peak performance throughout the stage.

Post-race refuelling:

After the race, recovery begins immediately. Riders take in a protein recovery drink or smoothie, which Creevy makes with very ripe fruits. “When fruit goes super ripe, the sugar content goes higher. It may not look nice, but it's totally edible. And the carbohydrate content is higher, which makes it actually better,” he said.

Within 30-40 minutes after finishing the stage, the riders also receive a simple meal of rice and lean protein to start replenishing glycogen stores.

Dinner:

Dinner is a well-balanced meal designed to refuel and repair the body. Creevy typically prepares two sources of carbohydrates, like pasta and rice, paired with a lean protein such as chicken or turkey, and roasted vegetables. There's also usually a salad or two.

Dessert:

Dessert is simple, like a fruit salad or apple cake — high in carbs, low in fats.

Carbs, Fibre and Fats

Cooking for the athletes is focused primarily on a macronutrient balance, which the team tracks using the Chromatic app, where the nutritionists and chefs also share and manage the teams' recipes. Without diving into the nitty gritty of each macronutrient, Creevy shared some of the basic guidelines:

Limiting Fiber:
Fibre intake is kept to a minimum for hard efforts because it can be difficult to process while riding at high intensity. According to Creevy, too much fibre can lead to gastrointestinal discomfort, and riders may have to “pull off to the side of the road, which isn't ideal.” Remember Tom Dumoulin's bathroom disaster during the 2017 Giro d'Italia? Yeah...

"Additionally, if you have extra fibre in your gut, it retains more water, so you hang on to water, rather than actually being hydrated quite as much. It also makes you a little bit heavier and a bit more bloated," Creevy explained.

On mountain stages, Creevy will even "strip the skin from cucumbers and stuff like that" to minimise fibre intake.

“On those days, [the riders] will pretty much just have white rice, plain pasta, pancakes, maybe some berries, and that's it. It’s quite restrictive,” Creevy shared.

Easy-to-digest Carbohydrates:
Carbohydrates are the foundation of a cyclist’s diet because they provide the quickest source of energy.

“Your body needs more time to process fat or protein and convert it into sugars, whereas carbohydrate is really, really rapid," Creevy explained. "All the carbs the riders consume are easy to process."

This means a lot of plain rice, plain pasta, oats and pancakes.

Limiting Fats:
Riders also limit their fat intake, especially while racing.

While fats are beneficial for lower-intensity exercise, they do more harm than good in high-intensity racing.

“In zone 4-5, it’s really hard for your body to start processing fats, so it just sits there in the stomach doing nothing,” Creevy explained.

As a result, riders rely on lean proteins like chicken instead of beef or pork, which contain more fat. On recovery days or the evening leading into a rest day, Creevy will add in salmon, which is rich in protein and healthy fats like omega 3.

Recipes

Creevy was kind enough to share two EF staples with our Cycling Weekly readers: the EF American Pancakes and EF Peruvian Chicken Thighs.

EF Education American Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 400 grams Tesco organic plain flour
• 3 tsp (13.8g) baking powder
• 2 tbsp (42.4g) honey
• 6 medium eggs
• 400 grams Alpro rice milk
• Creevy's personal touch: some lemon zest and a bit of lemon juice to change it up

Nutrition Facts

A serving size of 100 grams contains:

• 196 kcal
• 7.2g of protein
• 33.2g of net carbs
• 3.5g of fat

Method:

• Combine dry ingredients together in a big bowl
• Make a well, then add the wet ingredients. Stir to combine.
• Scoop the batter onto a hot griddle or pan.
• Cook for two to three minutes, then flip.
• Cook until brown on both sides.

EF Peruvian Chicken Thighs (to be served with rice and vegetables)

Ingredients:

• 1600 grams of chicken thighs, skin removed
• 10g low sodium soy sauce
• 1/4 cup (60g) fresh lime juice
• 4 tbsp (8g) of cumin powder
• 2 tsp (4.5g) of paprika powder
• 1 tsp (1g) of dried oregano leaves
• 1 tsp (2.3g) of ground black pepper

Nutritional Facts

A serving size of one chicken thigh (about 100 grams) contains:

• 180 kcal
• 26.1 grams of protein
• 0.6 grams of net carbs
• 7.4 grams of fat

Method

• Preheat your oven to 425°F (220°C)
• In a bowl, mix together the herbs, spices and liquids to make a marinade.
• Coat the chicken with the spice mixture on all sides. Let marinate for an hour.
• Place the chicken thighs on a rack on top of a baking sheet (to catch any drippings).
• Cook until the internal temperature reaches 165°F (74°C) — depending on the size of the chicken thighs, this will take about 25-30 minutes, but start checking around 20 minutes in.
• Creevy's pro tip: The meat will continue to cook for a few minutes as it rests on the counter, so take the chicken out of the oven the moment the internal temperature is reached and let rest for 10 minutes before serving.
• Serve with rice and roasted vegetables or a salad.

More EF recipes:

• Healthy banana sourdough pancakes
• Lemon chia overnight oats
• Magnus Cort’s favourite cinnamon buns
• On-the-bike rice cakes
• Banana bread

Souplesse Cycling’s business model will be familiar to customers of brands such as HelloFresh and Riverford Organics. Fork out for a subscription to either of these services and you’ll regularly receive a box stuffed with foodie ingredients delivered direct to your door. In essence, they’re shopping the essentials, so you don’t have to.

Souplesse Cycling works on a similar premise, but as well as providing nutrition, in the shape of bars, gels, chews and hydration powers, it also includes a wide variety of small but useful cycling accessories, including lights, tyre levers, chamois cream, sunscreen, degreaser and the like. I hesitate to call them perishables, which is HelloFresh’s USP,  but it is the kind of stuff that we, as cyclists, break, misplace or run out of all the time. 

It’s the seemingly insignificant products that we could easily buy ourselves but, for a variety of reasons, don’t. Well, rarely in time for the weekend ride anyway.

“The idea behind the subscription service was inspired by my riding buddies,” says James Harrison, director, Souplesse Cycling.  “We’re all busy professionals, working 40 plus hours a week, but love riding our bikes, which we’d also like to do for a further 8, 10, 12 hours a week. Factor in sleep, plus other life commitments, and that doesn’t leave a lot of time to get organised. 

“Did I remember to order enough bars? I’m sure I’m running out of chain lube? Have I still got some bike wash? I think I’ve lost that tool to change my pedals? All these little things, these questions incessantly circling the mind, add stress to what should be a pleasurable pastime. We wanted to win back some of that enjoyment, the freedom to just go out on a ride without having to worry about that stuff. 

“Our box subscription makes it really simple," he adds.  "Everything you need for the month turns up in single monthly delivery. There’s enough hydration, nutrition and maintenance tech. We think about seasonality too, so our summer boxes, for example, will feature sunscreen.”

James could be boxing clever here. HelloFresh boasted a net revenue of more than €2 billion in Q1 2024, with a global workforce numbering 20,000. Then again, perhaps not. Sub box pioneer Graze ceased its subscription model in early 2024, so we’ll be watching with interest to see how Souplesse Cycling fares.

Curated choice

James loves to repeat the word ‘curated’, which, incidentally, is also much used by HelloFresh to reassure its customers that significant effort, thought and expertise has gone into boxing up their weekly veg. How authentic this is I’m not sure, but I do know that in James’ case, he’s picking products from some decent brands, including Fizik, Silca, Le Col and Pirelli.

There’s a choice of boxes available too, ascending in price as the number of included items increases and/or individual products rise in cost.

For example, the top-tier ‘Pro Box’, priced at £125.99 per month for a six-month sub, includes clothing, maintenance tools, hydration supplements, bars, gels, Komoot routes, gadgets and more. In contrast, the lower tier ‘Amateur Box’, priced at £35.09 for the same period, features only gels, bars and hydration supplements. 

According to James, both subscriptions will save you money over buying the same products at RRP – £45 in the case of the Pro Box. Subscriptions can be paused or changed on the fly too. 

Although the content of each box is carefully curated – there’s that word again – there’s plenty of opportunity to personalise each month’s drop. Exact options will vary from month to month, but in mid-summer I could choose to receive either Styrkr or Maurten hydration products, a Castelli base layer over a Lezyne rear light, Ceramic Speed UFO Wash instead of Muc-Off Hydrodynamic Lube – you get the picture.

“We’ve calculated that there are 2.4 million different possible configurations,” says James, “but to keep things simple for our customers their order is sub-divided into just six to eight components. We don’t want to waste their time by making them navigate a complex ordering system. 

“We’ve also made up a specific box for a sportives, so if you’ve got a big ride coming up in your calendar that option will have you covered. We hope to do more, perhaps a TT box will be next.”

I asked James if any products were clearly more popular than others.

“Customers have gone mad for Effetto Mariposa Flowerpower liquid wax this summer,” he responded. “That option was ticked again and again.”

My Souplesse sample box

James sent me a single ‘Semi-Pro Box’ (a £99.99 value) for evaluation purposes, but before it arrived, he asked me to decide which of the selectable items I wanted to choose.

My options were (with my preferences in bold):

Bars / gels / a mixture of both 

Choice 1 (choose 1): Morgan Blue Degreaser, Effetto Mariposa Flower Power Wax, Muc-Off Bike Cleaner, Muc-Off Chamois Cream, or a Wheel and Component Brush

Choice 2: Pelotan Sunscreen, Muc-Off Bike Protect, Muc-Off Matte Detailer, Jagwire Hose Cutter 

Choice 3: Muc-Off Tubeless Valves, Hutchinson Tubeless Plug Kit, Pirelli P-Zero SmarTube, or Lezyne Stick Drive Light 

Socks - smaller or larger size

Once I’d submitted my preferred options, it’s no exaggeration to admit that I eagerly awaited the box’s arrival. Unlike a regular order from Amazon, it felt more of a guilty pleasure, a little like treating myself to an undeserved present.

The box arrived a few days later, packaged up securely in a robust outer carton. If you can imagine a shoe box fit for size 12 shoes – easy for me, I have size 12 feet – then that’s about the size of it. More specifically, it measured 32cm x  18cm x 9cm.

The packaging is beautifully executed, with bold Souplesse Cycling branding picked out in British Racing Green on the outer lid, with the inner printed in the same hue and bearing the slogan: ‘Effortless Cycling, Curated For You Are you ready?’ A stirring message, despite the odd grammar and capitalization.

The products are wrapped in tissue paper, and sealed with a branded sticker. 

I received 1x Hutchinson tyre lever set, 1x 100ml SPF30 Pelotan sun lotion, 1x pair of Souplesse branded cycling socks, 1x 100ml Effetto Mariposa Flowerpower liquid wax, 1x Precision Hydration tube of electrolyte tabs, 1x Lezyne Stick Drive Light, 6x Maurten Solid 225 60g bars and 6x Maurten Gel 160 65g gels.

Verdict and value

Once the thrill of rummaging through all the products, and clicking the Lezyne light on and off a few times had subsided, I pondered whether I would be quite so excited next time a delivery was due. Justifiably, James offered only the one box (which was gratefully received) so we’ll never know. 

However, a part of me is also thankful that it was just one box. You see, for me, this is an awful lot of stuff to get through in a month. Similarly, the corresponding annual cost on a rolling sub is the thick end of £1,200, which is a significant sum. Even calling man math into play, I don’t believe I spend that much on cycle accessories in a year. Honest.

Another part of me accepts that this may prove a fantastic solution for newbies who haven’t yet built up a vast collection of tools and accessories. It’s also a great fix for riders with more of a taste for gels, bars and hydration tabs than I have. I’m really not a big user. 

You can, of course, order one of the lesser boxes, but the time-saving benefit associated with Souplesse Cycling becomes progressively less apparent.

I also appreciate that, for cyclists who are really short on time, or who favour pedalling over shopping the mundane, James has developed the ultimate convenience service. It’s an aid parcel for time-poor cyclists.

Currently, Souplesse Cycling only operates in the UK but, if there’s interest, James is hopeful of exploring opportunities in Europe and the USA.

Oh, for those with poor language skills like moi, Souplesse is a curiously French word that roughly translates as effortless, versatile and flexible. Very apt.

For this piece, we set out to sample as many different energy gels as possible. The goal was to produce tasting notes, similar to what one might find for different vintages of wine, or coffee beans of specific origin. It is, of course, a little different to sample sweet and sticky gels than either coffee or wine, but we tried to enjoy the process as much as we could.

Of the gels we tasted, some are more in the “real food” camp, while others are decidedly “sports science.” Both have benefits depending on when and how you utilize them, though typically the easier to eat the gel is, the better it is suited to harder efforts or race scenarios. Some athletes appreciate a variety of flavors to keep things fresh, while others choose the most neutral or inoffensive option to get in fuel quickly and keep competing.

If you plan to use gels in racing scenarios, I would strongly recommend trying a few different options and testing them out during training sessions to see how your body reacts. Our test was focused primarily on flavor and texture, and is not meant to replicate real-world, high-effort consumption.

Alas, not all of the brands we reached out to provided test products, but we tried to gather as many different options here as we could.

The testing Process

 Of the sample gels we received, we selected the two most intriguing flavors from each brand (note: some only make a single flavor). We then tasted them one at a time, eating apple slices as a palate cleanser in between. Each sample was evaluated on flavor, stickiness, mouthfeel, sweetness, and aftertaste. We also jotted down any additional impressions that we had about each, and, as a thought exercise, contemplated the location and/or scenario in which we would ideally consume each gel. Our testers are longtime athletes who have eaten many, many gels throughout the course of years of training and racing. 

Energy Gels Tested (in no particular order)

Conclusion

Well, there you have it: a giant pile of gels tasted and remarked upon and one nauseous tester. We certainly each have our own preferences, but we tried to find things that we agreed upon about each one. We found that it’s easy to focus on flavor, but texture has just as much of an impact on how enjoyable these gels are to eat. The packaging too makes a difference in how easy it is to eat each gel. We discussed trying to create some sort of matrix to rate the different packages, but it got too complicated for us, so we just focused on tasting them. As mentioned above, we suggest trying several different kinds for yourself. Eat them at the start of rides and at the end of rides, and when you’re going hard and going easy. You may find you prefer certain ones for each of these scenarios. When in doubt, eat a banana.

In the era of marginal gains, riders are turning to childhood treats and savoury snacks to fuel their racing. 

Calippo ice lollies and steak bakes from bakery chain Greggs have been on the menu this weekend at the British National Track Championships. A nutritional nightmare, one might think, but the medal count shows the snacks are working. 

Warming down on her turbo trainer inside Manchester Velodrome, Kate Richardson ripped the lid off an orange Calippo and popped the lolly out of its wrapper. 

“It was from one of my team-mate’s dads,” the 21-year-old told Cycling Weekly, confused to have been asked about it. “He just gave it to us to cool down. But it’s actually a performance thing. 

“People now have slushies before their race to lower their body temperature. That wasn’t why I had the Calippo. I just fancied a Calippo. But there is actually a performance benefit. It’s a two in one.” 

So far, Richardson is one of the most successful riders at the championships, with two new national titles to her name. Her extensive training would have helped, of course, but there’s science in the ice lollies. 

When preparing for his Hour Record attempt, Dan Bigham ate mounds of ice slush to regulate his temperature. It’s a technique pioneered by sport scientist Teun van Erp, known as ‘Grandmaster Slush’, and also used by Filippo Ganna, who is said to have eaten 2.3kg of slush before his Hour Record world record. 

“Ideally, you’d do what he did,” said Will Roberts, who wandered around his pen gripping an ice lolly. “Normally it would be some fancy sort of beta fuel, with gels and carbs and all the works in it, as a slushie. But this is a sort of a cheap, easy fix. It’s basically crushed ice with carbs, but it helps you keep your temperature under control.

“People forget, it’s really hot in here. It’s like mid-20s [degrees celsius], but you can quite easily get a kind of mild heat stroke. Especially me being slightly sort of fat and ginger. It’s very good to keep your core under control, keep cool, from the inside out.” 

Roberts’ method helped him ride to a silver medal in the points race on Saturday night, in which he gained a lap on the field. “It wasn’t actually a Calippo,” he’s keen to point out. “It was a Rowntrees. I think Calippos are in high demand in Asda in Manchester.” 

Steak bake stomach settler

For new kilo national champion Aaron Pope, savoury snacks make for better performance fuel. 

The 24-year-old spent most of Saturday morning racked with pre-race nerves, and turned to high-street bakery chain Greggs to settle his stomach. 

“I wasn’t going to ride because I was getting in my head quite a bit,” he told Cycling Weely, wearing a gold medal around his neck. “I had a bit of a palava. Then I went to Greggs, had a few steak bakes, and I was good to go again.

“I was throwing up most of the morning and then a bit pre-race. But once I got a grip, it was ok.” 

Pope explained that his previous snack of choice was a jalapeño-based pastry, but he swapped recently to a milder option. “I throw up a lot in training,” he said. “The thing is, when you throw up as often as I do, you start to learn what tastes ok coming out the other way.” 

If you’ve ever thought about losing weight and getting leaner, chances are you have been tempted to try intermittent fasting. Advocates claim it can make you lose weight, prevent disease and help you live longer. Its huge popularity has been driven – at least in part – by influencers and celebrities including Rich Roll, Hugh Jackman, Elon Musk and Jennifer Aniston, all of whom attribute their chiselled physiques to the dietary regime. 

Gary Lineker recently revealed that he follows a one-meal-a-day diet to keep his weight similar to when he played professional football. But intermittent fasting has also gained a following among cyclists. It is reputed that Bradley Wiggins used fasted training rides to shed weight and improve his body’s ability to burn fat before he won the 2012 Tour de France. 

Intermittent fasting is a diet, or a style of eating, whereby you don’t eat for an extended period of time, consolidating all of your meals within a specified eating window. There are several types of intermittent fasting, but the most popular is time-restricted eating (TRE), where you consume all your calories in a prescribed eight-hour (or shorter) window – a much smaller time frame than many people are used to. A popular split is 16:8 where you eat within an eight-hour window and fast for 16 hours. Another variation is the 5:2 diet, which involves eating normally for five days each week and ‘fasting’ on the remaining two days. On each of the two ‘fast’ days, you would typically eat between 500 and 600kcal. 

There’s also alternate-day fasting where you fast every other day, keeping your calories under 25% of your usual intake; not eating at all on a rest day; setting an early evening cut-off, after which eating is prohibited; or simply skipping breakfast. It’s easy to see the appeal of intermittent fasting as a weight loss method. Not only is it simple, it’s also relatively easy to sustain and doesn’t require you to eliminate foods or count calories. Many believe this approach more closely mimics the eating patterns of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who frequently had to go without food for extended periods of time. But does this mean intermittent fasting is beneficial for modern-day cyclists? 

How intermittent fasting helps with weight loss for cyclists

By far the biggest motivator for embarking on intermittent fasting is weight loss. The idea behind it is that during fasting glycogen reserves decrease rapidly. To meet your body’s energy demands, you begin to burn more fat. A meta-analysis published in 2021 showed that intermittent fasting combined with resistance training can lead to a reduction in body weight and body fat percentage without losing muscle mass. An eight-week study looked at the effect of a time-restricted eating protocol (20- hour fasting, four-hour eating, or 20:4) done four days a week by young, recreationally active, male participants in combination with resistance training. The time-restricted eating group lost weight due to a lower calorie intake on fasting days but did not lose muscle mass or strength. 

However, these body composition changes do not always improve cycling performance. A 2020 study of elite cyclists showed that aerobic capacity, measured by a VO2 max test and performance in an endurance test remained unchanged after intermittent fasting over a four-week training period. While the cyclists lost weight, they did not gain a performance benefit. It is worth noting that this study was carried out during the winter non-competitive season and therefore most of their training consisted of long rides at a low or medium pace. Whether the results would be different during the racing season or a more intense training period is not known. 

Muslim cyclists report increased fatigue and muscle soreness during Ramadan (which involves approximately one month of complete fasting from sunrise to sunset), but this may be partly due to dehydration, since fluids are also restricted during this period. Unsurprisingly, significant weight loss occurs, the downside being that this includes a reduction in lean mass as well as fat mass. 

We know that weight loss occurs when the body is in calorie deficit, but does intermittent fasting help you achieve this goal more easily than other regimens? To answer this question, Australian researchers compared the effects of intermittent fasting to daily caloric restriction on body weight, body composition, and other clinical parameters. Their review included 40 studies in total. They found that, overall, the two diet types resulted in equivalent outcomes in terms of weight loss, fat loss and insulin sensitivity (how effectively the body regulates blood sugar). Intermittent fasting was sometimes better for reducing appetite but, on the whole, it failed to result in superior improvements in body composition or greater weight loss compared to daily caloric restriction.

According to the position stand of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, published in 2017, time-restricted eating has no significant advantage over daily calorie restriction, i.e. simply cutting back. This view is supported by Renee McGregor, a leading sports and eating disorder specialist dietitian. 

“There is little evidence to suggest intermittent fasting is any better than other approaches, but even less evidence that it can support those who are physically active,” says McGregor, author of More Fuel You: Understanding your Body and How to Fuel your Adventures. “Whether you are doing the 16:8, 12:12 or 5:2, they are still based on the formula of creating an energy deficit. Intermittent fasting reduces the time for eating, which makes it harder to eat as much as you normally would, so you end up reducing your calorie intake spontaneously.” 

Are there other intermittent fasting benefits?

While intermittent fasting might not be a miracle solution when it comes to weight loss, what about the other health benefits it is claimed to have? Scheduling your mealtimes and your bedtime could help regulate your circadian rhythms across the board, which may in turn help to regulate stress levels and overall health. A 2022 review on intermittent fasting found that it improved blood pressure and insulin sensitivity, and lowered cholesterol levels to a similar extent as daily calorie restriction. A recent study involving men with a high risk of diabetes looked at the effects of restricting eating to a six-hour window. The researchers found that this improved several markers of health such as insulin sensitivity, which is a risk factor for type-2 diabetes.  

What are the risks with intermittent fasting?

1. Under-fuelling risks

Intermittent fasting may result in an energy deficiency that is too great for cyclists with high energy needs. If the deficit is prolonged, this will have an adverse effect on health and performance. None of the cycling coaches I spoke to while researching this feature said they recommend intermittent fasting. The main drawbacks mentioned were hunger, physical tiredness and the need for plentiful energy during periods of high training volume, when increased fuel and nutrient intake is essential for optimal performance and recovery. 

“If you start out a hard training session or race with low glycogen stores in your muscles, your performance can suffer,” says performance cycling coach Holly Seear (hollyseear.com). “I don’t recommend any type of fasting for my cyclists during an intense training block. There is a risk you could end up under-fuelled, which would compromise your training quality and performance.” 

Studies show that intermittent fasting can reduce the amount of physical activity you do, and impair performance during exercise. Researchers at Loughborough University measured exercise performance in a 30-minute time trial at 5pm, with or without breakfast. The participants had eaten as much as they wanted for lunch, but this wasn’t enough to make up the deficit. Time trial performance was 4.5% worse after skipping breakfast. This suggests that when calorie intake is substantially reduced – even for a short period of time – the body adapts by reducing the number of calories used during exercise. 

“Nutrition is integral to both health and performance,” explains McGregor. “In order to get the most out of your training, it is important to ensure you fuel appropriately; that means fuelling well before, potentially during, depending on how long your ride is, and then also soon afterwards for recovery. 

“This process allows for the hormonal cascade – needed not just for progression in your performance, but also to ensure that you prevent metabolic injury which in the long run can lead to the body downregulating and preserving energy, making weight loss even more difficult.” 

2. Dysfunctional eating 

Could intermittent fasting lead to eating disorder behaviours? A recent study involving 2,762 Canadian adolescents and young adults showed a significant association between intermittent fasting in the past 12 months and eating disorder behaviours, such as overeating, compulsive exercise, vomiting and laxative use. Although this study does not determine whether it was fasting causing eating disorders or the other way around, eating disorders leading to fasting, it does highlight a troubling correlation. 

“There is a real concern that in individuals who are susceptible to developing dysfunctional eating behaviours, these large periods of time of no eating may then lead to periods of time of eating to excess, resulting in difficult thoughts and emotions, which then set the scene for more restrictive behaviours and the start of binge-purge-restrict cycle,” adds McGregor. 

Fasting and the female body

Very few fasting studies have been carried out on women. According to Dr Stacey Simms, exercise physiologist and author of post-menopause training guide Next Level, intermittent fasting is not a good idea for women, especially those who exercise regularly: “As a woman, your body will fight to preserve energy when you start fasting. When your brain perceives nutrient deficiency, especially a deficiency of carbohydrates, there is a marked reduction in kisspeptin [a neuropeptide] stimulation, which not only increases your appetite but also reduces your sensitivity to insulin. This is why research shows intermittent fasting is more likely to cause impaired glucose control in women than in men.” 

A study published in Obesity Research compared eight men and eight women who followed an alternate-day fasting regimen for three weeks showed improved insulin sensitivity in men, but worsened blood sugar control in women. There are also a number of anecdotal reports of women who have experienced changes to their menstrual cycle, or have stopped having periods altogether after starting intermittent fasting. According to Simms, if you exercise while fasting, it creates a double whammy of stress, raising cortisol levels and depressing thyroid activity, both of which disrupt the menstrual cycle. 

Coach’s view - ‘Don’t shut off the energy tap!’

Cycling S&C coach Chris Peden is sceptical about time-restricted eating for anyone who is training hard:

"Time-restricted feeding – or intermittent fasting as it’s more commonly known – is often marketed as a magical solution to all of your health and performance goals. Limiting the time window when you’re allowed to eat definitely does suit some people’s lifestyles – especially for those who tend not to feel hungry first thing in the morning. It makes sense to start eating only once you feel ready. For those looking to lose some weight to improve their health, it’s therefore a simple and suitable strategy to help reduce overall caloric intake. 

"However, for cyclists with performance in mind, in my view it is rarely a suitable strategy. Supporting training and recovery requires a lot of energy day after day. By restricting your opportunities to eat, you are making it harder to meet both your total daily energy and protein demands that your body needs to optimally perform and recover. In the long term, this may have negative consequences. 

"The quality of your training and ability to perform at a high level may be limited. Fasted training can have its benefits but must be timed very carefully. Finally, research has shown that skipping breakfast can harm athletic performance later in the day, even when the overall energy and macronutrient profile are identical."

Case study: ‘It works for me’

James Turner, 47, a cyclist and IT manager from Chobham, Surrey, uses intermittent fasting in preparation for the racing season:

"I practise intermittent fasting mainly to get down to my race weight pre-season and manage my weight during race season. Generally, my off-season weight is 80kg and my race weight is 75-76kg. I find that doing an extended overnight fast followed by a fasted ride twice a week is enough to achieve my weight goal, which, in turn, benefits my performance in races. 

"I train 10 hours a week on the bike as part of my training programme. On fasting days, I skip breakfast then cycle 45km to work. Once I get to the office, I’ll forgo food, then eat lunch around midday, which represents roughly a 16-hour fast. 

"On my fasted rides, I listen to my body to ensure I don’t push too hard but I can usually maintain threshold intensity. If I feel too fatigued, then I’ll skip training and take the train instead. I find fasting is a good way to condition my body to perform in the absence of readily available energy – a sort of rehearsal for race conditions. 

"Intermittent fasting works for me as I’m ageing. It means I don’t struggle with my weight like some cyclists do. I can enjoy a drink in the evening, go to the pub with friends. Without these restrictions, my weight increases. I’m aware that cyclists can reduce muscle mass if they fast, so I make sure I eat enough and keep to a balanced cycling training plan."

The verdict

Intermittent fasting is essentially a tool to restrict calories and manage hunger, which can ultimately drive weight loss. But it’s not a magic fat loss solution nor a quick-fix solution. It may have health benefits for the general population, but these do not necessarily translate to becoming a better cyclist, especially if you are training multiple times a day or doing frequent long, hard rides. 

There is a very real danger that the restricted eating schedule may compromise your performance and recovery. The potential downsides – more limitations around when you can train hard and an increased risk of under fuelling – likely outweigh the rewards. If you have a history of disordered eating or an unhealthy relationship with food, then intermittent fasting is most certainly not for you. Finally, the potential impact of intermittent fasting on social interactions must also be considered – who wants to forgo the cake at the cafe stop? For most of us, there are better, more sustainable ways of losing or controlling weight.

This full version of this article was published in the print edition of Cycling Weekly. Subscribe online and get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week. 

This article is part of a series called ‘A love letter to…’, where Cycling Weekly writers pour praise on their favourite cycling items and share the personal connection they have with them. 

The below content is unfiltered, authentic and has not been paid for.

I often forget things when I go for a bike ride. I’ve forgotten my house keys on occasion, my phone, and I consider myself lucky if I remember to pick up my tire levers before heading out the door. More often than not, I leave my metaphorical legs at home. 

Still, there is one thing I never forget. I never forget a banana. 

A cycling jersey has three pockets, and the one on the far left is reserved for my favourite fruit. I notice when I can't feel its weight in the material, or sense its stalk poking out the top, like a dog's head out an open car window. 

For years, the banana was Britain’s most popular fruit, a staple of the supermarket shop, its success fuelled in part by my spending habits. It was then cruelly dethroned by the strawberry in 2021, but you won’t catch me packing punnets on my hills ride (in part because I'm quite convinced they'd form a warm, jammy mess). 

No, there is a reason the only variety of banana we eat is called the Cavendish. Like the sprinter himself, it was made for cycling. It is super fuel for our sport, and I don’t leave home without one. 

Here’s how the scene usually plays out. I’m 30km into my ride, my legs are tiring and my stomach starts to rumble. The morning bowl of porridge I ate was not enough, I quickly realise, so I contort my left arm around my hip, and draw my banana from its holster. 

I hold it by the stalk, or as I like to call it, the handle. Still pedaling, I then prize open the blunted end with my teeth, and rabidly peel back the skin. (Note: the banana, like the orange, is one of the only food items that comes in its own wrapper, having evolved to survive in a jersey pocket.)

I’ll spare you the description of how I eat it. The banana is, after all, a comically shaped fruit, and we don't need that crude innuendo here. All I will say is that the texture, soft yet firm, makes it easy to chew in even the coldest conditions, when one’s jaw is frozen stiff by the windchill. 

But still, don't listen to me, go ahead and order your expensive gels and bars on the internet. They’re bolstered with carbohydrates, you say, but they’re flavoured sickly sweet and leave a sour taste in your bank account. 

Wait until you see how smug I look when I reach for my banana. Did you know it only cost me 20p? I smirk. Watch me get high on the potassium, and then ride like I’ve got a motor in my wheel hub for the next half an hour. 

Forget riding paniagua, all I need is a banana. 

Fuelling on bike rides is vitally important in order to avoid the dreaded bonk. Having a handful of ready-made energy bars, or other fuelling alternatives such as energy drinks and energy gels, is a good idea for when you don't have time to follow an energy bar recipe yourself. 

Or, most likely, you've never attempted to either! I tried making rice cakes myself once - disaster. Anyway, I digress...

Cyber Monday is an ideal time to replenish your cycling nutrition stocks, as prices are lower than usual. And 'tis the season of longer bike rides, as you build your endurance ahead of spring and summer goals - so you're properly about to really burn through the supplies you have. 

Or if you're like me, you're already on your last few! I have a habit of putting in a massive order and then not thinking about it again for months on end - getting down to the last one before putting another order in!

US Nutrition deals: Bars

US Nutrition deals: Drinks

US Nutrition deals: Gels

UK Nutrition deals

UK Nutrition Deals: Bars

UK Nutrition Deals: Drinks

UK Nutrition Deals: Gels

The days are getting shorter and the mercury is plummeting. Winter is here. Maintaining a consistent training load during the winter can be difficult. The cold, dark days envelop us in a battle with both the elements and motivation to cycle. As the weather worsens and your training load changes as you embrace winter routines, there is something else to consider beyond keeping warm and dry: Should your fuelling habits change too? 

With fewer events on the calendar until spring – unless you’re a fan of cyclocross – most cyclists tend to reduce the intensity and focus on building their endurance base. With a switch to endurance cycling training, nutrition changes too. There is a tendency among cyclists to under-fuel on the bike, all year round. For endurance rides, the minimum recommended intake is 40g of carbohydrate per hour. So unless you’re deliberately limiting carbs (or calories) to burn fat whilst cycling or lose weight, then aim to eat the equivalent of two bananas per hour on the bike – it’s a useful rule of thumb.

Fueling for winter rides: how do requirements change?

It’s not all about carbs per hour. There are more considerations to account for when it comes to energy expenditure over the winter months. Many of us reduce our training volume, discouraged by the inclement conditions. On the other hand, training can become more energy-intensive owing to the nature of winter riding. Sports nutritionist David Starr (eatdrinkwin.com) explains: 

“Extra clothing, stronger winds and higher rolling resistance can all make winter training a little harder than you anticipate. Very cold weather may increase your need for carbohydrates, if only because shivering is mainly carb-fuelled!” All of which highlight the importance of choosing well when buying key pieces of kit, such as a winter cycling jacket or winter bib tights.

For calculating your energy requirements, most modern cycling computers provide a good estimate of the energy you have used during a ride. It’s important to match your energy intake with your expenditure. ‘’If your intensity has decreased, then you will require less carbohydrate in your diet,” notes Starr, “but for many athletes training volume may increase so the overall amount of energy needed remains the same.” 

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to planning cycling nutrition; it involves a little bit of planning. My personal technique is to estimate the duration and intensity of the ride. If it’s going to be three hours in Zone 2, I’ll take 150g of carbs – 50g per hour. I check the carbohydrate level of each product I’m taking, count them into my pocket and then always take one or two bars extra. You never know if you’ll drop a bar or end up tagging an extra loop at the end.

While keeping an eye on energy expenditure and intake it's important to ensure consistent training, it is better to be slightly over-fuelled than under-fuelled. My personal (admittedly crude) test to see if I have fuelled a ride correctly is to assess my hunger levels when I get home. Aim to consume a mixture of carbs and protein as soon as you arrive home – a protein shake is perfect. If I still feel like I could inhale the fridge, having downed my shake, then I know I haven’t eaten anywhere near enough during the ride. When that happens, there is usually a knock-on effect: the body’s equilibrium has been unsettled. This can become serious if you have multiple days of training to get through, especially with the added stress of the cold weather.

Winter nutrition and managing weight gain

Erring on the side of over-fuelling inevitably raises a question about weight. In our power-to-weight obsessive sport, it can be hard to put it out of our minds. We’re often a little heavier upon starting winter training, after the off-season, so it can be tempting to cut straight down and get back to ‘race weight’. Don’t fall into this trap.

“Race weight for elite athletes should be sustained only for a very short period in the season where they focus intensely on achieving a peak power to weight ratio,” clarifies Starr. “For the rest of the year, athletes are typically a few kilos heavier – which has benefits for their health and gives them some extra energy availability to help with adaptations to training.” 

Personally, I try to avoid the scales in early winter training and only step back on them before my first fitness tests of winter, just to ensure we get accurate data. Weight is really not important at all over the winter. Though it is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle and diet, you do not need to be ultra lean. I’m content to be 5 per cent heavier over the winter months than in the race season.

Many athletes take supplements to help support their immune system in winter. While each individual has different personal requirements, best identified through a blood test of biomarkers (from the likes of Medichecks or Forth Edge), research has shown that all of us in the UK should take vitamin D. Being exposed to little intense sunlight, our bodies cannot produce enough of the ‘sunshine vitamin’ and need a little help. The recommended daily dose for sports people is 1,000iu of vitamin D3 (the sunlight-produced form), and make sure you choose an Informed Sport-accredited product, i.e. tested for banned substances.

Low carb fueling and winter training

Without any racing to worry about, many riders like to experiment with other fuelling strategies over winter, such as low carbohydrate training. If that’s an option you’re considering, first you need to think through the purpose and implications. “The most important thing to note is that low carbohydrate doesn’t mean fasting,” says Starr. “Having a protein-based breakfast, such as an omelette, with a small amount of carbohydrate, some fruit or vegetables, will support your training and help your body adapt appropriately to exercise, rather than breaking down muscle.” 

Poorly planned low-carb rides may have a negative impact on your fitness, causing more harm than good. The strategy is intended to increase your body’s ability to burn fat as fuel, and therefore your training intensity should reflect this. Low-carb rides should be low intensity, typically Zone 2 Endurance rides and no longer than 90 minutes. 

Turning from carbs to protein, because winter tends to be the season for doing more gym work, many riders increase their protein intake. However, there is actually more muscle damage from high-volume endurance training than from strength training, so your protein intake should be consistent throughout the year: 1.6-2.0g per kilogram of body weight each day. This allows the body to maximise the training adaptations while regulating the production of hormones to keep you healthy. Additionally, the body uses some protein as a source of energy on longer rides, so having plentiful supplies is win-win.

Winter cycling nutrition ideas

We asked sports nutritionist and chef Anita Bean to provide her favourite warming winter recipes – both are featured in her book The Vegan Athlete’s Cookbook: Protein-rich recipes to train, recover and perform:

Moroccan-Spiced Chickpea Soup

Bean says: This simple, protein-packed soup is highly nutritious and easy to make. Chickpeas are high in fibre, particularly a type called oligosaccharides that are fermented by beneficial bacteria in the gut. They produce short chain fatty acids that improve immune function and benefit your health in so many ways, including post-exercise recovery.

Serves 2

You will need.... 1tbsp olive or rapeseed oil 1 small onion, finely chopped 1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped 1 celery stick, finely chopped ½ tsp ground cumin ½ tsp cinnamon 1 tsp harissa paste 2tbsp tomato purée Salt and freshly ground black pepper 400ml vegetable stock 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed Juice of ½ lemon 50g baby spinach Handful of fresh coriander, chopped To serve: Toasted wholemeal pitta bread 

Method

- Heat oil in a large pan over low heat. Fry onion, carrots and celery until onion becomes translucent -Stir in cumin, cinnamon, harrisa, tomato purée, salt and pepper an cook for one minute while stirring - Add stock and chickpeas, bring to the boil then simmer for five mins - Remove from heat. Using potato masher, mash some of the soup in the pan (not too much). Stir in lemon juice and spinach and let it cook in the heat of the soup for a couple of minutes until wilted. Adjust seasoning if necessary. - Divide between two bowls, sprinkle with coriander and serve with toasted pitta bread.

Per serving (including one wholemeal pitta bread): 489cals, 20g protein, 12g fat (1g saturates), 68g carbs (13g total sugars), 17g fibre

Chickpea and Butternut Squash Tagine 

Bean says: This warming tagine made with chickpeas and served with couscous provides an excellent balance of essential amino acids that promote muscle recovery. Plus, it is a rich source of fibre, B vitamins and beta-carotene, an antioxidant vitamin that protects against cell damage during exercise. Spinach and dried apricots both add plenty of iron, while almonds supply vitamin E. 

Serves 4

You will need 2 tbsp light olive or rapeseed oil 1 onion, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, crushed 2cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped 1 tsp ras el hanout or harissa paste ½ tsp ground cumin ½ tsp ground coriander ½ tsp ground cinnamon ½ butternut squash (approx. 500g), peeled, deseeded and cut into 1cm chunks 400g can chopped tomatoes 2 x 400g cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed 75g dried ready-to-eat apricots, roughly chopped Juice of 1 lemon 50g fresh spinach Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to season 50g flaked almonds, toasted A small handful fresh coriander, chopped To serve: Cooked couscous

Method 

- Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat and cook onion for three mins until translucent - Add garlic, ginger, ras el hanout (or harrisa paste), cumin, corriander and cinnamon. Stir well and cook of one min. Add butternut squash, tomatoes, chickpeas and dried apricots and top up with enough hot water to just cover the vegetable. - Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes unit the vegetables are tender. - Add the lemon juice and spinach, stirring until just wilted. Season with salt and black pepper - Scatter over the flaked almonds and chopped corriander and serve with cooked couscous (or quinoa if gf).

Per serving (including 50g – dry weight – couscous): 603kcal, 23g protein, 18g fat (2g saturates), 81g carbs (20g total sugars), 16g fibre

Nutrition for indoor cycling sessions

The combination of less daylight and riskier road conditions outdoors makes indoor training a more attractive option in winter. For those with busy work and family lives, these sessions are often squeezed in early in the morning or after work, and it can be easy to neglect nutrition at such times. 

According to Dan Fleeman, director at Dig Deep Coaching and elite Zwift racer, it’s best not to panic-fuel in a hurry before your session. “Taking on carbs within the hour before starting, shortly after getting up, may cause hyperglycemia,” he explains. This is a spike in blood sugar above the optimum level. “Instead, either get up and eat two hours before your workout, or fuel on the bike during the warm-up.” 

Similarly, when I was still in school and had to get my training done in the evenings, I was never sure whether I should eat dinner before or after my ride. Fleeman advises:  “For evening sessions, athletes should have already taken on board two good meals during the day. A high-carb snack 90 minutes such as a large flapjack 90 minutes before the session should be sufficient. It’s also critical to keep drinking during the day, as you don’t want to start a session partly dehydrated.”

When the intensity is high, such as in a Zwift race, taking on some extra carbs is likely to benefit your performance even when the duration is relatively short, i.e. 30-75 minutes. If you’re going to be riding for an hour, aim to consume around 50g of carbs, in the form of either bars, gels or drink mix. Carbs are king when it comes to high-intensity training.

Dehydration may be less of a concern when riding outdoors in winter, compared to hot weather demands, but do bear in mind that your thirst may be suppressed when you feel cold. Though you won’t be sweating as much during winter rides, you’ll still be clammy under those insulating layers, and still losing water continuously through respiration – water vapour on your breath. Again, there is no one-size-fits-all rehydration schedule; find out what works for you and stick to it.  

What is the ultimate indoor cycling hydration strategy? “The basic principles are in line with road riding,” says Fleeman, “but you need to pay added attention to fluid, as your sweat rate increases indoors.” Dehydration can be compounded over multiple days of drinking not quite enough, taking its toll on subsequent training, so it is important to keep topped up every day. Don’t ignore your thirst just because you’re distracted or busy; keep a big bottle of water close at hand – drinking enough throughout the day that your pee remains a nice light straw colour.

What’s best to drink while training indoors? “A good isotonic drink mix and gels work perfectly for high-intensity Zwift racing or training,” says Fleeman, “I would suggest a minimum or 60g of carbs per hour for intensive sessions and around 40g for endurance-based rides.”

There has been a recent influx of nutrition products designed specifically for indoor training. Does nutritionist David Starr think they have a place? “With the restricted air flow, and higher heat and humidity indoors, hydration demands are much higher,” he says. “SiS’s Turbo products seem to be cleverly designed to support these demands of indoor training.”

The ‘special’ ingredient in the SiS Turbo range is menthol, which is believed to have a cooling effect. Does it work? “There is not yet enough evidence to say for sure,” says Starr, “with a particular paucity of data for female athletes.” A recent study published in the European Journal of Sport Science found that menthol had no effect on either performance, perception of effort or thermal comfort. So if you want to keep cool, buy a bigger fan.

This full version of this article was published in the print edition of Cycling Weekly. Subscribe online and get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week. 

Fall is here at last: leaves are changing colors, mornings are cool and crisp and all things pumpkin spice abound. It’s a time of nostalgia—and cinnamon-centric seasonal flavors.

Since the early 2000s, when a certain global coffee chain introduced the now infamous Pumpkin Spice Latte, pumpkin spice products seem to embed themselves more deeply into autumn every year. If you’ve visited a grocery store in the last few weeks, chances are you’ve seen a lot of the color orange on display on shelves or featured at the ends of aisles.

But what is pumpkin spice, and why is it so popular? Every brand does it a little bit differently, but generally speaking pumpkin spice consists of a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. These spices, in combination with pumpkin or squash are evocative and nostalgia-inducing—just the smell can transport you back to youthful memories of hayrides, pumpkin patches, and of course, pie.

But these flavors have their roots much longer ago—back to the early days of North American colonists and the Indiginous people who helped them to grow crops successfully. Pumpkins and other winter squash were a staple, and these hearty vegetables were turned into soups, stews and roasted dishes at the end of the growing season. Pumpkins can be used in recipes both sweet or savory and keep well through the winter, but they are most commonly consumed in the mid to late fall. Thus, pumpkins and pumpkin spice became inextricably linked to the harvest and autumn.

Today, the ubiquity of pumpkin spice seems limited only by the imagination. Pumpkin spice waffles? Yes, please. Pumpkin spice Twinkies? They exist. Pumpkin spice chain lubricant? Why not? 

Pumpkin spice up your cycling lifestyle

Below are a few of the energy bars and other products currently available. Fuel for your next weekend morning ride or a quick boost before lining up at a cyclocross race!

Breakfast:

- Purely Elizabeth’s Pumpkin Cinnamon Ancient Grain Granola - Pumpkin seed and oat-based granola, with cinnamon.

- Kodiak Pumpkin Power Cakes - Everybody loves pancakes, and this mix makes it easy to have them often.

Ride Food:

- LARABAR Pumpkin Pie Bar - Fruit and nut-based bar with subtle spices.

- RXBAR Pumpkin Spice Protein Bar - A simple protein bar with a seasonal twist.

- Bobo’s Pumpkin Spice Oat Bar - Oat-based bar with lots of spice. Crumbly, but good energy.

- Perfect Bar Pumpkin Pie - Crustless pie in a package.

- Kurt’s Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Energy Bar - Mildly chocolatey fluffy pumpkin and oat bar

- Clif Bar's Spiced Pumpkin Pie bar - The classic energy bar in a seasonal flavor

- Quest Nutrition Pumpkin Pie Protein Bar - The seasonal taste of pumpkin pie with 20g of protein

- Nature's Bakery Whole Wheat Pumpkin Spice Fig Bar - your favorite fig bar, now with some seasonal spice

- GU Energy Gel, Pumpkin Spice — Gu's newest gel flavor in a pocket-sized package

Coffee:

- La Colombe Pumpkin Spice Draft Latte - A pumpkin spice latte in a can.

Post-ride treats

- Honey Mama’s Pumpkin Spice Cocoa Truffle Bar - Chocolate and coconutty pumpkin treat.

- There are loads of Pumpkin beers for post-ride enjoyment like Elysian's Night Owl, Dogfish Head Brewing’s Punkin Ale or Athletic Brewing's Non-Alcoholic Dark & Gourdy 

Chain Lubricant:

- Hardcore Chain Butter Pumpkin Spice Chain Lubricant - Scented chain lube, for your most festive rides.

Products Tasted and Reviewed

We had the opportunity to try several of these products and have a few recommendations to pass along, whether you’re a die-hard PSL fan —like Ashton Lambie—, or new to the allure of spiced treats. 

LARABAR’s Pumpkin Pie Bar is a great on-the-bike snack. Easy to eat and flavorful but not too overspiced and just sweet enough to taste like pie. These bars are simply made with only a few ingredients and as a result they’re easy on your stomach. I typically rotate through their other flavors throughout the year, but like to grab a box of these when they come out in the fall.

Bobo’s Pumpkin Spice Oat Bar. A Bobo's bar always feel like a special treat on a ride, like a mini sweet loaf. With 340 calories per bar, they're higher caloric ride fuel than most bars and I therefore reserve them for longer days. There are a couple dozen (!) Bobo favors and they're all tasty. The Pumpkin Spice is no exception. The spice is present but bot overwhelming and while many bars overdo the sweetness, in my opinion, this bar reminds me of a slice of Pumpkin loaf at my favorite local bakery, but more nutritional.

GU's Pumpkin Spice gel. One would think that after a decade of gel consumption, gels would be the first things to exit one's life after racing. However, on longer adventures, gels remain my go-to. They're easy fuel and my body handles them well. However, I usually opt for the brighter flavors like anything citrus or, my favorite, raspberry lemonade. When GU informed me they were concocting a new flavor, I was Intrigued. The standard GU Energy Gel already comes in 22 flavors, what else would consumers want? Pumpkin Spice, as it turns out. And while I really wanted to like GU's newest flavor for a seasonal touch to my fall riding, it's just entirely too sweet for me. 

Kurt’s Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Bar offers a surprisingly light texture, akin to a muffin. These feel like a treat, and pack a good amount of calories for their size. I wouldn’t mind if they tasted more like chocolate, but that could just be me. These contain eggs, dairy, and soy, so those with food intolerances should take note. 

Real food is always my favorite ride fuel, so Purely Elizabeth’s Pumpkin Cinnamon Ancient Grain Granola gets high marks for flavor (sweet, nutty), texture (crunchy) and providing long-lasting energy for a full day of bike adventures. Tasty with hemp or macadamia nut milks, or with full-fat yogurt for some extra calories.

Honey Mama’s Pumpkin Spice Cocoa Truffle Bar is really tasty. It needs to be kept in the refrigerator so it doesn’t melt, but it’d be great to bring along on a cold ride to eat at a cafe stop along the way. Free of dairy and refined sugars, it’s sweet and satisfying.

Still uncertain whether pumpkin spice is for you? Perhaps a post-ride libation is more your speed. There are many good options, but I’m partial to Dogfish Head Brewing’s Punkin Ale. It’s not too sweet or spiced and balances a satisfying amount of pumpkin flavor with a hearty brown ale.

Where to buy

By now, we are all aware of the benefits of fuelling properly when on the bike. 

When we exercise we use the fat and carbohydrate (glycogen) stored in our body. While even the leanest pro athlete has more than enough fat stores for a training session, we all only have limited glycogen stores. 

Glycogen is stored in the liver and the muscles as it is transported in the blood as glucose. While we have all probably experienced the dreaded ‘bonk’ when our liver glycogen stores are so low that blood sugar drops; even mild glycogen depletion can lead to a significant reduction in performance.

It’s for this reason that whenever I work with an athlete, I will prescribe their training and the fuelling during and after each session. This ensures that the macronutrient intake matches the demands of that particular training session. This approach to cycling nutrition has recently become known as ‘fuelling for the work required’.

The question then becomes – what is really ‘required’ during training sessions?

As a (very) rough guide we can break down sessions in cycling training plans into three categories: Easy rides, long endurance rides, and intensive sessions. Each of these sessions has a different carbohydrate requirement.

What cycling nutrition is required?

Easy rides

These rides are short (<90 mins) and very easy. Typically, so long as you are fuelled before these rides, they don’t require additional carbohydrate intake during the session. However, if you are doing them the day after a race where you might still be a little glycogen depleted it certainly won’t do any harm to take in some carbs.

Endurance rides

These Zone 2 endurance rides are longer (>90mins) but still fairly easy (if you are doing them properly). However, due to their duration, you will still be using a significant amount of glycogen during a ride and thus it’s sensible to be taking in some carbs as you ride. At typical endurance intensities, 40-60g of carbs per hour is sufficient.

Intensive rides

These can be anywhere from short hard HIIT workouts to long hard races. In those shorter sessions, (<60-90mins) aggressive carbohydrate intake is not recommended as the body won’t be able to process the carbohydrates quickly enough for them to be burned. By the time they have gone through the digestive system, into the blood, and then either to the muscle or the liver, you’ll likely be onto your cool down.

However, in long hard sessions (>90mins) you are going to need to take in a lot of carbohydrates if you don’t want to run out of glycogen and see a drop in your performance.

In this case, you will need to be taking in more than 60g/hr. In fact, some professional athletes are now eating 90-120g/hr of carbohydrates.

Where should these carbs come from?

Now we know how much to eat, the next question is, where should those carbs come from?

Should you be only using (sometimes very expensive) sports nutrition in the form of the best energy drinks, gels or bars, or does any old carbohydrate do?

Endurance rides

Below an intake of 60g/hr I would argue that it doesn’t really matter where your carbs come from. The reason for this is that different types of sugars are absorbed through different channels in the gut. 

The glucose channel (by far the most common carbohydrate) can get ~60g of glucose out of the gut and into the bloodstream per hour. Indeed, in scientific experiences, at these sorts of intensities, feeding cyclists potato-based products resulted in the same level of performance as specialist sports nutrition. Considering this is where most of your training will take place – I would recommend finding a product you like, checking how many carbs it contains and then eating enough of it to reach your 40-60g / hour.

Intense rides

This is where things get a little complex. Our gut cannot process enough of one type of sugar to meet the ~90g/hr needed to fuel the session. Therefore, we need a combination of sugars. The latest research suggests that a 1:08 ratio of glucose and fructose results in the best carbohydrate uptake and the biggest improvements in performance. This ratio is only really found in specific sports nutrition products. Therefore, for these sessions, I would certainly recommend specific products.

We know also know that before the gut can process 90g/hr of carbs it actually needs some training. Therefore, it’s important that you don’t just suddenly gobble down 90g/hr in the first intensive session or race and expect your stomach to handle it. Instead, you need to progressively increase the amount of carbohydrates per hour, starting at ~60g/hr and getting up to 90g/hr (or even higher in some cases).

Likewise, as all sports nutrition products contain a slightly different mix of ingredients, you cannot expect your gut to be able to just process any old product and all be fine. Doing so is a recipe for ‘gastric-distress’... Instead, it’s far better to pick a product you like the taste of and stick with it. Slowly up your carb intake in intensive sessions until you are at ~90g/hr or your stomach can’t handle any more.

The verdict?

In easy rides, a bit of carbohydrate is fine and won’t do any harm. In endurance rides, you need to be fuelling at 40-60g of carbs an hour but you can get those carbs from wherever you want. For intense sessions (especially those >60mins), I would recommend finding a product you like the taste of, that contains a mix of sugars (ideally glucose and fructose in a 1:0.8 ratio), and using it for all sessions. Not only will this mean you are optimizing on the bike performance, but you will also be training your gut to handle the high carbohydrate intake. This means no nasty surprises on race day.

With food prices soaring, it’s getting ever more expensive to sate a cyclist’s appetite. Here’s a nutritionists’ guide on how to get your nutrition for less. 

In this age of online training plans and workouts, do you ever find yourself with a burning question you’d like to directly ask a cycling coach? Well, now is your chance to ask away! In this series, we’ll be putting your questions to expert coaches – send them in to Cycling Weekly's Fitness Features Editor at anna.abram@futurenet.com. 

It’s well understood that to keep your body powered while cycling, or any endurance sport for that matter, you need to take on sufficient fuel. Naturally, quantity is a large part of the equation - it’s possible to burn through thousands of calories while riding - but quality is also a hugely important factor.

It is well publicised that everyone should eat a well balanced diet, which consists of a variety of food groups and ideal portion sizes. But there are meals which do follow this good general dietary advice, but which will dampen your performance for the specific demands of cycling - whether that’s a sportive, gravel event or race you’ve entered, or your first 100-mile bike ride.

We spoke to sports nutritionist José L. Areta of Liverpool John Moores University (@jlAreta) to find out how you should shift your focus before a big bike ride. 

“You need to focus on foods that are carbohydrate dense,” Areta advises. “If you’re heading out for a five-hour long bike ride, for example, you’ll want to consume around 2-4 grams of carbs per kilo of bodyweight. Someone that is, say 70kg, should therefore be aiming for a total amount of carbs that’s somewhere between 140 and 280 grams.”

“The reason why you want to be eating those carbohydrates before your ride is mainly because you want to replenish the glycogen in the liver, Areta adds. “You are also going to be able to synthesize muscle glycogen, which is a very important source for fueling.”

The need for energy, and consequently carbohydrates, is much more important for extended exercise at high intensities - so this is a priority for any cyclist.

It’s important to fully understand the extent of the body’s requirements. Areta told us that if you ask someone to have a carbohydrate-rich breakfast, they would typically choose to eat around 1-2 grams of carbs per kilo of bodyweight - around half of what the body requires ahead of multiple hours out on the bike. You are probably going to need to eat a little more than you’d expect. 

It’s important to be aware that not all carbohydrates are created equal, though. They can vary greatly by where they place on the Glycemic Index (GI). High GI foods are digested immediately and give the body an instant lift in blood glucose levels. However, this doesn’t last long and after a spike comes a crash - not ideal for a cyclist who is heading out for a long bike ride.

Low GI foods are digested more slowly, which makes the body feel full for longer and the energy release is similarly prolonged. This slow digestion rate also means you will be well fuelled for a longer proportion of your ride, even if you consume exactly the same number of calories from a high GI food source. 

But there are other considerations beyond just where your carbs rank on the glycemic index. Here are our top six foods not to eat before heading out on an endurance ride.

1. Corn flakes

One of the most common breakfast staples, you might assume that corn flakes would make an excellent pre-ride meal. After all, corn itself is a carbohydrate, which is the primary fuel source for hard endurance efforts. How could a big bowl of that be anything else than ideal before a bike ride?

Well, this is a key example of an unfortunately high GI food. Although corn flakes are packed full of carbohydrates, the way that their energy is released is too quick, leading to a much greater spike than your body requires, and followed by a plummeting low.

There is a reason why porridge is so strongly associated with cycling - oats have a particularly low glycemic index. An equal number of calories and carbs consumed in the form of porridge will leave your body fuelled for much longer as the energy is steadily released over time.

2. Full English breakfast

When we think of a hearty breakfast option, a full English breakfast (packed with sausages, eggs, baked beans, etc.) is definitely the one that instantly comes to mind. However, Areta warns that “if you want to perform your best on the bike, a full English breakfast is not the best choice”.

Why’s this? “A full English breakfast will be rich in protein and fats, and that’s not the type of fuel that you need for your long bike ride,” he explains, “you’re likely to fatigue early.

“Even though you are going to use fat during endurance rides, you’ll already have a lot of energy stored in your body in the form of fat. Whereas the amount of carbohydrates that you can store in your body are very limited. If you start your ride with your fuel tank for carbohydrates low, then that’s not good. Whereas your fuel tank for fats is never really going to drop that much. 

“There is this idea that ‘if I eat more fat, then I will burn more fat and I will spare the use of carbohydrates’, but it doesn’t work like that, because if you’re riding hard, you have no alternative but to use those carbohydrates.”

3. Pasta

Leftover pasta from the night before may seem like a good idea to have before a bike ride, as both white and brown pasta do rank low on the Glycemic Index. However, like most meals, it is what accompanies the pasta which may reduce how good a choice it is.

A pasta carbonara sauce is high in fat, which means it can be tougher for your body to digest, making your ride quite uncomfortable as a result. 

“If you add a lot of fat or protein to your pasta dish, you’re going to affect both how full you’re feeling and how fast what you have eaten is being digested,” Areta warns, “you’ll feel full, but of the fuel that you don’t really need much of.”

A better alternative is to choose an alternative sauce for your pasta, such as pesto or olive oil - and in moderation. 

4. Salad

You might be thinking what can possibly be wrong with a salad? Lots of leafy greens and, with the addition of some chicken or fish, a healthy dose of high quality proteins. But whilst this constitutes an excellent part of a well-balanced diet, ahead of a big ride it’s simply not the right fuel for the job at hand. 

As mentioned, carbohydrates are king for intense, long duration efforts - and the quantity you need might surprise you. Although the vitamins and trace elements of salads are excellent additions to your diet in general, taking these on ahead of a big ride is likely to leave your stomach feeling quite full and unable to take on the necessary carbs. 

It’s much better to concentrate on your energy systems ahead of a big ride and make sure you’re getting the range and variety you need from your diet more generally in your general day-to-day diet and post-ride.

5. Fruit

It’s the same case for fruit. “If you try to eat the high amounts of carbohydrates that you need from fruit only, then that’s going to be a lot of fruit and you’re going to feel so full,” Areta points out. 

“I’m not saying don’t eat fruit, but you’ve got to moderate your intake of those types of foods before a bike ride, as you need foods that are carbohydrate dense so that you can reach the recommended total carb intake.” 

6. Fizzy drinks

The high levels of sugar that are in fizzy drinks are commonly known and largely condemned by nutritionists trying to nudge the population into healthier habits. However the regular sight of a professional rider sipping on a can of fizz after a race may make you think that these are the ideal tonic for a cyclist. 

That’s not quite true. Despite giving an immediate sugar boost, the effects wear off quickly and can give unpleasant side effects that can disturb your rhythm on the bike.

Of course, some pros do still consume these drinks regardless, but part of that is the psychological boost a fresh and familiar taste can provide - if you don’t need that yourself, there’s nothing really to be gained. Also note the size of the cans the pros opt for, these are much, much smaller than what you would normally buy from a shop - moderation does matter. 

Whether your going on your first 100-mile bike ride or looking to increase your average speed over 100 miles, what fuel you put in your pockets and bottles is very important in helping you achieve your cycling goal.

Nowadays there is a myriad of choices when it comes to cycling nutrition and a whole host of good, and bad, advice about fuelling on the bike – cycling coach James Spragg digs into what the science (rather than the marketing) suggests you should do.

What do I need to eat?

Carbohydrates are king when it comes to fuel on the bike. Even the leanest professional athlete will have enough fat to fuel days of riding let alone hours.

We need to take on carbs when riding because we only have limited stores of carbohydrates in our body (we mainly store carbohydrates as glycogen) and we need carbohydrates for those higher intensities where fat metabolism isn’t capable of providing energy quickly enough.

However, not all carbohydrates are equal.

The goal when choosing which carbohydrates to eat is two-fold – firstly to maximise how easily you can get them out of the stomach and to your leg muscles and secondly to make sure they don’t upset your stomach.

For this purpose, the carbohydrate or sugar to go for is glucose (you might see it listed as maltodextrin on some products). Glucose is easily absorbed and transported from the stomach to the bloodstream where it can be transported around the body to where it is needed.

The problem with glucose is that absorption is limited. It is not possible for your stomach to transport more than 60g of glucose per hour into the bloodstream. Eat any more than this and it’ll just sit in your stomach.

This is why nowadays in many products you will find glucose being combined with other sugars. When glucose is combined with fructose (in a 1:0.8 ratio) we get a combination of carbohydrates that allows us to transport up to ~120g/hr from the stomach to the bloodstream. This is because glucose and fructose use different pathways to get out from the stomach.

However, the downside is that fructose, especially in higher quantities, can quite easily upset your stomach – no one wants that!

So now we know a combination of glucose and fructose is what we need – the next question is…

How much and in what form?

For most amateur riders 60g/hr of glucose is a good target to have. We don’t typically say that heavier riders should eat more than lighter riders (even though they will be burning more energy) because it’s how much we can get out of the stomach and into the bloodstream that’s the limiting factor.

This 60 g/hr should come from a mix of energy drinks and solid food.

However, a century might take anywhere between 4.5 and 8 hrs.

On the shorter end of that spectrum, you are likely going to have quite a bit of time where you are going fairly hard. This means that you are going to be burning a lot of glycogen and that will need replacing if you're not to hit the wall. That means you may want to increase your carbohydrate intake above that 60g/hr and introduce some fructose.

The benefit of this is that you will have more energy on board, the downside is that you start to run the risk of upsetting your stomach. Therefore, it's best to stick to easily digestible food (specialist energy bars and energy gels) and even take a lot of those carbohydrates in via energy drink.

On the longer end of this spectrum, it's likely that the average intensity will be a bit lower. Therefore, you don’t need to go above that 60g/hr target. On the other hand, because you will be out on your bike for a long time hinger might become an issue and it might be a good idea to take onboard more ‘real food’ rather than specific energy products. If you're looking to make your own energy bars, check out these recipes.

Practical considerations

That’s the science part, however, there are a few practical considerations. 

Firstly, you need to like the food and drink you take with you. It's pointless having a perfect fuelling plan if you hate the taste of the food in your pockets as you simply won’t eat it! 

Secondly, you should always try whatever you plan to use on race day in training. However tempting, never try a new product on event day! Trial your fueling plan in training, see how many carbohydrates per hour you can tolerate and then put that into practice on century day!

I knew I was in trouble when my belly started squashing against my quads while on the drops. It was during an early new year ride that I first noticed it, a ride that also felt unreasonably challenging, given it was just a brief potter around my local Cotswold hills. Christmas had craftily gifted me a generous portion of belly-fat while robbing me of a chunk of fitness. 

It wasn’t entirely Santa’s fault. I don’t mind riding in miserable weather, but I draw the line at ice. The icy conditions in December and January left me sitting forlornly on my rollers spinning out recovery rides from non-existent efforts. 

By early February I was desperate to regain a healthy weight and a good level of fitness in anticipation of the warmer spring rides that were just weeks away. But to achieve these cycling goals, I knew that I needed help. 

For physiology evaluation and fitness planning, I turned to Jonathan Robinson, applied sport scientist at Team Bath’s Human Performance Centre at the University of Bath. I knew that, to honour Robinson’s efforts to improve my fitness, I’d need to improve my eating habits too. Instead of enlisting a nutritionist, I put my trust in a smartphone app. 

I needed a solution that was responsive enough to cope with the complexities of life without the expense of having a nutritionist on call 24/7. Four apps made my shortlist: MyFitnessPal, EatMyRide, Cronometer and Hexis. The latter appealed the most. Hexis is a relatively new app that has Dr Sam Impey’s class-leading work on carbohydrate periodization at its core. Impey, a Hexis co-founder, is also lead nutritionist at British Cycling, making him a name I was happy to trust.

The numbers and testing

Fast forward to 21 February and I’m in my bib shorts while Robinson busies himself prodding and gripping my fatty folds with a pair of cold tongs. I’m booked in at Team Bath for a preliminary fitness test to analyse my body composition, VO2max and lactate threshold.

The headline figures are 88.7kg in mass, which for my 190cm height gives me a BMI of 24.8, but more importantly the skinfold test exposed a body fat percentage of 19.4. While these BMI and fat percentage figures are deemed healthy, they’re right on the limit approaching overweight, so Robinson recommends an initial fat target of 15%. 

My VO2max figure is more encouraging. OK, 43ml/kg/min is far from elite level, but it put me in the ‘Excellent’ category for a man in his late 50s. Lactate Threshold (LT1) power was 175 watts at 130bpm and Individual Anaerobic Threshold (IAT or LT2) power was 225 watts at 145bpm, revealing that my baseline endurance capability is acceptable – but that I fade fast when faced with harder intensity efforts. 

Robinson recommends that I continue working predominantly in Zones 1 and 2 to improve my LT1, while venturing into Zones 3 and 4 more often than I currently do to build better lactate tolerance for IAT/LT2. In simple terms, this means building higher intensity work into my training so I can face the Cotswold climbs. 

Before I leave, a follow-up session is scheduled for 13 April, only seven short weeks away. 

Carb planning

Hexis differs from most other apps in that it’s a predictive nutrition planner for athletes, as opposed to a rudimentary, retrospective calorie tracker aimed predominantly at dieters. It also implements a technique known as ‘carbohydrate periodization’, more of which later. 

On first login, it needs some basic biometric data: age, gender, height, weight, plus some lifestyle information such as how active you are, your chosen sports and how much sleep you plan for. It needs to know whether you want to maintain your existing weight, increase weight through muscle gain or lose weight without compromising performance. 

With just three primary screens, Hexis is deceptively simple to use. The Fuel Planner page is where you feed it the rides you’ve got planned, and it responds with what you need to eat for optimal fuelling. It does this using carb coding, recommending low, medium or high carbohydrate meals and snacks interspersed around your workouts throughout the day. 

For example, on a typical day, to prepare for a moderate, one-hour, early evening ride, I need to eat a medium carb lunch comprising 750 to 800kcal, of which 46 to 100g should be carbs. This recommendation is available at a glance as a brightly coloured notification before my scheduled ride. Similarly, post-ride there’s a reminder to eat a similar medium-carb dinner, followed by a final recommendation of a low-carb pre-evening snack. 

Tap on any of the coloured entries and Hexis delivers more detailed information, including a pie-chart style plate that shows the ideal split between vegetables, carbs and protein. Back on the Fuel Planner page, Hexis also provides overarching personalised nutrition insights, laced with encouraging remarks, a feature it calls the Fuel Coach.

A quick tap reveals the Kcal & Macros page, home to the daily calorie target and guidance on how much protein and fat to consume. On demanding days, I’d also use the Live Energy page to get real time feedback on my current energy status, as well as a prediction of likely future levels. 

Quite honestly, logging meals and snacks is a chore that I don’t, ahem, relish. But in a recent update the Hexis developers have introduced a searchable food database that makes it much easier to log how many grammes of carbs, protein and fat were in that small bowl of porridge I wolfed down for breakfast. Similarly, in iOS,  Hexis uses Apple Health to facilitate logging workouts, in effect enabling it to talk with most other fitness apps on the market.

Hexis is so straightforward that it’s easy to undervalue the sophisticated calculations going on under the hood. The app makes a point of primarily tracking carbs because they are our most immediate source of energy. Simplistically, carbs are converted to glucose for immediate use, or stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen. Glycogen is then readily converted to glucose for availability in the medium term. Eat nothing during a medium (or higher) intensity ride and you’ll run out of glucose in about two hours. 

For decades, cyclists have tried to counter this issue by upping their carb levels before and during an event, using strategies such as carb-loading. Conversely, more recently it’s been discovered that occasionally training with reduced carbohydrate availability can elicit positive muscle adaptations that sometimes improve performance. To harness this effect, new strategies termed carbohydrate periodization have become popular, including fasted training, twice per day training and ‘sleep low, train low’. 

However, throw into the mix the misguided desire to increase power-to-weight through under-fuelling, and it’s easy to see why eating disorders and chronic under-fuelling have become so prevalent. 

“A lot of cyclists are under-fuelling,” says Impey. “Not always enough to damage their health but it is harming their performance. It is fundamentally easier to manipulate functional mass than it is to increase power, which takes much longer. 

“Often the solution is to deploy carbs in the right places during the day, which can make a big difference to how athletes feel and how they adapt to their training. You get more bang for your buck out of each training session if you’re fuelled appropriately, and you recover effectively. You get fitter, faster.” 

What’s more, for a variety of reasons, the popular carbohydrate periodisation techniques mentioned above don’t always result in performance gains. Often, simply because fuelling inadequately at the wrong time doesn’t enable the body to operate at its highest potential. 

To overcome this, Impey proposed in his 2018 paper Fuel for the Work Required: A Theoretical Framework for Carbohydrate Periodisation and the Glycogen Threshold Hypothesis a carbohydrate threshold that adequately fuelled athletes for the “work required” yet still enabled positive adaptations. 

“You need a balance,” says Impey. “You don’t want to be in a state where you have way too much carbohydrate in your body, but you don’t want to have too little either because you won’t benefit from a quality training session. Equally, too much carbohydrate will dampen those positive adaptive responses. Hexis helps people find that sweet spot, where you’re fuelled sufficiently, you’re recovering effectively, but you’re not dampening any of those adaptive responses.” 

Hexis takes the underpinning science of carbohydrate periodisation and hones it into a programme that’s effective, personalised, predictive and scalable. Its algorithms are informed by a 72- hour window that considers how you fuelled yesterday and what you have planned for tomorrow, before recommending what to consume today. 

Regardless of talent, we all share a susceptibility to unforeseen changes that wreak havoc with our plans. Hexis’s ability to instantly recalculate periodized fuelling needs when rides are cancelled is a big plus. 

Other cycling nutrition apps

I found Hexis highly dynamic, but was it the right app for me? EatMyRide is also predictive, with more of a focus on individual rides than long-term cycling training plans. It plays nicely with Strava, Komoot, Ride with GPS, Wahoo and Garmin Connect too, as well as suggesting well-known nutrition products, such as SIS gels. 

MyFitnessPal is probably the best-known sports nutrition app available. It boasts connectivity with more than 50 apps and features a database of more than 14 million foods. But there’s no getting away from MyFitnessPal’s roots as a calorie counter, rather than a giver of responsive nutritional advice. 

Cronometer is another tracker that does a great job of logging your meals and exercise, but it feels passive where Hexis is active and dynamic. There’s definitely room for improvement in Hexis’s feature set, especially intra-ride fuelling, but these gaps are due to be plugged by the upgrades that are in the pipeline. 

Using any nutrition app takes work and commitment, which I struggled with for the first week or so. However, once I’d settled into a routine, it became second nature. Did I feel well fuelled and energised? It’s hard to say, mostly because my shorter March rides were in such foul weather conditions that I was always battling a headwind. Longer rides felt more comfortable, with no abrupt loss of legs after the three-hour mark. 

My follow-up evaluation at Team Bath provided more concrete evidence that I was doing something right, results that I couldn’t have achieved if I’d been under- fuelled. In seven weeks, my weight had dropped 3.5kg, but more interestingly my body fat was now 15%, down from 19.4%. My new VO2max was up, at 45.9 ml/kg/min, and my LT1 and IAT/LT2 figures had risen to 200 watts at 124bpm and 237 watts at 141bpm – gains of 25 and 12 watts respectively. Peak aerobic power per kg was 3.52 watts per kg, up from 3.1 watts per kg. These are really significant gains in less than two months. 

So, are nutrition apps a gimmick? Calorie trackers maybe. But provided you’re committed enough, apps such as Hexis that reward you with personalised, science-based nutritional guidance may just be the best things since sliced bread.

The risks of close nutrition-monitoring

Elite rider Christina Wiejak, who races for Saint Piran, is also a sports nutritionist. We asked for her view on the risks of close nutrition-monitoring:

Do nutrition apps increase the risk of disordered eating?

If a rider is very conscious of their nutritional intake, they may be more inclined to become unhealthily focused on recording using an app. The app facilitates it. Contrastingly, many cyclists may not be fuelling sufficiently due to an inadvertent failure to meet the energy demands of their training/racing. The right app could increase their awareness of their nutritional intake, and therefore encourage them to increase, not decrease, their intake. 

Have you or any team-mates been pressured into losing weight?

I know of many, usually in teams that don’t have anyone with nutritional qualifications. However, I believe that the culture in cycling is changing, and that the UK is doing better than most. We are now more aware of low energy availability, and the potential consequences that it can have on an athlete’s short and long-term health and performance. A healthy athlete will perform better than a lighter, unhealthy athlete.

Is the situation worse for female riders?

Both men and women can be susceptible to under-fuelling, low energy availability and disordered eating, so the assumption that male athletes are more resilient to criticism surrounding their physique can be dangerous.

What are the danger signs? 

Excessive monitoring, measuring and rigidity around food may be red flags. The signs of low energy availability include fatigue, reduced performance and poor recovery, hormonal dysfunction (identified in females due to disruption of the menstrual cycle), poor bone health, irritability and poor sleep quality. Signs will vary between individuals, and weight loss may not have occurred. 

Causes vary significantly between individuals, but excessive focus on power/weight within teams or clubs, particularly with younger athletes, is dangerous. Unfortunately, there are many individuals claiming to have qualifications in nutrition, so find either a dietician with experience in sport, or a sport and exercise nutritionist – searchable on the Sport and Exercise Nutrition Register (SENR).

Fitness testing and planning

I couldn’t have achieved my goals without help from Team Bath’s Jonathan Robinson. Measuring my body composition, VO2max, blood lactate and heart rate profile gave him the baseline figures he needed to recommend a successful fitness strategy. 

He provided me with accurate, individualised cycling training zone data that I could input directly into my Garmin, as well as a detailed account of which zones I needed to prioritise in order to see improvements in the right areas. 

The cycling training plan I formulated with Robinson’s help needed to be straightforward so that I’d stick to it. Essentially, it comprised a one-hour Zone 1-2 ride twice a week, one 30-minute session of Zone 4, edging into Zone 5 interval training twice a week, a social ride on Saturday, a long ride on Sunday and a rest day on Monday. Most days I would take a 5km hill-walk in the morning too. 

These Team Bath services are available to recreational riders as well as elites over here. 

The men's edition of the 2023 Tour de France is just about to start, with the toughest first week we’ve seen in about half a century! This means that we may well see some substantial GC gaps as early as Stage 6 and the first summit finish. And this means that teams will need to make sure everything is optimised from day one. 

We spoke with Ineos Grenadiers rider Luke Rowe, Lead Performance Nutritionist at Ineos Grenadiers, Aitor Viribay Morales, and SiS’s Commercial Director for Performance Solutions, Sam Driver, to understand how the World Tour team and its riders will prepare for each stage of the 2023 edition of the Tour de France. 

Ineos Grenadiers has been working with its nutrition partner Science in Sport (SiS) since 2015, and have committed to three more years together after the 2023 Tour de France.

What’s changed in the 2023 Tour de France?

Speaking with Luke Rowe, who has competed in all eight Tours in which SiS has worked together with Ineos Grenadiers (previously Team Sky), he explains how nutrition has changed dramatically since 2015 up to the 2023 season. 

Higher carb intake

Previously, riders were following “old school myths” where low carb and protein diets were king. As Rowe put it “everyone was super lean but not as strong as nowadays”. 

Indeed, on Stage 20 of the 2015 Tour de France, Chris Froome very nearly lost the race when he blew up early on the summit finish up Alpe d’Huez. Back then, riders were consuming 60 grams of carbohydrates an hour and everyone just did the same thing. 

Nowadays riders are smashing 80-120g carbs per hour (depending on the stage) and eating pretty much every 20 minutes. The higher speeds and power numbers that are being achieved in recent editions of the Tour de France is partly down to the change in cycling nutrition.

Stage specific

Another significant change in the nutritional approach is that it is a lot more tailored - not just to individual riders - but also each specific stage. This is one way in which Team Ineos is hoping to be a step ahead of the competition at this year's Tour de France. 

With fewer sprint stages - and a lot of varied intermediate stages, which could be raced flat out depending on who is able to control the race - the way riders will need to fuel will vary significantly from stage to stage. 

Previously, Tour de France stages were raced with a fast 30-60 minute start for the breakaway to establish, a cruise while smaller teams got TV coverage, and then a wild final 50km to chase them down for the stage win - or let them take it and chill out behind. Now, the start is often hectic for longer, the descents are raced hard, and no one wants to give up any opportunity to win a stage - even more so now that GC time bonuses will be awarded for the first riders to summit certain climbs.

Early stages fuelling strategy at the 2023 Tour de France

Looking at Stages 1 and 3 of the 2023 Tour de France route, the two courses have a lot of small punchy climbs, which could lead to some pretty stressful days in the peloton. To prepare for this possibility, Morales told us that the riders will always fuel for the worst case scenario, as it is better to have eaten too much than not enough and risk an energy deficit. On these punchy stages, the riders will be consuming ~100g/hour of carbs in the form of energy bars, drinks and gels. 

On the flatter stages, such as Stage 2 and 4, this may be more like 60g/hour, but it depends on the rider. Rowe told us that, being a taller and therefore heavier rider, he would eat more than the smaller riders as he expended more energy at a given intensity. In fact, for the domestiques controlling the pace on ‘easy’ days, they will use significantly more energy than the GC leaders sitting in their wake, and so they have to fuel accordingly. 

Something not often seen in the Tour de France is the first HC category climb coming in at Stage 5, with a climb up the Col de Soudet. Although potentially an easy ride for the bunch to get to the base of the climb, there could be explosions on the ascent itself. Then, as early as Stage 6, we get the first summit finish atop the Caurterets – Cambasque, with the Tourmalet beforehand for good measure. These stages are likely ones where the riders will be consuming ~120g/hour of carbs, as they spend lots of time riding at close to their threshold power.

Consuming this many carbs, though, requires having lots in your pockets - or getting food from the feed-zones and cars frequently. This is where domestique riders like Luke are absolutely vital for the GC riders. For protected riders to drop back to the car and get fuel would mean losing position and wasting valuable energy, so it is essential that domestiques can do that for them. This is the other benefit of the SiS range, as Luke tells us how useful it is having the Beta Gels and Beta Chews as they “pack a lot of bang for your buck” with 46g of carbs per energy chew - 15 per cent more than the 40g you get in a Beta Gel.

Fortunately, the next two stages are a bit tamer, with Stages 7 and 8 acting as transitional stages where the GC teams can perhaps relax and the sprinters have their time to shine. These stages will likely be ~60g/hour days, where riders can give their guts a break while still ensuring that energy levels are topped up. 

That said, the riders will be in the south of France in summer, it will likely be hot - which has its own affect on the riders' fuelling. Morales tells us that when the temperature rises, so too does the rate at which the body uses carbohydrates. As well as assessing the maximum energy requirement for each rider - and where they will need to consume what across each stage - the temperature levels are also a key consideration. 

Finally, Stage 9 sees another summit finish up the Puy de Dôme, so riders need to be fuelled and ready for that. Then, after a truly brutal first week, the rest day is a chance to rest up a bit, refuel, and recuperate. Though riders will still head out on the bike and be consuming plenty of carbs in preparation for the next stages.

Mid-tour fuelling strategy at the 2023 Tour de France

Going into Stage 10, the riders are greeted with a lumpy 167km, which will likely be a ~100-120g/hour carb day - if any team decides to test who has the best rest day legs. Stage 11 is a little simpler, but not without some spikey climbs, which will have the potential to zap that extra bit of energy from some tired legs. 

The next four stages are brutal, with Stage 12 taking the riders into hilly terrain before Stage 13 finishes atop the Grand Colombier after a flattish start. Stage 14 is another tough mountain stage, with Stage 15 yet again a summit finish - but with more climbing early on. These four stages will likely be 100-120g/hour stages, although GC riders may be hoping some of those stages end up being days for the breakaway. 

At this point the riders will have been consuming a literal kilo of carbohydrates on many of the stages, and food fatigue can seriously set in. When asked how the riders deal with this and whether they experience fuelling fatigue, Rowe said that the wide range of flavors in the SiS range is quite a help. 

Fuelling and recovery is going to play a huge impact on this Tour de France as riders do their best to recover properly and ensure that fatigue is managed. The rider who wins the Tour isn’t necessarily the strongest at the start, but the one who manages their fatigue the best. This is often why time trials which appear towards the end of grand tours often have the top positions populated by GC riders, rather than the out-and-out TT specialists.

Closing week fuelling strategy at the 2023 Tour de France

Stage 16 is the time trial where riders will be nailing their nutrition beforehand and using various ergogenic aids, such as caffeine, to maximise performance. I did ask if Ineos are using bicarb supplements and they confirmed that they are, but did not confirm in what form. It does sound like we may see an answer from SiS to Maurten’s bicarb system in the next year or so, though. 

Stage 17 then takes the Tour de France to the highest summit of the race atop the Col de la Loze at 2,304m elevation. Many carbs will be needed for the trifecta of high intensity, heat and high altitude.

Fortunately, Stage 18 and 19 are a bit more of a basic affair. At this point, the riders can consume more solid foods such as the Energy Bakes that SiS offers. It gives the riders’ guts and minds a good rest from the energy gels and energy drinks that are consumed in bulk on the harder stages. Rice cakes are also another staple which have the added benefit of being possible to make savoury which, after 18 days of high-sugar diets across multiple stages, can be just what the riders crave.

However, this respite comes before one final smash-fest for the GC riders to close gaps or cement their place in the GC, with Stage 20 featuring six categorised climbs in just 133.5km. It's a short stage, so not as much fuel is needed in total, but equally it's likely that the pace will be very high. This is a day where the riders will be consuming higher carb volumes per hour, as even those not racing for the overall will be racing for the time limit on such a short and potentially fast stage.

Stage 21 with the classic finish into Paris is an opportunity to let off steam when it comes to fuelling. Riders will still be targeting the stage win, but classification winners (aside from perhaps the Green Jersey winner) will enjoy champagne, beers and sometimes even pizza on route. The fully dialled-in sports nutrition and fuelling habits comes to a bit of an end on this day before a well-earned rest.

Ineos’ approach to heat-management at the Tour de France

As already touched upon, the potential heat that the riders will experience, as well as higher altitudes, increases the amount of carbs that they will burn. This is on top of the struggle to consume enough fluids as riders may lose between 1 to 2.5 liters of sweat an hour. 

Over a 6-hour stage, it is not possible, nor advised that rider’s try and drink that amount during the stage. They will consume plenty of fluids as well as salts while riding, but a large part of staying hydrated comes after their rehydration approach once they’ve finished the stage. This will come in the form of electrolyte drinks and also recovery drinks as riders look to replenish salts, fluids, carbs and protein to ensure optimal recovery for the next stage. Riders have drinks prepared for them to have straight away at the end of stages, also food and snacks to help boost morale.

Another element of heat management will be spending time in warm environments. Teams often train at altitude such as Sierra Nevada in the south of Spain. Given this is both high altitude and also very warm during the pre-Tour de France camps, this gives the riders the perfect opportunity to acclimatise to the heat and also fine-tune their individual hydration and fuelling strategies.

Pre-tour gut training

To fuel this at this intensity for the Tour de France and avoid any gut problems, riders have to spend a significant amount of time conditioning their digestive systems before the tour starts. I asked the team about this and what they have to do. Rowe said that generally training will be split into 'general rides' (more endurance-focussed) and 'effort days'. Whereas previously riders didn’t fuel much in training, now they consume what they use in races across many of their training sessions - especially on the effort days. This teaches the body to be able to deal with those carb loads of up to 120g/hour without any unfortunate side effects (think Tom Dumoulin in the 2017 Giro d'Italia).

I also asked if they would be using hydrogels, as there have been suggestions that these are easier on the gut when consuming lots of carbs or in warmer temperatures. Interestingly, SiS has chosen not to pursue this route as they believe the scientific literature around the subject shows no noticeable advantage between hydrogels and its Beta range. Their own independent research however has found the Beta fuel to be very effectively used and oxidised when consumed up to around 120g/hour. 

Ineos x SiS product development

Given that each rider needs their nutrition personalised - and that this has to be both effective and palatable - there are many bespoke products for Ineos from SiS. I was told by Driver that Ineos has around 20 products which are bespoke to the team, and that most of SiS's new products in recent years are a direct result of the partnership with the team. 

The Beta Chews are a prime example of how SiS worked with Ineos to develop products specifically. The pro riders wanted something that resembled a Haribo - packing a lot of carbs into a small package. Ineos riders relayed this to SiS and the performance nutrition brand worked to create a solution within around 12-15 weeks. Some of these products, like the Beta Chews, go to market in the next 12 months, but others remain bespoke to the team. 

Summary

Many of the stages of the 2023 Tour de France have the potential to be very hard from near start right to the finish - and teams will have been working hard to ensure that riders have their individual nutrition strategies optimised for every single stage. 

Those who underestimate their fuelling or get it wrong in the early stages of the Tour de France may find it too difficult to make up for that in later stages.

We've all been there. You signed up for an event in winter, thinking that this will be the year that all the stars align and you will find your best fitness yet. But then, all of a sudden, the event is here, and it's go-time. 

Now that Unbound is just days away, we can’t help you bank the miles, but we can provide you with some last-minute tips on getting your fueling right for the big day.

Whether you're doing the 100-, 200- or 350-miler, Unbound is a challenge of endurance, self-sufficiency and equipment. The relentless undulating terrain, sharp flint rocks, and soul-sucking mud or sun-baked roads will test your mindset, tires and gear. At the same time, you must take care of the machine —your body— fueling it properly to tick off mile after mile. 

We reached out to a few gravel pros with the ultimate Unbound Gravel experience —the 200- and 350-milers— for some tips on nutrition and fueling strategies.

How to properly fuel your body when riding (ultra)long distances

Your body is like a steam engine locomotive. You need to burn coals —calories— to power the engine and keep the train moving forward.

The cut-off times for the 100-, 200- and 350-mile Unbound event are 10 hours, 20 hours and 36 hours, respectively. For some riders out on course, Unbound is a race against time, and they’ll need every single minute of the time allotted to them to successfully reach the finish line in Emporia, Kansas. That is a lot of hours spent in the saddle, stoking the engine and consuming fuel.

Just how much fuel? 

In 2021, pro gravel racer Alexey Vermeulen drank 2800 liquid calories, ate another 700 calories, and drank over 7 liters of plain water to complete the 200-mile event in 11 hours and 29 minutes. For those tackling the XL event, the calories required is at least twice that. 

Chance says he consumed 960 liquid calories between every refilling opportunity at every 75 miles or so. That makes for almost 4500 liquid calories alone. He then supplemented that with solid foods from the gas stations. 

Ultra-distance icon, Rebecca Rusch, has three Unbound Gravel 200 titles as well as one Unbound XL win among her many accolades. The Gravel Hall of Famer has mastered the art of fueling her body and tells Cycling Weekly that she subscribes to the basic guideline of 200 calories and 20 ounces of water per hour. 

"It takes a lot of discipline because, in really long events, you don't want to eat. It's no longer fun or joyful. It's a job. And you're probably going to be burning more than that in an endurance event, but your gut really can't take much more," she says.

Yuri Hauswald, an early adopter of the gravel movement, won the 200-mile race at Unbound in 2015 at the age of 45 and finished second in the longer Unbound XL three years later. He, too, goes off the 200 calories per hour guideline. 

"I shoot for at least 200 calories if I can because you're going to be operating at a caloric deficit that whole time. And the deeper that hole goes, the harder it is for you to keep shoveling it in," he said. "Rebecca Rush and I call it the Sip, sip, nibble, nibble —where you're just constantly taking in little bits of food and hydration."

Sip, sip, nibble, nibble: How and what to consume to keep the legs moving

Stop at the aid or gas stations 

In order to consume enough calories, you have to eat and drink often and a lot. For most of the race distances, there are aid stations where riders can refill their supplies. It's not mandatory to stop; one could opt to carry their necessities on their bike, but if we were to follow the guideline of  20 ounces of water per hour, you'd be carrying a lot of extra weight around. The fastest 100-mile time was just over 5 hours in 2022, which would mean slogging 6.25 pounds (2.8 kilos) of water around. And that does not include any food.

"You honestly cannot carry enough to get through the race without filling up, in my opinion," Vermeulen says and encourages all riders to take the time to stop at the provided aid stations, even if it feels odd to stop mid-race. 

In the fully self-supported 350-mile event, however, there are no official aid stations. Riders need to carry a large amount of fuel on their bikes and rely on the few available gas stations to refill along the way. 

"The gas stations are your life source," Rusch said. "They are your only fuel source, and once you roll away from there, you're on your own."

Set an alarm

If you’re having trouble eating, a simple but effective way to stay on top of your nutrition is to set an alarm, says Rusch.

"When you're doing something this long, eating becomes a discipline. So set an alarm as a reminder to eat. Even if you're not hungry, you feel fine; putting that food in your mouth will pay off." 

If you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage energy out

Haribo, chews, chips, and peanut M&Ms are common at endurance events. Quick, simple, and tasty carbs are good because calories are calories, right? Yes and no. 

“Before biking, when I was doing these weeklong adventure races like the Eco Challenge, I used to believe that I was going so long and so hard that I could eat whatever I wanted, whether it was pizza or Swedish Fish [a popular chewy sweet in the US]. And I did, but I have since adapted," Rusch reveals.

“If you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage energy out. That said, it's not to say I wouldn't eat gummy bears or whatever, but it's not going to be the staple.”

Instead, Rusch devises a menu plan for each event she undertakes based on time in the saddle and weather. 

"The couple hundred calories and one water bottle is where I start. Then, I look at macronutrients and micronutrients, so carbs, fat, and protein. I consider that basically the gas that's going into the car," she explains.

"Carbs are our main fuel source, consisting of high and low glycemic or fast-burning and longer-burning carbs. And then fat and protein are the really long burning fuel, like putting a big old log on the fire instead of a bunch of kindling and twigs."

The micronutrients, Rusch says, are like the oil in your car. You may need smaller quantities, but they're important to keep things running smoothly. These include electrolytes, minerals, and vitamins.

Rusch is the first to admit that when eating itself becomes a chore, considering macro- and micronutrients is far from one’s mind. 

“Sometimes you're just going to have happy food that tastes good but maybe has no nutrient value for you, but you're going to eat it anyway because it's the middle of the night and you're crying and you want to eat gummy bears. That's fine, too, but again, it can’t be the staple.”

So how do these endurance athletes ensure they meet their nutrient requirements while staying happy? 

Some, like Canadian gravel privateer Rob Britton, rely purely on sports nutrition. On his way to a sixth place finish in last year’s Unbound 200, the former pro road racer took in “as many bottles as I could get of EFS-PRO drink mix and consuming the remainder of my calories from a mix of Liquid Shots - likely three to four per hour."

For the longer distances, it's a balancing act of liquid calories and various solid, gas station snacks. 

"It really comes down to water, sports nutrition, and whatever convenient store snacks resonate with you," says Hauswald.

Liquid Calories, the staple

Be it First Endurance’s EFS Hydration Mix, Gu's Roctane Energy Drink Mix, or Skratch Labs' Super High-Carb Sports Mix, all the racers interviewed rely heavily on liquid calories. 

“I would say that the high-carb drink mix stuff was a total game changer for me,” says Chance, who drank most of his calories.

"I had a half-sized frame bag that fits a liter and a half [hydration bladder] and routed the hose with a magnetic clip to my bar. It gave me easy access. I had 960 calories in the bag, and those would last me like 50 to 60 miles. I didn't have to worry about consuming a gel every hour or anything like that because I knew I was getting my calories and hydration in just by drinking while moving."

Chance said he supplemented that with gas station foods. "I used the gas stations. I ate a slice of pizza at two in the morning and stuff like that, but my electrolytes and fuel were coming mostly from my drink mix."

Hauswald, too, relied on drink mixes for his events.

"I was relying on my tried-and-true Gu Roctane liquid calories, gels and then supplementing with some chews or some bars and something salty or tasty from the convenient store," he says. "I do have a specific memory of the last four or five hours of the XL event, and just going back to gels because I just wanted to be done."

The same goes for Rusch, who carries packets of drink mix because they're a reliable source of nutrients and don't weigh much. In between aid or gas stations, she'll take in some chews and other sports nutrition but values her time at the refueling opportunities for real food. 

Pizza, nuts, and beef jerky - happy fuel

While sports nutrition may be the base of the riders' diet during long-distance events, convenience stores or aid stations play a significant role in keeping you happy and motivated to eat.

After hours of the same sweet and textureless sports nutrition, riders often get something called flavor fatigue — that feeling when you're sick and tired of consuming the same thing and, therefore, won't consume anything at all. The variety in offerings at the mid-race stops helps break up that monotony and give riders something to look forward to.

"Variety is key because your palette is going to change, and just having options that you can choose from through the event is good," says Hauswald. "Not just because you're going to get sick and tired of the same stuff, but a slice of pizza or a breakfast sandwich can also be a good carrot to have dangling out there —a dumb little trick you can play with yourself to get you to the next convenience store."  

Chance says that for him, knowing he was getting the valuable nutrients from his drink mix,  he’d simply wander the aisles until something spoke to him. Rusch, however, has a slightly more strategic approach. 

"Gas stations are where it gets tricky, and you may play some Russian roulette with some hideous food choices. A lot of those processed foods have a lot of sodium and weird shit in them, and your body starts getting bloated, or you get gastrointestinal problems," she warns.

In situations where real food is not an option, Rusch's go-to is nuts, dates, and jerky. Foods that are calorically dense, semi-healthy, and a deviation from sports nutrition. 

Caffeine

Whether it's a cold Coke pick-me-up or a strategic dosing of caffeine every few hours, caffeine can be an asset in long events like Unbound. There are ample studies lauding the stimulant for improved mental focus and enhanced physical performance. Conversely,  caffeine can interact adversely with certain medicines, is risky for people with high blood pressure or heart conditions, and if you're generally not an all-day caffeine consumer, it's best to check your sports nutrition for its caffeine content. And the adage of racing also applies here: don't try anything new on race day. 

If you do normally consume caffeinated sports nutrition, Hauswald recommends metering out the caffeine and alternating between caffeinated and non-caffeinated gels or drink mixes. 

"I wasn't experiencing any sort of drowsiness or lack of sleep issues that forced me to double down on caffeine or anything like that," he recalls. "I did sleep like a f***ing baby when I finished, though!"

If you want to get the most from the miles you put in on your bike, then you need to ensure that your fuelling is spot on. The riders at INEOS Grenadiers are lucky enough to have experts like Dr Marc Fell, their performance nutritionist to call upon for advice. So, who better to answer some of the questions that we regularly get asked about fuelling for cycling?

What are the four 'Rs' of sports nutrition?

These are are the fundamentals of any recovery strategy.

Refuel

Consume carbohydrates immediately after your training session or race to replenish the energy - in the form of muscle and liver glycogen - that you will have just used . 

How much carbohydrate you require depends on how hard the session was and how close your next session is. For instance, if you have just completed a high intensity session and have another session planned within the next 24 hours then it is important to consume more carbohydrates between these sessions to aid muscle and liver glycogen replenishment (aiming for approximately 1 to  1.2 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of your bodyweight per hour for the first 3 hours following the session).

On the other hand if you have just completed a light intensity session and will not be undertaking another training session for a couple of days then you do not have to be as aggressive with your carbohydrate intake following that session.

Repair

When you exercise you will put stress on your muscles which causes damage to the muscle. Promoting the rebuilding and repair of this damage requires sufficient protein intake. Therefore, you should aim to consume 20-30g of protein immediately after your training session.

Rehydrate

When you exercise your body can lose a lot of fluids through sweating. This means you need to drink fluids before, during and after sessions to replace the fluids you have lost through sweating. 

A simple method to assess how much fluid you need to drink after a session to rehydrate is to weigh yourself before and after the session and multiple the difference by 1.5-litres, for example if you have lost 1kg of fluids during exercise then you should aim to drink 1.5-litres of fluids within the hours after exercise. 

Adding electrolytes to your fluids after exercise can also promote rehydration as you will have lost key electrolytes ( such as sodium) in your sweat which are important for maintaining hydration levels.

Rest

We all know the importance of rest and sleep to allow your body to recover. It's in the hours and days after training sessions that your body adapts to training stress, so maximising your sleep each night will help promote this process and also allow your muscles to recover.

Try using SiS Rapid REGO Recovery after training sessions as it provides an all in one recovery drink that is high in protein and carbohydrates as well as containing key electrolytes to kickstart your recovery.

Are there any dietary supplements that will benefit my cycling and general health?

You should always aim to follow a food-first approach when it comes to nutrition and diet, as consuming a well balanced diet will ensure you get all of the important macro- and micronutrients you need to keep you healthy and performing at your best without the need for supplements. However, there are certain supplements which may help.

For example, taking Vitamin D3 in the winter months can be beneficial given that we can only get high amounts of Vitamin D from the sun which is lacking in the winter. Vitamin D has a whole host of benefits for general health and sport performance.  And a good multivitamin and mineral supplement can help cover your nutritional bases. 

Omega-3 essential fatty acid supplements can also provide a number of health benefits including an anti-inflammatory effect. However, if you eat plenty of oily fish, you might not need to supplement. However, the ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids is important. Omega-6, while also an essential fat, is more prevalent in Western diets and we should be aiming to consume more 3 than 6, so most people would benefit from 500-1000 mg per day of the former.

A protein supplement may also be useful in some instances as a convenient way to add more to your diet. Supplements are not always necessary if you are already consuming high amounts of protein within your diet but can provide a simple and easy way to boost your recovery from hard sessions by kick starting the recovery process with a shake containing protein powder like SiS Rapid REGO Recovery.

Further to this, if you are racing competitively you may also wish to explore supplements such as caffeine, creatine, beta alanine and sodium bicarbonate which have all been found to enhance cycling performance.

How do I prevent cramp both during and after rides?

Cramps are caused by a number of different factors but, from a nutritional perspective, areas related to cramping can be dehydration, imbalances of electrolytes and underfuelling. 

Therefore, it is important during events to make sure you have both fuelled and hydrated enough before and during the event.  Adding electrolytes like SiS GO Hydro tablets to your fluids or using SiS GO Electrolyte may potentially help prevent cramping especially if you are a very ‘salty sweater’ and/or have a high sweat rate which will mean you could be losing a lot of key electrolytes in your sweat.

How do Tour de France riders use energy products during a long stage?

Tour de France riders will mainly use energy gels such as the SiS GO Isotonic Gel which provides 22g of carbohydrates but they will also use higher carbohydrate gels like the SiS Beta Fuel gel which provides 40g of dual source carbohydrates in an optimal carbohydrate ratio

They'll also use energy gels with added caffeine like SiS' Beta Fuel Nootropics Gel or SiS GO Gel plus caffeine. They will specifically aim to use the higher carbohydrate gels - Beat Fuel - when they are trying to fuel maximally on the bike, for example on the really hard mountain stages of the Tour, as these gels are packed full of carbohydrates and provide a convenient way to get plenty of energy into the body. 

They will then use the gels with caffeine when towards the end of the stages when they becoming more fatigued or before time trials to give them an extra physical and mental boost.

Typically during a long mountain stage, Ineos Grandiers riders could be consuming anywhere between 8-12 gels which equates to approximately 2-3 gels per hour.

What’s the difference between energy gels and energy drinks and when is the best time to consume either? 

There is actually a very limited difference between energy gels and energy drinks when it comes to the body’s ability to digest, absorb and use these products as energy. 

The difference is about the practicality - energy gels are simple and easy to consume in small volumes (usually around 60ml) while in energy drinks are consumed in higher volumes - usually around 500ml. An energy drink, though, does have additional benefits - for example promoting hydration through increased fluid intake.

The best time to consume energy gels and drinks is during exercise sessions lasting longer than 60 minutes. So, if you are exercising for up to three hours you should aim to consume a SiS GO Isotonic Gel approximately every 25-30 minutes while sipping an energy drink like SiS GO Energy Powder throughout to reach a carbohydrate target of approximately 60 grams per hour.

If you are exercising for three hours or longer you should aim to consume a SiS GO isotonic Gel or SiS Beta Fuel gel every 20-25 minutes while sipping on an energy drink like SiS GO Energy Powder throughout to reach a higher carbohydrate target of approximately 90-120 grams per hour.

The best sport nutrition products are the ones that are aligned to your exercising goals and the type of exercise you are undertaking whether it be endurance based exercise or strength based exercise for example. 

Science in Sport products have been based on certain fundamentals to ensure they provide only the best sport nutrition products to help you achieve your goals. They're made combining world-class knowledge and scientific formulations to provide optimal solutions for fuelling, hydration and recovery. 

All the products have been scientifically designed with the latest research to ensure the product is the best it can be. They've also been rigorously tested to ensure they contain exactly what they say they do and  every batch of every product is tested by Informed Sport meaning it is trusted by professional athletes across the world.

No matter what standard of rider you are, fuelling means thinking ahead. Recovering from one day and preparing for the next. When supporting a team of eight riders through a three week Grand Tour that means constant calculations and strategic planning. “Recovery is the most important opportunity in the day,” explains INEOS Grenadiers performance nutritionist Dr Marc Fell. “We have set guidelines for what carbs we want to get into riders for every hour.”

Recovery starts as soon as the riders cross the finish line. “We have recovery drinks ready for them as soon as they finish. Science in Sport REGO contains both carbohydrates and protein, and we may add some electrolytes if the day has been hot or the rider sweats a lot.” Each drink is carefully measured out and individual to the rider. “How much carbohydrate depends a lot on what the following stage is. It is very specific for each rider.”

Once the recovery drink is finished riders make their way to the sanctity of the team bus, where the team chef will have prepared a small meal. “We’ll have very simple rice or pasta with a protein source like tuna or chicken. As well as drinks to hydrate we’ll offer a smoothie or additional fruits and yoghurts. If it is a long transfer to the hotel we might have wraps, paninis or even some cake.” 

During the race itself riders need to be on top of their own intake. “Some riders understand what is in different foods and products and can make their own choices necessary to hit the numbers. Others need more support,” says Dr Fell.

Getting a rider's nutrition strategy wrong on one stage could have disastrous consequences two or three days on. “We look closely at the race profile and the tactics so we can plan exact nutrition in strategic key places. On mountain days we are more specific about when riders need to take a gel or what kilometre they need to take a Beta Fuel Nootropics gel.” 

Strategic fuelling, and especially the use of supplements, is dependent on basic nutrition being observed earlier on in the race, “only if you have that early nutrition nailed on will you benefit from your Beta Fuel Nootropics at the strategic times.”

Fuelling strategies are regularly updated as new research informs the team’s understanding of exactly what works and when. “The research into Beta Fuel has shown it is possible to have a high amount of carbohydrate, that is still easily absorbed, in one product.” This makes it so much easier for riders, especially at race speeds. “With Beta Fuel it’s convenient to get the right amount of carbohydrate in just three gels or a gel and two chews. With high intensity racing starting early in the stages, fuelling has to be in place right from the start of the day.”

Given that around two thirds of your body comprises water, knowing that you need to keep hydrated while cycling won’t be a revelation - especially when you consider that we can produce as much as two litres of sweat every hour. However, what you drink, and when, requires some thought and will differ depending on the length and the intensity of your ride.

Before we look at the different ways to hydrate on the bike, it’s worth remembering what happens if we don’t. In simple terms, the fluid loss that occurs through sweating decreases both your blood’s plasma and sodium levels, which adversely impacts your performance. 

When you’re cycling, even a small reduction in your body weight - as little as 1-2% - due to sweating will affect your muscles' ability to work. If you don’t rehydrate sufficiently the issue is only exacerbated; your blood volume reduces, your sweat rate and digestive functions slow down while your core body temperature rises and your muscles eat up your glycogen stores at a rapid rate. In extreme cases this can lead to heat exhaustion and worse but any level of dehydration will make your ride a lot less effective and enjoyable.

So what are your options for staying hydrated?

Water

What is it?

Water needs no explanation. It’s likely you’ve hydrated with good ol’ H2O for as long as you can remember. As a cyclist, it’s the most accessible, and affordable, source of fluids there is.

Why we should drink it

Drinking water throughout the day, even when you’re not cycling, is vital to your general well-being. It helps regulate your body’s temperature as well as keeping your organs functioning properly. On the bike it’s the same deal, replenishing the fluid you’ve lost through sweating and helping to stave off fatigue, headaches and a general dip in performance.

Staying hydrated in the lead up to a race or an event is equally important but be careful not to overdo it - taking on too much water before the off will only require more pit stops down the road.

When we should drink it

For rides of up to an hour plain water is sufficient on its own - any longer than this and you’ll need to supplement it with other fluids due to the effect of lost electrolytes, particularly sodium. Don’t wait until you feel thirsty, instead begin taking a few sips from your bidon as soon as you start cycling and continue to do so every ten or fifteen minutes for the entirety of the ride.

Hypotonic Drinks

What are they? 

Hypotonic sports drinks are designed to help replace fluids quickly. They are low in carbohydrates - less than 6% - and contain a lower concentration of sugar and salt than the blood, which allows them to be absorbed quickly.

A hypotonic drink is described as being of ‘low tonicity’, with tonicity being the concentration of one solution compared to another, in this case, a sports drink and your blood. They typically come in powder and tablet form which dissolve in water. Equally you could add a pinch of salt to one of your bidons and then flavour with a slice of lime.

Why we should drink them

Given that hypotonic drinks are low in carbs they’re ideal when your focus is on hydration rather than on restocking your energy sources. Unlike plain water they’ll also replace the electrolytes lost through sweating. This makes them a good match for longer endurance events where you’ll be getting your carbs from other sources or for shorter rides in warmer weather when you don’t need an intake of carbs but want to replace sodium and other important electrolytes.

When to drink them

As with water a low carb hypotonic drink should be consumed throughout the ride or race, taken in a few sips every 10 minutes or so.

Isotonic Drinks

What are they? 

Isotonic sports drinks are created to replace lost fluids while also delivering a dose of energy, so are among the best energy drinks for cyclists. They have a similar concentration of sugar and salt to the blood, which means they deliver both quickly, although not as fast as a hypertonic drink. They usually contain between 6-8% carbohydrates.

Why we should we drink them

The combination of carbs alongside electrolytes in a liquid form makes sense when you’re riding for longer periods, at a high intensity, or both. It allows you to tackle dehydration and energy replenishment at the same time, helping you to reach your hourly carb target, which will range between 30g and 120g depending on a rider’s weight and the intensity of the ride.

For shorter, high intensity rides an isotonic drink may be all you need when it comes to liquids. However for long rides it’s worth considering supplementing them with either a hypotonic drink or plain water as solely consuming isotonic drinks for extended periods can cause stomach problems, particularly if you’re also eating carb-rich energy bars and gels alongside.

When to drink them

You can drink isotonic drinks from the start of a ride to the end. However, as previously mentioned due to their higher density of carbohydrates it’s advisable to balance them with water to avoid any potential GI distress.

Hypertonic Drinks

What are they?

Hypertonic drinks are designed to maximise energy delivery. They are ‘high tonicity’, containing a higher concentration of sugar and salt than your blood with a concentration of ten or more percent carbohydrate.

Why should we drink them?

In many ways the opposite to a hypotonic drink, we should consider hypertonic drinks when energy and nutrient replenishment is our goal rather than hydration. In fact consuming them can accelerate dehydration as your body has to transfer water from your bloodstream into your intestine to help dilute them due to their high sugar content.

When to drink them

Because of their ability to dehydrate they are best used sparingly when riding - especially on long endurance rides or during hot weather. If you need a quick and efficient energy boost, then a hypertonic drink is a good choice, with a faster absorption rate than solid foods and easier to consume. However, remember not to neglect your hydration needs and use in conjunction with hypotonic or isotonic drinks. Due to their make-up, hypertonic drinks can also work well as after-ride drinks when your body craves calories, which leads us on to…

Recovery Drinks

What are they?

The best recovery drinks contain a blend of protein, carbs, electrolytes and vitamins - all designed to ready your body ahead of your next ride or race.

Typically they’ll come in powder form to be mixed with water. Chocolate milk makes for a suitable ‘real food’ alternative or you create your own blend using protein powder mixed with an isotonic drink.

Why should you drink them? 

After a long ride or a grueling race you’ll want to replenish your body and repair it. To aid this recovery sports drinks blend carbs with proteins, often in 3:1 or 4:1 ratio. With your resting body now in an anabolic state, together they resynthesize glycogen and rebuild muscle. If you don’t adequately replenish your glycogen stores you’ll likely feel flat when you next come to train or race. Equally, without protection, you lean muscle mass will be reduced, which will likely impact your power.

When to drink them

While most recovery sports drinks will advocate being consumed within 30-45 minutes after exercise there is now evidence that our ‘anabolic window’ - the period after exercise when muscle glycogen stores are most effectively replenished - is longer than previously thought. That said, a post-ride recovery drink is likely the easiest way to begin the important rebuilding process.

 Time-trials hold unique challenges for pro riders and their support staff. Unlike a long road stage a TT is a short, intense effort that requires a rider’s nutrition to be tailored to exact times throughout the day. Meanwhile the team behind the team will have up to eight riders to get ready, all starting at different times and with very different goals for the day. 

Performance nutritionist with INEOS Grenadiers, Dr Marc Fell, explains why this makes time trials one of the most complicated days of a three-week stage race for the team. “In an individual time trial every rider will race at different times depending on where they are on GC. Some riders can be very early, others, those high-up on GC and competing for the overall win, will be late in the afternoon. Some riders will be racing to win, others just trying to get through or limit their time losses. Nutrition will be individualised depending on their goals.”

The timing of nutrition is planned working backwards from a rider’s start time. Riders will all be eating, warming up and racing at different times over a six hour period, meaning that the team needs to be paying close attention to who needs to be where and when. “Each rider is given a specific nutrition plan the day before, detailing their timings and the types of fuels they need when.”

Over the whole day, the riders follow an overall plan, starting with breakfast at the hotel. “There is always a choice of different breakfast foods; rice, porridge, bread, jams... When starting to fuel up riders will choose simple foods like rice that are easier on their guts. And of course nearly every team rider will insist on their coffee to get them started for the day.” After that, depending on race timings, there will be a light morning spin, “this will just be 30-45 minutes to wake up the legs and get the systems going a bit.”

Riders will arrive at the team bus at the race start town at different times, but with time to get familiar with the course and have a light meal. “Ideally the pre-race meal would be 3-4 hours before they start. It’s provided on the bus and prepared by the chef. A lot of riders will choose to stick to simple rice and an omelette, topped up with additional rice cakes made by soigneurs. What is quite popular with the guys are Beta Fuel chews – light to eat but packed with carbs.”

After a bit of time chilling out on the bus, riders start the all important warm up. “With 45 minutes to go, riders start a short but very intense warm-up. At this point we might introduce some nutritional supplements using caffeine or Beta Fuel nootropics gels. Nootropics can help with decision making and the execution important in a time-trial, such as staying aero, handling corners and sticking to a pacing strategy. Each Beta Fuel Nootropics gel contains 200mg of caffeine, which works out to about 3mgs per kilo for most riders. Riders who don’t tolerate caffeine well will use the Go Energy + Caffeine Gels which is just 75mg.” For comparison a single espresso contains around 65mg of caffeine.

An additional challenge on time-trial days is what happens if a rider crosses the line with the fastest time. “If they end up leading the standings they could be in the hot-seat for anything from one minute to a couple of hours. If a rider is in the hot seat they will be brought food by the soigneur.” For everyone else it will be a REGO recovery drink as soon as they cross the line with solid food once back on the bus.

Bonking, hitting the wall, the knock. Whatever you call it, running out of energy is something that every cyclist dreads. It is the result of exercising to the point at which your muscles’ glycogen (energy) stores become totally depleted. Glycogen is the stored state of carbohydrate within the body and it’s the primary fuel you use during high-intensity exercise - once these stores are empty, your body is running on fumes. 

The principle is similar to that of a car. As it runs out of fuel, it will come to a gradual stop and, to to get it started again, more fuel is needed. This is the same in cycling: the right fuel is needed at the right time to help maintain sufficient levels of glycogen in the body, and prevent the dreaded ‘bonk’. 

Being able to spot you are about to bonk is crucial in helping to prevent it. Symptoms can include a sudden drop in energy, dizziness, mental fogginess, struggling to concentrate as well as a general feeling of being unable to continue exercising at the same intensity anymore. The good news is that it’s reasonably simple to avoid running out of energy - try and avoid the common fuelling mistakes below and we’re confident that you’ll keep your tank topped up on your next big ride..

1. Getting it wrong at breakfast

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day at the best of times, but especially on race day. With a long day in the saddle and - very likely - an early start, breakfast is going to be your last meal before the ride.

Skipping or eating breakfast too early will mean that you risk starting your day with your body’s glycogen stores already depleted, decreasing the time it’ll take you to bonk. Eating too late or trying something new because it looked great on the hotel menu can also cause problems - from an upset stomach to an overly full one. So make sure to stick to what you know.

Don't mess up

Aim for 2 to 3 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of bodyweight in the morning of the event, giving yourself approximately 2 to 3 hours to digest the meal before the start. This meal should primarily be made up of carbohydrates with a portion of protein - fat and fiber should be minimised, as these take much longer to digest and can lead to the stomach problems mentioned.

2. Eating something new on race day

The day of an event is the day you want to be at your best, so experimenting with new gels, energy bars or hydration powders has the possibility of numerous unforeseen complications. Various forms of ‘digestive distress’ are the primary concerns, and this discomfort can lead to a decrease in performance or - even worse - lead to you having to abandon the event.

Don't mess up

Practice, practice, practice. Make sure you are fully comfortable with your nutritional strategy by testing it out in training. Work out what breakfast makes you feel the most energised and which energy products you find are the easiest to digest, to help power you through the ride. And make sure that you take these with you on the ride!

3. Not eating enough on the bike

Not eating enough on the bike is the biggest mistake most cyclists make. The body has enough stores of glycogen to fuel approximately 90 minutes of exercise (depending on intensity) but anything over this then your body is soon going to run out. Therefore, it is imperative to make sure you are eating enough!

Don't mess up

An approximate rule of thumb is to aim for 1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight per hour. When it comes to fuelling, little and often is key. This means that glycogen levels will always remain consistent, as too great a fluctuation will increase the likelihood of bonking. An energy bar or bottle of energy powder every half an hour is a simple goal to aim for, it’s reasonably easy to stick to and will ensure that you’re taking on enough fuel.

4. Eating too many simple sugars

The wrong choice of fuel is almost certainly going to end up in a disaster, with you bonking or hitting the wall. It’ll come as no surprise that carbohydrates should be your main source of calories, however, not all carbohydrates are created equal.

For instance gels or jelly babies are great for providing fast energy, as they are mainly made up of sugar and so are very quickly absorbed into the bloodstream - perfect for the final hour of a long ride. But relying on them for several hours will lead to blood sugar levels constantly spiking and dropping.

Don't mess up

Choosing foods with a slightly lower glycemic Index means that they are absorbed more slowly and so will produce a more constant, stable level of glycogen levels in the body. Some great examples include most sports energy bars or your own homemade flapjacks or even a sandwich. Focus on eating these foods at the start of the ride as they digested slowly giving you the energy required for the duration of the ride. Towards the end of the ride, or if you are starting to bonk, think about switching to the faster digesting alternatives such as energy gels.

5. Not having a nutrition plan

Without a clear plan in place, it can become easy to forget to drink or eat sufficiently - and before long it’ll be too late, with your glycogen levels dropping lower than can be recovered from in the timeframe.

Being able to spot possible bonks before they happen is a vital skill. Quickly consuming some fast digesting carbohydrates (such as an energy gel) can raise your glycogen levels back up again, before you get to that point of no return.

However, a ‘reactive’ approach such as this leaves you more open to getting it wrong, increasing the likelihood of a bonk further down the line. Much better is being ‘proactive’,, and regularly taking on carbs at set intervals throughout your ride. This is a much less risky approach and means you’re not constantly treading that tightrope of energy debt.

Don't mess up

Before setting off write, down a nutritional plan about how many grams of carbohydrates an hour you want to consume. One gram per kilogram of bodyweight as touched upon earlier is ideal, but also consider which sources of carbohydrate you are going to get this through.

It can be helpful to lay out a pile representing each hour of the ride on the floor, to help you visualise what you are going to consume. Stick to that plan, write it down on a piece of masking tape and attach it to your stem if you need to be reminded! A bar bag can be a great way to store all of these snacks, positioning the ones you want to consume first on the left hand side and working along the bar bag can make it easier to select the right snack whilst out on the road.

6. Drinking too little (or too much)

There is a fine line when it comes to hydration. Both over and under hydration can cause havoc to your cycling performance. Underhydration can lead to muscle cramps due to electrolyte imbalances, as well as a reduction in blood flow to the muscles, which can lead to your heart rate becoming elevated and decreasing the time before fatigue starts to set in. Similarly, overhydration also has its problems, electrolyte levels become too diluted and you may start to feel bloated and nauseous, both of which will decrease your cycling performance.

Don't mess up

Little and often also applies to hydration. In the days leading up to the event, make sure you drink approximately two litres a day, which will give you a good baseline hydration level going into the event. How much to drink an hour changes considerably between every rider, but most cyclists will want to aim for approximately 500 to 1000 ml an hour.

If it’s a hot day or if you’re a heavy sweater (or working harder than usual) then you will want to aim for the higher end of that spectrum. If your urine is a very light shade of yellow then this is a good indicator of hydration - too clear and your hydration has been excessive; if it resembles an overbrewed cup of tea, then you’ll really need to up your fluid intake.

Every day of a Grand Tour is different. What doesn’t change is the need to fuel correctly to ensure each individual rider can perform to their best and then recover ready for the next day. 

Dr Marc Fell is one of the INEOS Grenadiers performance nutritionists; his role is to ensure riders are fuelling optimally. “The stages within a Grand Tour are classified as either flat/sprint, hilly, mountain or time trial and each of these classifications will have unique demands, parcours and terrains,” he says. 

On the critical and challenging mountain stages, fuelling is of the utmost importance. “Mountain stages determine the general classification of the race and with 4,000-5,000m of climbing, riders will expend enormous amounts of energy. These stages are often characterised by high power outputs and higher intensity efforts for longer durations. On the climbs riders will be aiming to maximally fuel to help maintain energy levels,” Dr Fell says. 

Hydration is also critical, especially when climbing in the heat. To meet these needs Dr Fell, together with INEOS Grenadiers’ Performance Solutions partner Science in Sport, meticulously plan a tailored fuelling nutrition strategy for each rider. “SiS Beta Fuel Range and SiS GO Isotonic Energy Gels are exactly suited for these needs by allowing riders to consume as much as 120 grams per hour of carbohydrates per hour in easy to consume and digestible formats,” explains Dr Fell. Beta Fuel Gels provide 40g of carbohydrates, chews provide 46g grams, and drinks 80g of carbohydrates per 500ml. 

Science in Sport’s latest study shows that athletes can tolerate 120g of carbohydrate per hour, significantly higher than the 90g previously recommended. This is a huge amount of carbohydrate to consume but is made possible by the easy digestion of Beta Fuel. Science in Sport research showed that even after three hours of sustained effort, 50% of energy used was from the SiS Beta Fuel, with no crossover from carbohydrate to fat usage taking place. It was SiS Beta Fuel that powered Chris Froome’s sensational 80km solo ride on stage 19 of the 2018 Giro d’Italia. 

With mountain stages often taking the longest to complete and featuring highly technical descents, maintaining focus to the finish is a key challenge. To meet this Fell includes SiS Beta Fuel + Nootropic Gels and SiS GO Energy + Caffeine Gels in the nutrition strategy. “These products not only provide carbohydrates for energy but will also provide additional nootropics and caff eine to collectively enhance riders’ mental and physical power output,” Dr Fell says.

Sports nutrition has come a long way since the early 1900s, when riders in the Tour de France would stop at pubs and drink beer to sustain themselves during the race. Today, the world of endurance fuelling can be a complex one to sift through with so much information about carbohydrate intake, special diets, and additives in food readily available. 

When it comes down to it, cyclists in particular tend to need sports nutrition rich in carbohydrates as the body burns through glycogen stores to power a cyclist across the miles. 

Carbohydrates are not the only thing cyclists should be concerned about when selecting a cycling nutrition method. Food additives such as colorings and preservatives as well as the types of carbohydrate sources are top of mind for many endurance nutrition companies today as they create recipes they claim will fuel athletes to success.

The All-Natural Approach

One brand that takes an all-natural approach is Fastfood, which was launched in early 2023 by Adam Melonas, an Ironman triathlete and globally renowned chef.  

“Back when I started Unreal, I imagined what a world could be like where a chef embraced food science,” Melonas says. “After the launch of unreal, I started Chew [Innovation Lab, a food innovation lab based in Boston], and for the past nine-and-a-half years, we’ve had a team of scientists, chefs, and marketers working to make commercialized food delicious and ‘real.’”

The lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic caused Melonas to try his hand at training for triathlon after decades as a cyclist. As he was training, his mind was at work, trying to come up with the best possible sports fuel after being unimpressed with the market’s current offerings. 

“I was taken aback by the prevalence of artificial ingredients in [endurance fuel],” Melonas says. “I presumed that people who pursue endurance sports at the highest level likely over-index on natural and healthy food day-to-day, but are being asked to sacrifice those standards when it comes to sports nutrition.” 

Melonas shares that he also experienced his own rollercoaster of “spiking and crashing” when using other sports nutrition products and simply wanted to “feel good” when fueling during his long training sessions. 

Being the chef and food scientist that he is, Melonas took this feedback to his team at Chew to see how they could improve endurance fuel. 

“I told my team we have to focus on performance first,” Melonas says. “We need to create the highest performing fuel product we can possibly create.” 

After two-and-a-half years of testing and trialing, the team released their galactose-,  glucose-, and fructose-based formula to the endurance sports world. 

“In order to avoid this pattern of spiking and crashing, we needed to find a carbohydrate that provided the blood sugar stability athletes craved over training and racing,” Melonas says. “Our research showed that the trio of glucose, galactose, and fructose provided the most stable fueling profile over long training sessions.” 

Galactose operates by moving to the liver once consumed and creating fresh glycogen, which in turns helps keep blood sugar levels relatively stable. Through continued testing at Chew, Melonas and his team homed in on using glucose, galactose, and fructose as their main carbohydrate sources.

“A huge reason we chose galactose is because there are very few, if any, known sensitivities to it,” Melonas says. “The upper limits on consuming grams of galactose are very high.” 

Once Melonas and his team created their carbohydrate trio, they focused on making their product all-natural, down to the colorings and lack of preservatives. 

“We said that everything in Fastfood had to be in there for performance,” Melonas says. “Everything in Fastfood is in there for the athlete - no artificial colorings, preservatives, or emulsifiers, because in our minds, those aren’t there for performance.” 

Instead of leveraging artificial preservatives, Fastfood uses heat and pressure to create safe, preserved products - and their energy gels have a jam-like texture which harkens to a similar process used to preserve jams and jellies. 

In addition, Melonas wanted everything in Fastfood to be “recognizable” to the body and not introduce anything foreign that could cause sensitivities to occur. 

“Fastfood is on a mission to educate athletes about what good sports nutrition should taste and feel like,” Melonas says. “We want people to understand how many grams of carbohydrates they should consume, how they should feel when they consume sports nutrition and what to expect. We want to be present in that education cycle.” 

Although Fastfood only recently launched, they are the official nutrition partner of the Human Powered Health elite cycling team. 

“The galactose formula ensures our riders’ glycogen stores are topped off and ready to go,'' Team Nutritionist Mathias Fluit says. “It is noticeable that Fastfood is led by people who are used to fueling during long efforts. This is reflected in the flavor and mouth-feel of their products.”

A Tried-And-True Method

On the other side of the all-natural coin is Gu Energy, or “Gu” for short, a longstanding sports nutrition company founded in 1991. 

Gu Energy’s products have long been used by cyclists such as Caleb Swartz and triathletes such as four-time Ironman World Champion Mirinda Carfrae. Clearly, Gu has a winning formula without needing to be all-natural with respect to its ingredients. 

Roxanne Vogel is Gu’s nutrition and performance manager and has been with the company for six years. 

“I help to create Gu’s products as well as dive into anything education- or science-related with Gu,” Vogel says. “I also work with our sponsored athletes to help them plan their nutrition strategies and learn more about their sports nutrition needs.”

Gu leverages two carbohydrate sources in their formula: maltodextrin and fructose. 

Vogel explains how Gu arrived at this recipe for success: “When we first created the recipe we have now at Gu, we looked at the current sports nutrition science which said that two carb sources are better than one, because the body is better able to utilize two sources than large amounts of one source.”

She went on to share that maltodextrin is “basically a bunch of glucose units linked together, like cars on a train,” which helps increase the rate of gastric emptying of carbohydrates from the stomach to the small intestine, decreasing the likelihood of gastric distress. 

On the fructose front, Vogel explains that fructose takes longer to digest, which gives a more sustained release of energy. 

“Maltodextrin and fructose work together really nicely,” Vogel says. “They allow you to also increase the amount of carbohydrate you can use across your race or training day.” 

From a preservatives standpoint, Gu leverages two in their products: sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate. 

“Both preservatives have been used in our food supply for decades, and sodium benzoate was the first preservative to be approved by the [Food and Drug Administration in the U.S.A.],” Vogel says. “These preservatives are very safe and are used widely throughout our daily food already.” 

Vogel explained that Gu uses “very, very, very tiny amounts” of both and leverages them for athlete safety. Vogel shares that she has not experienced athlete feedback describing either preservative as being the direct cause of GI (gastrointestinal) distress for an athlete. 

Both preservatives are legal substances in the case of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA). 

“We use both preservatives to protect the consumer and the athlete - to make sure our products last long, have a good shelf life, and are not going to make anyone sick,” she says.

Vogel made the comparison that if an athlete consumes Coca-Cola or another soda during a race or training day, they’re likely consuming more artificial preservatives and colorings from that beverage than a Gu product. If an athlete is really concerned about what they’re consuming, they should think holistically about all they’re intaking during a session or competition.

Gu does not use artificial colorings in their products and relies on fruit and vegetable juices and even spices like turmeric to color their nutrition. 

A Sports Nutritionist Weighs In

“Endurance athletes are obviously doing longer training sessions and races, and during those sessions, they start to dip into the carbohydrate source naturally stored in your body, which is glycogen,” says Stevie Smith, a veteran, brand-agnostic registered dietitian and sports nutritionist based in Buffalo, New York.

“If you don’t take in carbohydrates during a long session and also deplete your glycogen stores, you start to break down fat or protein, which are less efficient and accessible energy sources.” 

The result of this knowledge is that most, if not all, sports nutrition products designed for in-race fueling use carbohydrates as their main source of calories. 

Smith went on to explain that the reason that most endurance nutrition fuel sources use multiple carbohydrate sources, like galactose and glucose or maltodextrin and fructose, is because the body can only handle so much of one carbohydrate source at a time.

“Imagine there is one major highway into a big city and only one way to get into that city from that highway,” Smith explains. “That highway would get jammed up pretty quickly. Same goes for using one carb source for your body. Using just one source jams up your body’s ability to process that one source effectively, which can lead to GI distress.”

Typically, a human body can only process about 60 grams of one carbohydrate source an hour, but new research is showing that a human body can process multiple sources of carbohydrates in the range of 100 - 130 grams per hour. 

This is why both Fastfood and Gu Energy leverage multiple naturally-occurring carbohydrates in their recipes - it helps athletes absorb and use as many carbs as possible from varied sources. 

On a preservatives and colorings side, Smith suggests that athletes take care of other essential habits first before worrying about being “all-natural”.

“I think too many athletes worry about being all-natural - everything in moderation is my motto,” Smith says. “Obsessing over ‘all-natural’ or ‘clean eating’ can turn into disordered eating and there are so many other habits we should be focusing on first - sleeping enough, fuelling enough outside of workouts, staying hydrated, getting a variety of plants and proteins in our diet.”

Smith says that there are outliers, like if an athlete is eating many processed foods and consuming too many preservatives or artificial elements in their diet, then it may be worth exploring how to limit excess of both in their sports nutrition plan. 

When it comes to finding what sports nutrition works for an individual, Smith says to “practice, practice, practice.” 

“Start with small amounts of one fuel source, start trying different flavors, different textures,” Smith advises. “Gels have different viscosities, mouth-feel, and effects on each individual. Commit to testing and practicing different nutrition options in training so it’s not a guessing game come race day.”

Every athlete is unique, as are their fuelling needs. Be sure to consult with a sports nutritionist before going all-in on any one dogma for your nutrition plan - be prepared to be flexible and listen to your body, not just common nutrition tropes or marketing ploys.

When you are getting into cycling, there are so many things to think about, from how high your tyre pressure should be to whether you’re wearing your kit the right way. One incredibly important thing, possibly the most important, is nutrition.

We all need to eat and drink, and this becomes even more crucial if you are adding exercise into it, whether you are training for a big event or just riding casually. There are lots of facts out there that people are bombarded with, so we took a look at some of the truths and lies of nutrition, like a fun little game of Would I Lie To You?

1. Use caffeine to boost performance

Fact Now, we are not suggesting that you go on a coffee binge, far from it, but sports science studies do show that caffeine does benefit athletes across a range of intensities. So maybe think about having a flat white or using caffeine gels if you really want to boost your performance.

A study in the journal Nutrients found that the male participants improved by 2.1 per cent with caffeine compared to with the placebo, whilst women improved by 1.8 per cent, during a study on people doing a 5km time trial. It made them faster. It has a performance enhancing effect on muscle endurance, muscle strength, anaerobic power and aerobic endurance.

Other studies have shown that around three to six milligrams of caffeine per kilo of body weight can result in enhanced performance, increased power output and improved mental focus. For context a double espresso contains around 125mg of coffee.

So, this seems like the perfect excuse for having a coffee an hour before you start riding!. (And if you don't like the taste of coffee there are a number of energy gels, like SIS Go Energy + Caffeine that will give you a helpful hit.)

2. Carbohydrate load before big rides

Fact Carbohydrate loading - commonly called carb loading - is a technique that became popular among endurance athletes in the 1960s which would see them increasing their intake of energy heavy food in the three or four days before an event when their training loads were lower, following a similar period of heavy training and low carb intake.

The thinking has changed a little in the past few years - with work by John Hawley (et al) in the late 1990s in particular finding that boosting carb intake in the 48 hours before a ride of more than 90-minutes to increase stored muscle glycogen could postpone the onset of fatigue by up to 20%.

So, the nutrient, which is found in plenty of foods, but most commonly bread, rice, potatoes, cereal and pasta, remains the king of fuels for hard, prolonged efforts. There is no need to go super-minimal before going big in the run up to the event, just to make sure to eat healthily and sensibly, but with more carbs than usual.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly last year about a study he'd carried out, sports scientist Dr Sam Impey from Liverpool John Moores University suggested fuelling up with 8-10g carbs per kilo (560-700g for a 70kg cyclist) to maximise muscle glycogen stores. That compares to the standard recommended carb intake being around 300g for your regular diet.

3. Drink eight glasses of water every day

Fiction We are often bombarded with information over how much water we should drink with the subtext that most people do not drink enough. However, there is no perfect amount that a person should drink, especially once you bring in different body shapes and amounts of exercise into it.

That we should all drink these eight glasses of water a day has become accepted wisdom, even though there's no definitive scientific study which proves this. That said, there are studies that although studies have shown that you should drink 1.5-2 litres of water. It all depends on how big your glasses are, really.

There are of course other ways to imbibe liquid and stay hydrated, whether that’s through fruit juices, milk, or even cups of tea and coffee - although caffeine is a diuretic so go easy! You will also take on fluid from food as well, so It does not have to be just water!

Instead of putting too much focus onto the amount of water you should drink in a day, it might be better to think about the signs of dehydration: namely, being lightheaded or sluggish, having headaches or passing darker urine. Of course, if you’re drinking enough, you should never get to this point!

Obviously, this changes once exercise is brought into it, and those of us on bikes should be looking to be drinking little and often during a ride. For each kilo of liquid you have lost, you require an additional litre of water. To find out how much fluid you lose when riding, then weigh yourself before and after your next ride and, if say, a 60-minute ride leaves you 0.5kg lighter then you just require an extra 500ml of fluid in the diet to rebalance things next time that you're out.

A simple target to aim for is a 500ml bottle an hour, which can vary depending on temperature and effort put in. Pair this with an electrolyte or hydration tablet, and you might find even better results, as these replace the electrolytes you lose through sweat.

4. Drink milk to aid recovery

Fact Both cow’s and alternative milks can replace lost energy and are a good source of protein if you want to bounce back after a ride. If you use whole cow’s milk, there’s about 3.5g of protein in 100ml, which is pretty good. 

Of course, there are plenty of protein packed recovery drinks on the market which can be great for the most number-conscious among us, but milk is a good alternative to save money. 

Better still for chocoholics, numerous studies - including this one published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism have shown that chocolate milk is an excellent recovery drink.

5. Only eat sports nutrition products on a ride

Fiction There's a huge range of different gels, energy bars, drinks and supplements out there for those who want to get serious about their nutrition and also care about eating on the bike and, from our own experience and scientific evidence, they work a treat!

But there are also alternatives if you don’t enjoy the taste or consistency of sports nutrition products, or if you are simply trying to save money.

Nuts, dates or raisins are easy to eat on the go and can give immediate carbohydrate benefits, as can 'non-sport' energy bars that are available at just about any supermarket. And, of course, you can even make your own energy bars with as little as five ingredients!

Also, spare a thought for the humble banana, which might take up quite a bit of valuable real estate in jersey pockets but does provide about 20g of carbs, comes in its own wrapper (although as with a gel, take care how you dispose of banana skins), and can be bought just about anywhere. 

You should be looking to get 20g of carbs on an hourly basis for a 1-2 hour ride, 30g for a 2-3 hour ride, and 40g for anything over 3 hours, so a banana could be perfect.

Also, if you’re on the limit, or have a hunger flat - or bonking in cycling terminology - then a bag of sweets are a valid emergency treat! Jelly Babies, for example, contain a lot of simple sugars which can help you out when you need energy the most.

6. Eat within 30-minutes of finishing a ride

Fact The commonly used rule is to refuel within the first 20-30 minutes after a ride for optimum recovery. Carbs and protein are your friends here, and that could come in lots of different ways. It’s good to aim for a 3:1 ratio of carbs to protein within 30 to 60 minutes after getting off the bike, so have some bread or pasta and something with protein - which definitely does not need to be meat. One gram of carbs per kilogram of bodyweight is a great benchmark to aim for, so if you’re 75kg, 75g of pasta would be perfect. Even better combine this with 10-25 grams of protein. 

Of course, you might not actually feel like wolfing down a plate of pasta and chicken, or rice and tofu, as soon as you finish a three hour ride and that's where recovery drinks come into play. Whether you opt for buying one of the best carb and protein filled recovery drinks or making your own  liquid can be much easier way of replenishing nutrients. (And see milk above!)

If even the thought of drinking a shake or smoothie with half-an-hour of dismounting doesn't appeal, then don't despair - as long as you eat something between 30 to 120 minutes after exercise you will still help rebuild muscles and glycogen.

We all know that recovery is paramount to improving performance. Recovery is when all the adaptations take place. By optimising recovery, we can hopefully, optimise adaptations and that means we get fitter faster.

The basics of recovering effectively are plenty of sleep and good-quality nutrition. One thing that most cyclists do, or at least they should do, is to take one of the best recovery drinks after a hard training session. But with a myriad of different offerings out there – what needs to be in a recovery shake? Cycling coach James Spragg details what you should be looking for and explains why that's the case...

When you finish a training session two things need to happen – firstly you need to replace the fuel you have used, and secondly, you need to give your body the ingredients to build more structures within the body – be that new muscle fibres, new capillaries or new mitochondria.

Building new structures

To build new structures in the body you need the basic building blocks. We call these amino acids. There are roughly 20 different amino acids that we use to make all the proteins in our body. However, there are nine of these basic building blocks that we, as mammals, cannot synthesis ourselves. Therefore, after exercise, it’s a good idea to take in enough of these nine essential amino acids. Do this and your body has everything it needs to rebuild and get stronger.

Re-fuelling

However, that is only half the story. Building alone is like putting a body kit on yourcar but forgetting to put any fuel in it. It might look a bit different but it wont be going anywhere quickly.

When we exercise, we use a mix of carbohydrates and fats as fuel. Even the leanest of athletes has plenty of fat so we don’t need to worry about replenishing fat stores.

However, we only have limited carbohydrate stores. We store carbohydrates in the body as glycogen. In total, we only store around 80g of glycogen in the liver and ~300-500g of glycogen in the muscles. That is not a lot!

After exercise, we have a 30–40 minute window in which our bodies can, relatively quickly, replenish glycogen stores. After that, we move outside of the optimal window and glycogen replenishment slows down.

Fuelling after exercise

So straight after exercising our bodies need two things – essentially amino acids and carbohydrates. Therefore, these are the key ingredients in any recovery shake. If you want to maximise performance, make sure you have both in your recovery shake. Protein alone is not sufficient to maximise recovery.

A top-secret tip is that while there are some great products out there, we don’t always need to rely on specific drinks to optimise recovery. 500ml of chocolate milk will also provide everything your body needs – plus it tastes a lot nicer!

As well as recovery shakes, the sports sector is packed with products purporting to boost recovery -  we've assessed whether they really provide recovery boosting effects in our guide on the truth about recovery aids for cycling.

It was a route I’d done plenty of times before. Normally, I’d stop halfway to have a drink and snack but this time I pushed on. After an hour and half of riding at a brisk pace, I wasn’t expecting my legs to feel so tired but I put it down to lack of recovery from a weights workout the previous day. Then, suddenly, without warning, I felt like I was cycling through treacle. Despite mustering up every bit of strength remaining, I had nothing left – the road ahead was starting to blur and I was barely holding a straight line. 

What was going on? I felt angry and emotional – with myself, the traffic, the potholes, other cyclists that overtook me. My heart rate was through the roof although I was barely moving. Was I having a heart attack? I pulled over and, with shaking hands, called my husband for help, something I had never done before. It went to voicemail. Tears were running down my face now. Not wanting to attract attention, I got back on my bike and attempted pedalling but managed only a few more metres. My legs felt like jelly. I pulled over again and tried to calm my breathing. That’s when I realised what was happening: I was suffering a ‘bonk’. Worse still, I had no fuel with me and needed to get home. 

‘Bonking’ – sometimes called ‘hitting the wall’, ‘blowing up’ or the ‘hunger flats’ – is something that every cyclist dreads. One minute you’re riding high, the next you’re falling hard, your tank empty and your muscles feeling shot to pieces. In a race, bonking certainly means game over – eating or drinking at this stage will not be enough to return you to previous levels of effort. It can also ruin a ride or workout – as I found out. But what is really going on in the body, and how can we steer clear of this horrible experience? 

What is bonking in cycling?

“In simple terms, a bonk occurs when you’ve run out of glycogen,” explains Dr Asker Jeukendrup, a professor of exercise metabolism and multiple Ironman finisher. Glycogen is the stored form of glucose (carbohydrate) and is the major fuel source for exercise – it is broken down by the body into glucose and then energy, or ATP. The limitation here is that we can store only enough glycogen for around two to three hours of moderate to high-intensity exercise (i.e. above 65 per cent of your aerobic maximum). Once you’ve used up all your glycogen, you must rely on fat for fuel. 

“There are two aspects to glycogen depletion, and they can happen at the same time,” continues Jeukendrup. “Firstly, in the liver. When this happens, blood glucose concentration drops, you start to feel dizzy and very weak, and there’s no way you can maintain the same power output. Second, there’s glycogen depletion in the muscles, which seriously impairs their ability to exercise.” The liver is essentially the body’s fuel tank – once it’s empty, you’re in trouble. “Liver glycogen depletion is catastrophic to exercise performance,” says Jeukendrup. “It comes on suddenly – one minute you’re fine, the next you’re bonking – whereas the fatigue you feel from muscle glycogen happens more gradually.” 

This confirms the sudden, debilitating fatigue I’d experienced on my ride. Clearly, both my liver and muscle glycogen stores were depleted, most likely because I’d ridden hard that morning on an empty stomach, before breakfast. Liver glycogen stores are liable to run low overnight, particularly if you didn’t eat a large meal that evening. 

During cycling, both fat and carbohydrate are used to produce energy. Carbohydrate is the body’s preferred fuel source for moderate and high-intensity efforts. When the carbs start to run out, why not switch over to fat for energy instead? “It’s not that simple. You need to consider the amount of ATP you can produce per minute from fat versus carbohydrate,” explains Jeukendrup. “Energy from fat is released much more slowly and requires more oxygen to break down compared to glycogen. If your exercise intensity is very low, then you can fuel it mostly from fat and keep going for a long time. But for higher intensity exercise, you will need some carbohydrate, as you cannot fuel it from fat alone.” 

The body’s store of fat is virtually inexhaustible: a reasonably lean 70kg rider has about 90,000kcal-worth of body fat, which in theory is enough to fuel 2,500km of cycling. However, if you were fuelled solely by fat, progress would be very slow, as Jeukendrup explains. “If you run out of glycogen, energy could not be produced fast enough, and it becomes harder and harder to maintain power output. You’ll have to slow down.” So, a bonk is really your body’s way of slowing you down to the point where sufficient oxygen can be provided from using fat as your primary energy source. 

Is bonking all in the mind?

Then again, perhaps it’s not as simple as running out of glycogen and needing to switch to fat. In experiments on subjects who exercise to exhaustion and report feeling like they have nothing left, muscle biopsies have found that they still have 25-50 per cent of their glycogen stores remaining. Is it possible that bonking is, at least in part, a psychological phenomenon? 

“It has been suggested that the limiters of performance are all in the brain, a lack of motivation and a perception we are putting too much effort in,” says sports psychologist Dr Josephine Perry. “This means in order to go faster, or be able to continue after bonking, requires additional motivation and anything that makes the effort feel easier, such as smiling, self-talk or distraction. These can only work for so long, but we do usually have more energy left – accessible through upping motivation and proactively reducing perception of effort.” To avoid the bonk, therefore, a cyclist needs to train themselves mentally and physically to tolerate running low on carbs – even if they never truly empty the tank. If you always keep carb levels topped up, you may become too reliant on plentiful carbs. That’s why many elite and professional cyclists undertake low-carb sessions, deliberately restricting carb intake before and during training, which has been shown to increase the body’s ability to burn fats. 

Does training in a glycogen depleted state help you avoid bonking when it comes to your long event or race? “While low-carb training can result in some adaptive responses, there is, in fact, no evidence that it will delay glycogen depletion or prevent bonking,” says Dr Sam Impey, lead nutritionist for British Cycling. “Low-carb training is useful for making the body burn fats more readily, improving the ability to train at low intensities for longer periods of time, which is fine if accumulating volume is your goal. But if you want to do high intensity work or go up hills, there’s no evidence low-carb training will delay glycogen depletion.” Training too often in a carb-depleted state may even slow you down. “If you do low-carb sessions all the time, you become less efficient at using carbohydrate for fuel, which means during race conditions your performance is compromised,” warns Impey. 

How to avoid bonking on a bike ride

More often than not, it’s lack of adequate fuelling that causes a cyclist to bonk. All the training in the world won’t help you in those last few kilometres of a race or workout unless you have taken your fuelling seriously. “If you plan to ride for several hours, you should ensure glycogen stores are filled up before setting off, and then take in some carbohydrate during the ride, to slow the rate of glycogen depletion. With fully stocked glycogen stores, you’ll likely get further into your ride before feeling tired,” explains Impey. 

Carbohydrate loading, which helps increase the muscles’ glycogen stores above normal levels, isn’t necessary for general training rides but for hard rides and events longer than two or three hours it may benefit your performance by two to three per cent and reduce your chances of bonking. The concept dates from the 1960s and it was originally thought that you needed to deplete your glycogen stores initially before loading them, to achieve ‘supercompensation’. It has since been proven that the depletion phase is unnecessary and that simply tapering your training and increasing your carb intake for a couple of days beforehand is the optimal approach. 

“I recommend six to 10g of carbs per kilo of body weight per day, depending on the intensity and duration, for 24 to 48 hours before the ride or race,” says Impey. But this isn’t a green light to eat as much pasta as possible. Do that and you’ll risk arriving at the race feeling bloated and heavy. It’s often enough to simply reduce your training load for several days and eat an extra portion of carbohydrate with your main meals during the last two days before the event, plus plenty of high-carb snacks, such as bananas, toast and flapjacks. On race day, Impey advises eating a meal containing 2g of carbohydrate per kilo of body weight two to three hours before setting off, which tops up liver glycogen stores. 

Taking in carbohydrate during the ride tops up blood glucose levels, fuelling your muscles, which may spare liver glycogen and reduce your risk of bonking. Portable snacks such as the best energy gels, energy bars, energy drinks, chews and rice cakes are practical options, depending on the relative intensity and personal preference. But it’s important to start fuelling early enough in the ride, before your glycogen gets depleted. Most experts recommend consuming 30g per hour for rides lasting between one and two hours and 60g per hour for rides up to three hours. For longer events, 60 to 90g per hour has been shown to be beneficial.” 

The concept of ‘training the gut’ to absorb more carbohydrate during exercise is commonly practised by professional and elite cyclists. The idea is to start with small quantities and increase slowly over several weeks. With practice, the stomach ‘learns’ to accommodate a greater volume of fluid and food and empty faster. The number and activity of glucose transporters in the gut increases, allowing greater carbohydrate absorption and use during exercise. Most experts recommend consuming a mixture of glucose (or maltodextrin) and fructose. 

Devices and apps to help you avoid bonking while cycling

If all the measuring and timing above sounds a bit daunting, among the best apps for cycling then there are nutrition-planning apps that will help you fuel appropriately for your ride, helping to reduce your risk of bonking. Core (fuelthecore.com), developed by Jeukendrup, gives you a custom cycling nutrition plan based on your weight, sport, activity, goals, and preferred fuels. Hexis (hexis.live), developed by Impey, allows you to create a fuelling plan tailored to the demands of your specific workouts, lifestyle and cycling goals. 

Another metric you may want to use is blood glucose. Continuous glucose monitors such as Supersapiens attach to the back of your arm and measure glucose levels in the interstitial fluid – a close proxy for blood glucose. It links to an app that tells you whether your levels are falling or rising, and crucially, whether you need to take on fuel to avert a bonk.  

Conclusion

Thankfully, I was close to home when I bonked, so was able to crawl back in one piece. As I recharged on biscuits and tea, I vowed never to make the same mistakes again. It was obvious, in hindsight, that I had neglected to fuel adequately before and during my ride. That said, I didn’t appreciate at the time that I hadn’t literally run out of glycogen – I still had plenty of energy to draw from my body fat stores, so I should have simply slowed down as soon as I felt the warning signs. 

Having learnt about the psychology of bonking, I now know that positive self-talk and even smiling might have helped. Bonking is preventable, and I’ve learnt the hard way that if you’re riding hard for longer than 90 minutes, you will need to stock up on carbs beforehand and may need to top up during your ride. It’s also possible to head off a bonk if you recognise the initial signs. You may have lost the chance of a fast race finish or PB smashing workout, but you can still reach the end of your ride in good shape.

This full version of this article was published in the print edition of Cycling Weekly. Subscribe online and get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week. 

The old adage ‘you are what you eat’ is likely to resonate with many cyclists reflecting on their performance in a recent ride or race. After all, what you eat and drink while you’re on the bike has a demonstrable effect on just how far and fast you can go.

Proper fuelling is vital. Get it right and you’ll be able to ride consistently over an extended period of time. If you’re racing, or riding a sportive, this has clear benefits and can make a considerable difference on where you place, or even if you cross the finish line at all. If you’re just out riding it’s likely to make for a far more enjoyable ride, enabling you to finish strongly.

Getting it wrong, however, will translate to a dip in performance. Most commonly this is a product of not eating and drinking enough, which can lead to the dreaded ‘bonk’ or 'knock'. But overeating can also be problematic, with stomach issues the most likely outcome of consuming too much fuel.

So how do you properly fuel for your rides, and how should your approach differ for short, medium and long rides?

For years the perceived wisdom was that consuming between 30-60g of carbohydrates - your body's preferred choice of fuel during exercise - per hour was sufficient. However, conventional thinking has changed somewhat, with up to 120g now suggested depending on the weight of the cyclist and the intensity at which they are riding. This greater volume is achievable by combining glucose with other sugars as different carbs take varying pathways to your gut, allowing you to take more onboard than if you just consumed glucose.

Why carbohydrates? It’s the carbs stored in your body which are turned into glycogen, the fuel your body uses during exercise. To reduce fatigue, you need to ensure that your blood glucose levels remain topped up - for if you don’t have enough glycogen, your body will start to break down muscle tissue in order to fuel itself, something you’ll understandably want to avoid. 

It’s also important to remember that your body’s intestines can only move glucose into your bloodstream so fast. On average you can process approximately one gram of carbs per minute - hence the aforementioned upset stomach, a product of taking on too many carbs too quickly. 

Let’s look at different ride lengths to examine how your cycling fuelling strategy should look. 

How to fuel for short rides

This might be your commute to work or a shorter training ride of less than an hour. Whichever it is, it's likely that your body will have enough stored energy for the duration of the ride. Therefore your primary goal is to stay properly hydrated.

What should you drink? 

Water could suffice but a low-carb drink with electrolytes will help regulate the salts and minerals in your blood, staving off thirst but also helping to prevent muscle twitches and cramps. Little and often is the best approach here.

What should you eat? 

If the effort level of the ride is moderate then solid food or gels are probably unnecessary. However it’s wise to carry something in your jersey pocket just in case. An energy bar typically provides around 23-30g of carbs. A banana is a convenient ‘real food’ alternative, which also delivers around 25-30g of carbs.

How to fuel for one to three hour rides

Your carbohydrate stores will typically last for around one to 1.5 hours before they will need to be replenished - so rides of this length will need you to focus on doing just that. How many carbs you’ll need per hour will vary depending on both your body weight and the nature of the ride. If it’s a social or recovery ride at moderate intensity then 60-90g of carbs per hour should work. If you’re racing for this period of time, or undertaking a training ride consisting of several hard efforts, then this number might need to increase to 80-120g.

You’ll want to ensure that you’re consuming more than one type of carbohydrate, as your body can only process so much of any one type within an hour. To reach a goal of, say, 60-90g per hour then a combination of carbs is required - for example glucose and fructose.

What should you drink? 

As with the shorter ride, you’ll need to stay hydrated and replenish the electrolytes you’ve lost through sweating. Improper hydration can also have a negative impact on your digestive system so it makes sense to take a sip from your bottle every 10 minutes or so. Low-carb hydration tablets are easy to use and are simply added to water. They'll be small enough that you can carry extra tablets in your jersey pockets. Some tablets, such as the SiS Hydro tablets, also contain a ‘shot’ of caffeine.

Alternatively you can add a pinch of salt to the water in your bidon or make your own sports drink, which can be as simple as infusing a jug of water overnight with lemon or lime, some sugar and a pinch of salt.

What should you eat? 

As stated, to consume 60g, 90g or more carbs per hour you’ll need a combination of sources so look for one of the best energy gels  or energy bars that contain fruit, either as a concentrate or dried, as these sugars will contain both fructose and glucose. A banana is again a reliable ‘real food’ alternative, given that it delivers a solid amount of carbs and is easy to carry. If you have a sweet tooth, slices of this fruit can be added to a brioche bun, with a little honey added. This can then be cut into two or three bite-sized pieces.

Towards the end of the ride, if the intensity is high throughout, then gels and chews are typically easier to consume than solid food. If you're fuelling predominantly with gels however it’s advisable to wash them down with water, or use a product, such as the SiS Go Isotonic gel that delivers 22g of carbs without the need for water, to avoid potential stomach upsets.

How to fuel for three to five hour rides

Fuelling for a long ride such as this starts before you swing your leg over the bike. Your pre-ride nutrition, which is designed to ‘load’ you with carbs, is best approached in two ‘bites’: a carb-rich meal eaten several hours before you set off - somewhere between 2-4 hours - which is made up of slow-releasing foods (think porridge oats with fruit for breakfast or beans, lentils and pasta for lunch) that are low on the glycaemic index and a snack about an hour before the start of the ride that will deliver the energy more quickly - again, a good ol’ banana will work here as would an energy bar.

What should you drink? 

Once you’re riding you’ll need to be focused on hydrating, again using an electrolyte rich sports drink alongside water. However, on long rides where digesting solid food can become more difficult, you might also want to take in some of your hourly carbs via a carb-rich energy powder added to water.

What should you eat? 

You’re still aiming for 60-90g of carbs an hour but given the length of the ride it’s likely you’ll want to have some variation in what you consume. Eating the same product hour after hour, regardless of whether it's sports nutrition, snack food or a sandwich you made at home, can prove to be dull. Therefore a mix of all of these is likely to keep your tastebuds interested, which means you won’t miss out on the calories your body needs.

How to fuel for an all day ride

Riding all day requires a similar approach as the 3-5 hour ride. You’ll likely want to carb-load before your ride to ensure that your body is well stocked up. Then it's a case of making sure that you maintain your hourly targets. When you’re in the saddle all day it’s not unusual for your desire to eat and drink to ebb and flow, so sticking to a regime of little and often is wise.

It’s also important on longer rides to ensure that you’re pacing yourself. If you go too hard, too early your body simply can’t process the fuel you’re giving it - essentially your body is sending all the blood to your leg muscles in turn depleting the source to the gut, which results in the slowing down of the digestive process. The result is the nutrients you need aren’t absorbed and you run out of gas, with the often-added bonus of a bloated and upset stomach.

What should you drink? 

While the majority of your hydration needs will still be met by water and tablets and powders added to water, a long ride will typically mean a couple of ‘fuel stops’ where you’ll get the chance to enjoy a cold sugary carbonated drink from a can (insert your favourite brand here). Not only does the high-sugar content help reduce fatigue, the bubbles can settle the stomach, resulting in a much needed pick-me-up.

What should you eat? 

Again in a ride of this length, variety is likely to be of importance. You’ll want to ensure that you’ve got a combination of real food, snacks and sports nutrition to avoid food boredom and give you enough alternatives based on how you, and your digestive system, is feeling. As mentioned before making sure that you’re consuming foods that contain a mix of sugars is important, as this helps to speed up absorption into your bloodstream. After all, if you’re facing a long climb several hours into a ride you’ll want to make sure that you’ve got a good supply of energy at the ready.

Fuelling for multi-day rides

Riding for consecutive days can be taxing on your body. Keeping the tank running is important, whether you’re on a bicycle tour, a bikepacking adventure or an ultra-endurance event. However, the varying intensity of these examples requires a differing strategy for each. If you’re touring with a relaxed schedule the slower pace will mean that your hourly carb needs might well drop into the 30-60g an hour range, whereas riding off-road or racing against the clock will up the intensity and with it the amount of carbs you’ll need to consume each hour.

The other consideration here is post-ride nutrition. When you’ve stopped pedalling for the day you’ll need to focus on both repairing your muscles as well as replenishing your depleted glycogen stores.

What should you drink? 

Hydration tablets make lots of sense here. A product like the SiS Hydro tablets come in a tube, making them easy to carry in a pannier or bike bag and can be added to your water bottle when needed. Likewise energy powders, which are packed with carbs, can be easily stored in small containers and mixed with water when required. A slower paced tour will also mean a few cafe stops, where an injection of caffeine can be enjoyed.

What should you eat? 

While you’re riding a mixture of nutrition bars, snacks such as fig rolls, fruit and ‘real food’ should ensure that you meet your hourly needs. If you’re racing an ultra-endurance event then adding easy-to-consume gels and chews to this mix makes sense. Touring can offer the opportunity to stop for a meal, and if it’s at the end of a long day in the saddle it’s time to repair and refuel. Look for a balanced meal that offers proteins and carbs. If you want to add some extra protein, or are perhaps camping in the middle of nowhere or getting a couple of hours rest at a checkpoint, then post-ride recovery bars and drinks will help your muscles to make new proteins - an SiS Protein20 bar delivers 20g of protein and 22g of carbs, as does the REGO rapid recovery powder that’s mixed with water and acts as a meal replacement.

Try before you ride

The importance of finding out what fuelling strategy works for you can not be overstated. The advice laid out above is a mere guideline and every body, and digestive system, is different. The key to finding out what works for you is best achieved through simple trial and error - but this should take place well before an important race or ride. By the time you pin on a number you should have already figured out your hourly needs and how you’ll meet them - mid-race with the front group beginning to split or halfway up an alpine climb isn’t the time to find out that your stomach isn’t fond of a particular gel or that you’ve underestimated your required carb intake.

As cyclists our relationship with sugar is complicated. Essentially, it’s a balancing act. We need sugar to fuel our muscles while riding, but we also know that excessive sweet stuff can harm our health and performance. Like many things in life, there’s a fine line between too much and just the right amount. 

The NHS recommends that we eat no more than 30g of ‘free’, or added, sugars a day (roughly equivalent to seven teaspoons). These sugars are called ‘free’ because they are not bound to the structure of the food, and include all sugars added by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, as well as those contained in fruit juice and honey. The average person gobbles up 50g (12 teaspoons) a day – that’s almost double the NHS’s recommended dose. This overconsumption of sugar has been linked with a whole array of ailments including obesity, insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. 

Given that the best energy drinks and the best energy bars are crammed with the stuff – a single energy bar can contain more than half of the recommended daily limit – I wondered whether cyclists are in danger of unwittingly storing up future health problems. And if cyclists should be taking a different approach to their cycling nutrition.

Pros of sugar for cycling

Sugars are short-chain carbohydrates, and that’s exactly what fuel most of our riding. “When we exercise, we use carbohydrate as one of the main fuels,” explains Dr Javier Gonzalez, professor of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Bath. 

“But we can quickly run out of stored carbohydrate in the liver and muscles, especially when that exercise is of higher intensity or prolonged duration. Sugar intake, in the form of sports drinks, bars and gels, is one of the ways we can help prevent depletion of glycogen and provide fuel to keep us going.” A meta-analysis of 73 studies by researchers at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, found that sugar consumption during exercise led to an improvement in performance of up to 6 per cent.  

Natural vs added sugar

Most of the sugar in cakes and biscuits is ‘free’ or ‘extrinsic’: sugar added to foods that is not bound to the structure of a food. In contrast, naturally occurring or ‘intrinsic’ sugar is found bedded into the structure of cells of foods such as fruit, vegetables and dairy. This means it comes with other components such as fibre, which slows the absorptions of sugars into the bloodstream. Eating lots of ‘free’ sugars is likely to spike your blood glucose levels, and if you don’t use the energy they provide, they are more likely to end up stored as fat.

Cons of sugar for cyclists

Not all sugars are the same. Different types raise our blood sugar levels at different rates and are absorbed using different pathways. Fructose, found in fruit, has a slower rate of uptake than glucose, and when glucose and fructose are combined in the best energy gels or drinks, it allows your body to absorb more carbohydrate per hour than from either type of sugar alone – very useful for high-intensity rides when your body needs as much carbohydrate as it is able to absorb. 

However, the performance benefits of sugar can come at a price. Studies have shown that athletes who consume lots of energy drinks, gels and bars experience significant tooth decay and erosion. “These products are high in sugar and, as they are usually consumed at frequent intervals during exercise, they are particularly damaging to the teeth,” explains professor Ian Needleman, professor of periodontology and evidence-informed healthcare at University College London. “In our research with elite and Olympic athletes, we found that more than half have tooth decay at a level that requires intervention. That’s significantly more than in the general population.” 

Professor Needleman’s research has also shown that poor dental health has a huge impact on performance. “Pain from poor oral health can affect your ability to train and compete, and can even affect eating,” he says. “I do not want to demonise sports products and am not saying that athletes shouldn’t be using them. However, they should be aware of the risks to oral health, which they can mitigate by taking simple measures.” Needleman recommends using a high-fluoride toothpaste (on prescription) twice a day and a fluoride mouthwash halfway through the day. “We advise twice-yearly check-ups because of the increased risk, and treat your dentist as an oral health coach to support your training.” 

George Robinson, performance nutritionist for British Cycling, recommends using a two-bottle strategy, whereby the first bottle contains carbohydrates, and the other water. “By first ingesting the carbohydrate drink, you get the fuel for exercise, then follow with plain water to help remove sugar from the teeth and gums,” he explains. 

Sugar alternatives for cyclists

So, could other types of carbohydrate with less tooth-damaging potential – say, potatoes – be a good alternative to sugar for fuelling your rides? In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, a team of Illinois University scientists found no differences in the performance of endurance cyclists who ingested puréed potatoes and those who used energy gels at recommended amounts of about 60g per hour during a two-hour cycling challenge. 

“At lower exercise intensities, potatoes would do a perfectly good job,” explains Gonzalez. “When you’re consuming less than 60g carbohydrate per hour, the source and format of that carbohydrate doesn’t matter. Any rapidly-digested carbohydrate – potatoes, rice, bananas – will do the job. The rate of digestion and absorption can keep pace with demand,” he explains. “But when you’re cycling hard, consuming more than 60g per hour, that’s when sugars can really play a useful role, especially in liquid or gel form.” 

If the idea of eating potatoes doesn’t appeal, then don’t worry, there are other options. “Early on in long endurance rides, or when intensity is low, rice cakes, sandwiches, oat bars and other more savoury solid foods are good for providing sustained energy,” says James Moran, head of nutrition with Uno-X Pro Cycling Team. “The carbohydrate is absorbed into the bloodstream more slowly and those foods are more filling to help stop you from feeling hungry. Then again, if you’re on the bike for several hours, there’s only so much solid food you can eat to hit your carbohydrate target. So, you’ll probably need some sugars too.” 

On easy rides of less than an hour, you don’t need to consume any food at all, provided you aren’t depleted when you start. Bear in mind too that during low intensity cycling, most of the energy used by the body comes from fat. For more intense rides and later in long endurance rides when glycogen levels are depleted, concentrated sources of sugar such as gels, energy drinks and chews get into the bloodstream and muscles fast. “Our riders use dual-source carbohydrate drinks, gels and chews. These contain a combination of maltodextrin and fructose, which allow you to increase the amount of sugar you can absorb per hour from 60g per hour up to 80-120g per hour,” says Moran. 

Can consuming too much sugar on the bike cause health problems?

Given that a gel typically contains 20- 25g sugar, 40-50g in 500ml of energy drink, and about 20g in an energy bar, it’s easy to see how cyclists can greatly exceed the NHS’s 30g recommended daily intake in a single ride. According to Gonzalez, the NHS guidelines don’t apply to cyclists. “Within reason, there’s no upper limit on daily sugar intake for hard training cyclists,” he reassures. “There’s no real metabolic health detriment to people ingesting sugars if they are doing high levels of physical activity.” Moran concurs: “Because of the volume and intensity of training cyclists do, and their greater insulin sensitivity, I don’t see any problem from a health point of view.” 

Many of the health risks associated with sugar are linked to consuming it at rest, not during exercise. In this scenario, when you consume sugar or any carbohydrate, blood glucose levels rise, which causes a rise in insulin levels so that glucose falls back into the normal range. Added sugars and refined carbohydrates, which form a large part of our diet in high-income countries, can cause a bigger rise in blood glucose than our bodies evolved to handle. That’s potentially bad news for our health because sustained high blood glucose increases the risk of poor insulin control, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity. 

But serious cyclists need not be unduly worried. Sugar metabolism during exercise is different. It is taken up by the muscle cells without the need for insulin. This means the sugar you consume doesn’t lead to a spike in insulin or contribute to the risk of type-2 diabetes. “If you are endurance-trained, you get chronic adaptation whereby you have greater insulin sensitivity,” explains Gonzalez. In other words, training increases your sensitivity to insulin, which means less insulin is required to move glucose from the blood into cells. Research shows highly trained athletes have an increased ability to process sugar compared to the average, nonactive person. What about concerns that sugar-rich diets can hike triglycerides (blood fats) and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease? Again, for those who do regular exercise, this doesn’t tend to happen. 

In a study at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, when volunteers consumed a high-fructose diet their blood fats concentration increased, but when they combined this diet with regular endurance exercise there was no increase in blood fat concentration. In other words, exercise prevented the rise in blood fats caused by a high fructose intake. Insulin concentration was also 19 per cent lower during the active intervention compared with the inactive one. These outcomes suggest that regular exercise may offset the harmful metabolic effects of sugar – good news for cyclists. 

Should cyclists reduce sugar consumption off the bike?

Setting aside sports-specific energy food and drink, sugar in our everyday food and drink is a slightly different story. The sweetness it provides, especially when combined with lots of fat in the form of cakes, chocolates, biscuits and snacks, tastes tantalisingly good, perhaps even addictively so. Even so, it is not uniquely fattening. Your weight is determined by overall energy balance (calories in versus calories out), meaning that weight gain comes from excess calorie intake over weeks and months, regardless of the source. 

“As a general rule, it’s a good idea to prioritise sugar for training rather than when you’re sitting on the couch,” says Moran. “But sugar is not necessarily bad when you’re off the bike. If you’re doing a hard training session the next day, then high-sugar foods such as jam, honey, fruit juice and energy drinks can help restore glycogen levels, ensure you achieve your energy requirements and avoid under-fuelling.” 

So, what's the sweetspot?

As with so many things in life, it’s all about balance. Grazing on sugary foods all day while sitting at your desk may not be good for health, but those same foods eaten while on your bike offer fast-access fuel for your muscles, helping prevent fatigue and sustain peak performance. In fact, avoiding sugar could compromise your performance in HIIT workouts and races, or the later stages of a Zone 2 endurance ride. But there are downsides to sugar consumption, namely its corrosive effect on teeth. 

Useful strategies to mitigate this risk include switching to starchy carbohydrates at lower ride intensities, ensuring regular tooth brushing, using higher fluoride toothpastes and employing a two-bottle strategy. The key message is reassurance: cyclists don’t need to be unduly concerned about the effect of sugars on their metabolic health, since regular exercise enhances insulin sensitivity and regulates blood triglycerides.

This full version of this article was published in the print edition of Cycling Weekly. Subscribe onlineand get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week. 

Cycling nutrition is a difficult thing to get right for shorter rides, let alone the longer outings. The last thing we want to experience is the dreaded ‘bonk’ on an endurance ride, especially when far away from home, and ideally we want to limit the pain in our legs that we feel the next day. So how do we fuel properly for rides that are longer than 3.5 hours?

To find out more about the best food and nutritional approach for endurance cycling, we spoke with Dr Emily Jevons, a Lecturer in Nutrition at the University of Chester and a Physiology and Nutrition Consultant. She is an expert in sports nutrition, eating disorders, and endurance sport.

Best food for endurance cycling

Best pre-ride food for endurance cycling

Although not something we often need to do in advance of Zone 2 paced endurance training rides, if you are sprinkling efforts / intervals into the ride, it is worth considering carb loading before a session. 

“Carbohydrates are an essential macronutrient and for most people, carbohydrates are our bodies preferred energy source, especially at high intensity,” Dr Emily Jevons explains. 

“Carbohydrate loading has been around for decades, having proven results in increasing our carbohydrate stores through purposefully ‘loading’ our bodies with carbohydrate in the run up to an event. 

“This can result in reduced fatigue and improved performance by 2-3 per cent for exercise > 90 minutes. Try ~8-10g per kg of body weight per day for a few days beforehand.”

Before a normal endurance ride, Dr Jevons suggests having a carbohydrate rich meal between two to four hours beforehand, ideally with a lower glycaemic index (GI) so that the energy is released more slowly. Then with 30-90 minutes before a ride, a higher GI carbohydrate snack such as a banana is best to consume. However she does emphasise that timings and food choice will be very individual based on personal preferences and gut tolerances.

Best food during endurance bike rides

If we are fueling properly with a balanced diet, then our body's carbohydrate stores can last us for about 90 minutes of exercise. But as Dr Jevons points out, this is why fuelling on the bike is so important when riding for longer durations.

“If you are going on a ride for ≥ 2 and a half hours, you should aim for around 60-90g of carbohydrate per hour to maintain blood glucose and prevent fatigue,” Dr Jevons says.

“Though the exact amount will vary slightly depending on your body weight, lighter athletes can aim for the lower end of the range. 

“However, if you are riding at a moderate/hard intensity, for example doing some hard intervals or during a race ≥ 2 and a half hours, you may need to aim for 80g or as much as 120g of carbohydrate per hour depending on your body weight. 

“Working at a harder intensity requires more carbohydrate than an easier ride.”

You also need to consider the type of carbohydrate you take on during your ride. 

“In order to consume ≥ 60g of carbohydrate per hour, you have to consider using multiple types of carbohydrate,” Dr Jevons points out, “glucose and fructose”.

She explains: “This is because our bodies can only process so much of one type of carbohydrate per hour. For example, the maximal oxidation rate for glucose is around 60g per hour. So, if we want to consume more than this, using another type of carbohydrate simultaneously, such as fructose (where we can absorb around 30g per hour) can increase our total carbohydrate absorption.“

Carrying extra food can be make easier by wearing a pair of the best cargo bib shorts for example, which will help you to slot in some extra food to keep up your fuelling levels.

Hydration for endurance cycling

Hydration comes in two parts, the overall quantity of water, and the electrolytes we need to consume alongside this volume. More than two per cent reduction in body weight is often cited as the point at which performance is compromised significantly, so ensuring that we don’t lose more than this during our rides is essential. However, this needs to be measured as everyone has individual sweat rates.

“The best way to work this out is to try and calculate your sweat rate in training by weighing yourself pre- and post-ride, “ Dr Jevons says, “but also consider if you took any fluid or food on during your ride this will also affect your weight. 

“Total sweat loss can be calculated by weight loss plus intake volume. Then divide your total sweat loss by your exercise time to give your sweat rate.”

As for electrolytes, these include sodium, calcium, and potassium and allow our bodies to function properly in terms of muscle contractions and water absorption. We lose these when we sweat which is why it tastes salty, and like sweat rate, the saltiness of our sweat varies. To help get enough salts in, it’s worth adding an electrolyte tab to your drink when training indoors or in the heat, or if you are a particularly salty sweater, add a pinch of table salt while being cautious of overall salt consumption throughout the day.

Best post-ride food for endurance cycling

Finally, we come to post-ride cycling nutrition, where consumption of both protein and carbohydrates is essential.

Recovery is just as important as cycling nutrition during your endurance ride. “Not only do we need to repair our muscles so we can adapt effectively but we also need to replace our depleted glycogen stores,” Dr Jevons says.

“Ideally aim for a meal high in protein to aid muscle recovery and carbohydrates to replenish your glycogen stores after endurance cycling. If you’re on the go or generally quite busy post-ride then this is where protein shakes or a sport specific protein-bar that also contains carbohydrate can be useful! Depending on what you drink during your endurance ride, you also may have to consider having some electrolytes post-ride as well.”

Key point

You may have noticed a theme within this article. “All cycling nutrition is individual and there is definitely no one size fits all approach,” Dr Jevons concludes. “Your nutrition for endurance cycling should be about finding out what works best for you.”

This is why trialling cycling nutrition strategies in training is so important, and don’t expect it to go right every time! There will be mistakes, but use those as a chance to learn. If ever you really get stuck, you can enlist the services of a performance nutritionist such as Dr Jevons to help.

If, like me, your food bill accounts for a big chunk of your weekly spending, you’ll be feeling the financial pinch. I like to eat healthy foods – and a lot of them. But with prices rising sharply week by week, especially for staples such as milk, bread, meat and pasta, fuelling well is becoming an increasingly tricky challenge. One way to save money is on your cycling nutrition: many bike ride snacks and supplements for cyclists are made from everyday ingredients, which means you can easily make your own in your kitchen at home and save cash. Here are 20 ways to slash your fuelling costs… 

1. Swap recovery drinks for milk

Milk is a near-perfect recovery food. It’s cheaper than the best branded recovery drinks and research shows that, whether you opt for cow’s or soya, milk replaces lost energy and is a fantastic source of protein (about 3.5g per 100ml, in whole milk). To get the most out of the milk in your fridge, drink 500ml immediately after your ride to optimise recovery. If you want to give yourself an even bigger boost, mix 200ml milk, three tablespoons of low-fat plain Greek yoghurt, half a banana and a handful of strawberries in a blender or smoothie maker.

2. Make your own energy drinks

Instead of buying one of the best energy drinks, all you really need is some sugar (or maltodextrin*), water and salt. A University of Bath study showed that water mixed with glucose or sucrose was effective at fighting fatigue by preventing the depletion of liver glycogen stores and maintaining stable blood sugar levels. 

For rides of under three hours, you’ll need to consume 30-60g carbohydrate per hour (depending on intensity). Typical isotonic drinks come in at a concentration of 4-8 per cent sugar. To make your own, add 45g (three tablespoons) of sugar to a 700ml bottle with a dash of no-added-sugar squash or lemon juice, top up with warm water and allow to cool. If it’s a hot day and your sweat losses are likely to be heavy, add a quarter-teaspoon of salt to the mix. Alternatively, just take your water bottle and ll half of it with fruit juice and the other half with water, adding a pinch of salt if needed. 

For rides of over three hours (Zone 2 Endurance rides), consume 60-120g carbohydrate per hour (or a 9-12 per cent carbohydrate drink), again depending on intensity, by combining glucose (or maltodextrin). Add 30g (two tablespoons) maltodextrin, 60g (four tablespoons) sugar and – as above – a dash of flavouring (and salt, if needed) to a 700ml bottle. This drink provides 90g of carbohydrate per 700ml bottle and a two-to-one glucose-to-fructose ratio. 

*You can buy maltodextrin inexpensively online. Made from corn, wheat or rice starch, it’s almost tasteless and only subtly sweet so it can be mixed with sugar and/ or squash or fruit juice. 

3. Swap sports drinks for bananas

Instead of branded sports drinks, consume bananas and water. The carb-stacked fruit has been shown to provide similar cycling performance benefits as sports drinks when tested over a 75km time trial, according to an Appalachian University study. In the study, cyclists consumed 0.2g carbohydrate per kilo of body weight every 15 minutes, either from a sports drink or bananas. It made no difference where the carbohydrate came from; the cyclists performed the same. One banana provides about 20g carbs.  

4. Swap energy chews for dried fruit

Products like energy chews and other sugary ‘performance treats’ are great, but if you want to save money, dried fruit will work just as well. A study by researchers at the University of California in the US found that raisins consumed every 20 minutes during exercise were just as effective as sport chews for maintaining blood glucose levels, sustaining performance, and produced no unwanted gut symptoms despite the higher fibre content. A 40g portion of raisins or two Medjool dates supplies 30g carbs, equivalent to four chews. 

5. Swap protein bars for nuts

There are many protein bars on the market, many of which are marketed as being effective aids to recovery. But a handful of mixed nuts costs less and will perform the same functions – plus it’s entirely natural, so contains no hidden ingredients. Cashews, almonds, peanuts and pistachios are high in the amino acid leucine, which is key for muscle recovery. Snacking on nuts along with your glass of milk after a ride could help you maximise your recovery – and costs, um, peanuts!  

6. Swap out-of-season for in-season

We all get used to eating certain foods year-round but it’s cheaper, healthier and tastier to buy fruit and veg that are in season. You’ll be doing your bit to reduce food miles too. Buying directly from a farm shop or a veg box scheme can be a handy way to help you munch month by month. Right now in early November, fruits in season in the UK and the US include apples, pears, blackberries and damsons. 

7. Smarten up your storage habits

Do you keep potatoes and bananas in the fridge and end up throwing many of them away? That might be because your storage habits aren’t working to keep your food fresh. Bananas, onions and potatoes should all be kept in a cool dry place such as a cupboard to keep them fresher longer. Store green leafy veg such as spinach and salad in the fridge in plastic containers lined with a crumpled paper towel. Keep broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage in loose plastic or an open plastic bag in the vegetable crisper drawer.  

8. Make your own chocolate protein bars

Loaded with every cyclist’s favourite ingredient, peanut butter, these homemade protein bars are great for a post-ride snack. 

Makes 12 bars

• 125g rolled oats
• 125g peanut butter (or any other nut variety)
• 50g ground almonds
• 60g chocolate protein powder
• 150g golden syrup or honey
• 3 tbsp mixed seeds
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 50g chocolate chips or raisins 

• Line a 20cm square tin with baking paper or foil. 
• Add the oats to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until they are ground into oat flour. 
• Add the peanut butter, ground almonds, protein powder, golden syrup or honey, seeds and cinnamon. Process until the mixture starts to clump together, remove the blade then fold in the chocolate chips
• Transfer the mixture to the lined tin, pressing down firmly. Chill in the fridge for at least two hours before slicing into bars. The bars will keep for up to five days in the fridge. 
• Recipe extracted from The Vegan Athlete’s Cookbook by Anita Bean 

9. Make your own energy bars

These delicious energy bars are quick and easy to make, require no baking and are a brilliant snack for long endurance rides. Made with oats, dried fruit and nuts, they provide a perfect combination of nutrients to sustain your energy levels.  

Makes 12 bars 

• 125g rolled oats
• 50g dark chocolate chips
• 50g flaked or chopped almonds
• 50g raisins
• 125g honey
• 125g almond butter (or any other variety)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 

• In a mixing bowl, combine the oats, chocolate chips, almonds and raisins. 
• Add the remaining ingredients and mix until the mixture begins to clump together and forms a sticky ball. You can do this by hand or using a food mixer. 
• Turn the mixture out and press or roll between two sheets of cling film to 1cm thickness. Transfer to the fridge for 30 minutes or so until firm. 
• Peel off the cling film and cut into 12 bars. Store in the fridge for up to five days. 
• Nutrition per bar: 172kcal, 6g protein, 10g fat (2g saturates), 14g carbs (8g total sugars), 2g fibre 
• Recipe extracted from The Vegan Athlete’s Cookbook by Anita Bean

10. Make your own rice cakes

Rice cakes are an iconic cycling snack, and this recipe will give you plenty of easy-to-digest energy on long rides. You can vary the standard version by adding sultanas, bananas, blueberries, dried apple or chocolate chips.

Makes 12 rice cakes   

• 250g arborio (risotto) or short-grain (pudding) rice
• 500ml water
• 1 tsp cinnamon 
• 150g full fat soft cheese or cream of coconut 
• 1 tbsp sugar 
• 1 tbsp coconut oil (optional) 

• Place the rice and water in a non-stick pan, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 25 minutes, or according to the packet instructions.
• Once the rice is cooked and all the liquid absorbed, stir in the cinnamon, soft cheese, sugar, coconut oil (if using) and any optional ingredients
• Pour into a zip-seal freezer bag. Flatten and leave in the fridge for a few hours, preferably overnight. Take the bag out of the fridge, slide out the rice slab and cut into 12 squares. Wrap the squares in foil.
• Keep in the fridge until needed (they will keep for about three days in the fridge or three months in the freezer). 
• Nutrition per rice cake: 107kcal, 2g protein, 3g fat (2g saturates), 17g carbs (0g total sugars), 0g fibre 
• Recipe extracted from Vegetarian Meals in 30 Minutes by Anita Bean

11. Rethink your coffee habit

A takeaway coffee can kickstart your day – and your long rides – but the cost soon adds up if you buy one every day. Popping to a coffee shop for a $3.25 / £3.50 coffee sets you back $65 / £70 a month on the habit. Instead, buy a reusable cup or ask and make your own coffee at home before setting off for work. 

12. Don’t be a slave to ‘best before’ dates

Most fruit and vegetables can be eaten beyond the ‘best before’ dates on the packaging, which is just a guide to how long they’ll remain in prime condition. Don’t bin something just because it’s passed the ‘best before’ – most are still edible (and tasty) for several days longer In fact, many supermarkets have ditched the ‘best before’ label altogether to reduce food waste. On the other hand, if a food has passed its ‘use-by date’, then it’s not safe to eat and you should throw it out.  

13. Make your own energy gels

Energy gels are a popular choice when it comes to portable nutrition boosts during long training sessions. The best energy gels are easy to consume but they’re also expensive to buy. Homemade gels are surprisingly easy to produce with the following recipe. Each gel provides 30g carbohydrate. You’ll need to invest in refillable gel flasks such as the KMC NRG Refillable Gel Soft Flask, or refillable travel bottles for toiletries. 

Makes two 70ml servings 

• 4 Medjool or soft ready-to-eat dates (80g)
• 1 tsp coconut oil
• 2 tbsp honey, agave or maple syrup
• 1 tsp peanut butter
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• Pinch of salt 

• Blend all the ingredients together in a small food processor, adding a few drops of water if needed, until they form a smooth paste or gel-like consistency.
• Divide into two gel asks. Can be stored in the fridge for up to three days.
• Nutrition per gel: 169kcal, 30g carbohydrate (27g sugars), 3g protein, 4g fat (2g saturates) 

14. Cook in bulk

Preparing meals ahead of time can help you cut costs, as you’ll always have something to eat rather than resorting to meal deliveries or last-minute ingredients buying. Each time you make a meal, scale-up the quantities and store the extra portions in the fridge or freezer. Most meals will last in the fridge for up to three days or up to three months in the freezer. One-pot, one-pan and one-tray meals are a brilliant opportunity to use up what’s left in your fridge.  

15. Throw less away

Avoid throwing your money in the bin by freezing items that are about to go out of date. The average family in the UK wastes around £700 of food every year, according to the government-backed Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). One way to waste less is to keep your fridge and cupboards organised in a method known as FOFO – first in, first out. Put any newly bought food items at the back of the fridge or cupboard and keep the products closest to being out of date at the front. 

Store your bread in the freezer as soon as you buy it. You then just need to take out the slices as you need them. Got more than you need? Food sharing apps such as Olio connect people with neighbours so they can redistribute spare food. 

16. Get creative with leftovers

Turning leftover meals and ingredients into a tasty snack or whole new meal is one of the best ways to make food go further. Leftovers from a Sunday roast? Add them to a curry. Cooked too much rice? Fry it with some leftover vegetables, soy sauce and an egg or two and you’ve got egg fried rice. Overdone it on the pasta? Mix with some pesto, cooked broccoli and tinned chickpeas and you’ve got tomorrow’s lunch sorted. The Love Food Hate Waste website is a good place to go for recipe ideas based on foods you need to use up. The Fresh Take On Food Waste website has great ideas for commonly wasted ingredients.  

17. Eat less meat, more pulses

There's no denying that meat is expensive, so cutting down on or cutting out meat completely saves substantial sums of money. An Oxford University study found that (whole food) vegetarian or vegan diets can be up to one-third cheaper than a meat diet. Even a flexitarian diet can reduce household food bills by 14 per cent. You can get plenty of protein, iron and fibre from pulses instead. Why not try using lentils in your Bolognese instead of the mince. Or beans instead of meat in curries and stews. You don’t have to go the whole hog – you could just use half as much meat and bulk out your meal with pulses. You still get plenty of protein, but it costs you less. 

18. Save money in the supermarket

Always shop with a list to avoid buying things you don’t really need. It helps to avoid shopping when you’re hungry. Scrutinise the ‘special offers’ to check whether they’ll really save you money, and consider swapping big brands for own-label products. Stock up on store cupboard items when they are discounted – grocery prices can vary from week to week by up to 284 per cent, according to Which?. Buying fruit and veg loose instead of pre-packed is cheaper too, and you will also be doing your bit for the planet as you’ll be cutting down on food and plastic waste.  

19. Swap takeaway lunches for homemade

When you’re pushed for time, it can be tempting to buy a meal deal or grab lunch on the go at work. But it’s much cheaper – and usually healthier – to make something at home. Taking your own lunch to work could save you as much as $100 / £100 a month (based on an average $25 / £25 a week spend). When preparing dinner, make twice the amount, saving half to eat the next day for lunch. It is easy, for example, to scale up a pasta dish or make an extra chicken fajita for the next day. Here are a couple of ideas: 

Falafel and Hummus Wrap (serves one):

Spread two tablespoons of hummus down the middle of a tortilla, arrange three falafels, avocado slices, tomato slices and a handful of baby spinach on top. Then fold in the two sides and roll up tightly. 

Pasta and Chickpea Salad (makes enough for two lunches):

Cook 200g pasta shells as per packet instructions. Drain then combine with one (400g) tin chickpeas, halved cherry tomatoes, diced red peppers and cucumber, 150g cubed feta and two tablespoons of French dressing. 

20. Use energy-efficient ways of cooking

Cooking using the most economical method can slash substantial amounts off your electricity or gas bill. Using a slow cooker is a great option: although it may be on for a few hours, you’re only heating a small space compared to an oven. Similarly, microwave ovens use far less energy than standard ovens because they heat only the food, not the air around it. For example, cooking a jacket potato in the microwave uses a quarter of the energy it takes to cook it in a conventional oven. 

This article was originally published in the print edition of Cycling Weekly. Subscribe online and get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week. 

Avoiding the dreaded 'bonk' is one of the key tricks to increasing your enjoyment of cycling. There’s nothing worse than being an hour and a half from home, having completely run out of gas.

While pacing is also an important aspect of managing your energy levels, the most fundamental point is ensuring you're consuming the right cycling nutrition. Multiple studies have shown that keeping your carbohydrate intake up during training can improve recovery – plus, continuous snacking during a bike ride makes it more fun!

There are many ways to ensure you get the necessary carbohydrates: the best energy bars are great for longer rides as they tend to be easier on the stomach, and the best energy gels are perfect for a quick boost in a race or hard group ride.

But here we're looking at the best energy drinks or – in most cases – the best energy powders you can pop into your water bottles to create an energy drink. Like energy gels, this makes it super quick and easy to take on carbs while pushing the pace. Additionally, these can be good for all-day epics, ensuring you take on enough carbs and saving you some effort chewing. Believe us, you can get tired of that!

Best energy drinks for cycling 2026 as tested by our experts

Best Overall

Glucose and fructose are two different types of simple carbohydrates and they each get absorbed into the body in slightly different ways. Now, there is a limit to how many carbs your body is physically able to process in an hour – typically it's about 60 grams.

The key to this energy drink (and a few others) is exploiting the different absorption pathways of glucose and fructose – by essentially splitting the traffic, your body can absorb carbs (up to 90 grams) which is more than if just a single type of carbohydrate were used.

Sure enough, I've been able to take on the full amount without experiencing any stomach issues – even when pushing at high intensity. It's good value, too. A 2.2kg tub of this stuff will make a $41.70/£33.99 hole in your finances, meaning that you pay 2.0¢/1.6p per gram of carbohydrate – which is quite reasonable.

As a testament to this drink's easiness on the stomach, there was one time that I panic-bought a tub at Decathlon the night before a 100km road race with no feed zone support. As a result, I went way over the recommended serving cramming 132g of carbohydrate into two 750ml bottles, so I had 260g plus a gel for the two-hour race.

With a bit of bad luck, my race only lasted thirty minutes or so. But in that time I managed a third of a bottle and it wasn’t awful. With more reasonable concentrations, the taste and consistency are great.

Best low sugar option

Skratch Labs’ Sport Hydration mix is designed to replace electrolytes, deliver an energy boost without overloading you with sugar. The result is a drink that has just 4g of sugar per 100ml, while providing what it says is an electrolytes profile that matches what you lose through sweating - 800 mg sodium, 80 mg potassium, 100 mg calcium, and 80 mg of magnesium per litre.

If you struggle with the overly sweet taste profile of some sports drinks, this offering from Skratch Labs could be for you. It’s offered in six flavours, including lemon and lime, orange and pineapple, all of which are made using real fruit juice. It’s also gluten and dairy free. Using real foods, Skratch Labs says makes for a far more palatable drink, and one less likely to cause any digestion issues.

It’s available as both resealable bags - 20 and 60 servings options - to mix at home before a ride, or in single servings sachets that can be carried and made mid-ride.

Best flavour

OTE sent both flavours for testing of their flagship ‘Super Carbs’ sports drink. Both flavours were pleasant and the solution felt light and refreshing – not at all syrupy-ish.

The coolest feature of this drink is the amount of carbohydrates crammed in per serving. There’s 80g of per 500ml – excellent for energy density for fast-paced rides, and useful in in the colder months when you don't need to take on quite so much liquid.

If you have two large bottles on your bike that’s enough carbs for around 4 hours of riding in just the bottles, freeing up your pockets for something a bit tastier than a gel.

Priced at $33.00 / £30.00 for a 10-serving pack, this gives a price of 4.4¢ / 3.8p per gram of carbohydrate. If money is no object to you when it comes to sports nutrition, I would get the OTE super carbs - it was the tastiest and easiest to digest large amounts of carbohydrates during training sessions.

In comparison, the High 5 powder was the best value option on test by a considerable margin, priced at 2.0¢ / 1.6p per gram of carbohydrate. On top of this, it was also tasty and easy to digest! The gains of the OTE Super Carbs only felt marginal, so for most people, it probably wouldn't be worth the price – but if you take an uncompromising approach to your nutrition, it certainly is the one to go for.

Best for sweet teeth

The product which powered Chris Froome’s epic raid on the Colle delle Finestre was also tasty. Coming in sachets of 80g of carbohydrates, the dosage is easy to calculate (however, there is a lot of packaging).

For racing purposes, you often need more than 160g of carbohydrate in two bottles at any one time, so the ability to add extra mix was important. It’s not always possible, or practical, to get feed zone support.

Beta fuel was fine up to about 120g of carbohydrate per 750ml - at which point the solution got a little syrupy. A box of 15 beta fuel sachets will cost you $45.00/£37.00 which gives us a price per gram of carbohydrate of 3.8¢ /3.1p

Easiest to consume

This is a product I was really excited to try. Maurten 320 drink mix has long been raved about by athletes in running and triathlon. The brand sponsors a few professional cycling teams and is seen featuring on Alex Dowsett’s YouTube channel regularly.

This product came as a box full of sachets and each of these had 79g of carbohydrate which you can dissolve in a 500ml bottle (so no need to double up). It is possible – if not advised by Maurten – to have 118g of carbohydrate in 500ml of water with this product by splitting 3 sachets across two bottles.

It’s easy to drink, but the taste is acquired. I started off not liking it, but by the end of the box I’d changed my mind – a mildly flavoured nothingness that split opinions amongst my friends. For long rides, the 320 drink mix was perfect, fuelling five hours plus without issue!

A box of 14 sachets will set you back $48.00/£43.00, giving a price per gram of carbohydrate of 4.3¢/3.9p.

Best with caffeine

There has been extensive research on the positive effect of caffeine for cyclists. This doesn’t have to mean chugging a couple of espressos before a ride. There are many sports drinks with added caffeine, including Tailwind’s Endurance Fuel Caffeinated powder.

Mixed with water, each 27g serving delivers 25g of carbs alongside electrolytes - and the extra boost of caffeine. The brand says it can be tailored to meet your calories needs and the ride conditions; for example it suggests using 2-3 scoops per 590-710ml of water per hour for an endurance workout but increasing the amount of water used on hot days. Naturally, if you’re getting your calories from other products too, you’d need to reduce this amount accordingly.

It’s offered in four flavours, all of which are gluten, soy and dairy free. Pouches are available in 50 and 30 serving sizes and there’s also the stick pack option, which features 12 individual sachets, each containing two servings.

How we test

The testing protocol for these energy drinks was quite straightforward in that I used each of them regularly to fuel my training rides – which spanned shorter, high-intensity interval sessions all the way up to five hour plus rides. As a big part of carbohydrate absorption is your gut being familiar with the particular mix, it means it’s difficult to make a judgement straight away.

The drinks were judged on their taste, as well as how well the mixtures do when you deviate from the recommended concentrations – because many race and event situations can end up demanding this.

The value of an energy drink comes from how many grams of carbohydrate you get per money spent. This is calculated for each product.

Meet our expert

How to choose the best energy drinks

Frequently asked questions about energy drinks

Midlife tends to be the busiest and most demanding period of our lives. For many of us, work demands are high, we have children who need our attention and support, and (especially now with lockdown restrictions lifting) our social calendars are busy – the days are long. We’re not yet old but nor do we have the boundless energy of youth. We feel tired more often, it takes longer to recover after cycling, and we seem to gain weight more easily, especially around the middle. Is this simply the ‘new norm’ we have to accept now we’re on ‘the wrong side’ of 40? Or can we carry on chasing lifetime best performance while maintaining optimum health? 

The good news is, most of the challenges of midlife have less to do with our age, far more to do with our changed lifestyles and bad habits that have crept in over the years. Maintaining cycling performance and holding off the effects of ageing can be helped enormously by eating well and looking after your body while making a few allowances for the fact you’re not as young and sprightly as you once were. As a performance nutritionist who has been working with clients at all levels of sport over the past 20 years,  I have compiled six simple cycling nutrition rules to help you stay fit as you age, cycling into your 40s, 50s and beyond.

1. Hit your daily protein target

Getting enough protein as a cyclist is essential as, after all, proteins are the building blocks of life. They build everything: red blood cells that provide oxygen to your cells, hormones that support energy levels and satiety, immune cells that fight off bacteria, neurotransmitters that influence emotions and thoughts, and muscle to support movement and longevity. If you’re the house, proteins are the bricks. The busier, more stressed and more active you are, the more bricks your body needs to support health. 

Despite the renewed interest in protein over recent years, there is still a lot of noise and misconceptions floating around about how protein impacts longevity. The recent buzz around the benefits of fasting and restrictive diets for longevity have ignited a new trend towards reducing protein intake in midlife. While research on longevity models in animals is interesting, taken too literally it can lead to poor training and recovery (and ironically, a shorter life). The data from human studies is far more robust and will set you up for the best possible health and performance as you age.

Loss of muscle mass as you age, referred to as sarcopenia, is a serious concern associated with worsening health and shorter lifespan. The work of Dr Theo Ispoglou from Leeds Beckett University has established that 1.2g of protein per kilo of body weight per day appears to be the appropriate minimum intake to support healthy ageing. This is 150 per cent higher than the current RDA for protein of 0.8g/kg/day. If you’re trying to achieve a performance goal, consider ramping up your intake to 1.6g/kg/day to benefit your recovery and performance. Divide the intake over the course of the day and aim to hit at least 20g of protein per meal, such as 200g of plain yogurt (or soya alternative for vegans), three eggs, or a portion of meat the size of your fist.

2. Stick to 4/7 on evening snacking

While it’s true your resting metabolic rate (AKA metabolism) does start to decline in midlife, this doesn’t tell the whole story. High stress exerts a tremendous toll on your nervous system, reducing metabolism – and in midlife, there is no shortage of stress. The increased demands from work deadlines, commitments at home, and financial stress are intense and can lead to bad habits, including poorer nutrition choices. Between their late-20s and mid-50s, most people add between nine and 12kg to their frame. Interestingly, the weight tends to be added gradually over time, a kilo or two per year. 

Amid the chaos of midlife, it’s easy for bad habits to become the norm. Alarmingly, over 40 per cent of all the calories people consume today are eaten (and drunk) after 6pm. This surge in late eating is a major roadblock to a slimmer waistline, deeper sleep and recovery. After a busy and stressful day at work, you may be tempted to have a glass of wine, beer or sweet snack to decompress in front of the TV later in the evening.

Unfortunately, all that drinking and snacking before bed ramps up energy intake (calories) at the end of day when you’re least active and don’t really need the extra – a key reason why you may be struggling with weight gain or poor recovery in midlife. 

How can you start to stem the tide? The solution is simple, though not easy. Try cutting out late night snacking four or five nights out of seven. You’ll be amazed at how much progress you can make, even without cancelling your weekend indulgences.

3. Fuel for the work required

When the goal is to win the race, the research is clear – carbohydrates are king. However, in midlife you can’t fuel every training session like you did in your 20s. In most people, blood glucose control worsens as you age, and if you rely solely on ‘old-school’ strategies to fuel your training – for example, relying heavily on carbs and gels across your training week – it’s likely to compromise your health as well as your performance.

Here’s the science: When you go on a fasted bike ride, your muscle glycogen levels fall, increasing the internal cellular energy sensor AMPK which then activates the signalling molecule PGC-1 alpha. PGC-1 alpha then enters the nucleus of the muscle cell and stimulates key mitochondrial proteins, ramping up intramuscular fat usage and your ability to use fat as a fuel source. In short, this is good news for your fitness and your health. It improves your aerobic capacity and also dramatically improves insulin sensitivity, a key component of healthy ageing. 

Not convinced? A recent study in recreational elite cyclists found that high blood glucose levels were more of a concern than hypoglycemia (low blood glucose). Four out of the 10 athletes in the study spent 70 per cent of the week with their blood glucose levels in the prediabetic range. 

Periodising your carb intake by fuelling for the work required allows you to amplify your training gains and your health. As exercise intensity increases, so does your body’s reliance on carbs. On days with hard interval sessions, you need plentiful carbs. On days with only slower, easy riding you can reduce carb intake to improve fat-burning ability, aerobic fitness and overall health. Having a more personalised and periodised approach in midlife is key to achieving your performance and health goals. Remember, your body needs to be well fuelled to perform and adapt optimally, so do not cut back so much on carbs as to risk under-fuelling. Speak to a nutritionist if you need further guidance. 

4. Refocus on recovery

Persistent and niggling pain, stiffness and discomfort may seem to be the norm in midlife. Even if you feel good while you train, afterwards muscle soreness lingers for longer than it used to. The scientific term is exercise-induced muscle damage, characterised by symptoms that persist for between one and five days. 

What happens if muscle damage is excessive after a workout? It adversely impacts how well you move, how sore you are, your range of motion and muscle capacity to produce force. Recovery nutrition fundamentals to help mitigate excessive exercise-induced muscle damage starts with consuming enough protein (see above), ensuring sufficient omega-3 intake (1,200mg of EPA + DHA), and vitamin D. 

Of course, this is where, in midlife, supplements for cyclists can play a key role. Creatine is a supplement associated with building muscle, so its ability to support recovery is often overlooked. Endurance athletes too often dismiss the benefits of creatine. Multiple studies have found creatine loading in endurance athletes (20g per day for five days) effectively buffers spikes in muscle damage and inflammation after a 30km run and half-Ironman. Endurance athletes also see reductions in pro-inflammatory markers such creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), as well as improvements in delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS). These are some big wins in midlife! 

Let’s be honest, as we get older recovery time is a limiting factor in our ability to train and perform. If you’re looking for a nutritional strategy that will increase post-training muscle protein synthesis, stimulate genetic growth factors, and reduce exercise-induced muscle damage and inflammation, creatine ticks all the boxes and may well be worth a try. Aim for 3g or 5g daily, for women and men respectively, of supplemental creatine. Creatine-rich food sources include herring, beef, and other animal proteins. 

5. Rein in the boozing

Alcohol seems to hit you harder in midlife compared to your 20s and early 30s. Is it really harder on your system as you get older, or simply a matter of changed perception? Interestingly, scientists aren’t yet exactly clear on why we get worse hangovers. 

Dehydration is commonly cited as the primary cause of hangovers. As you age, the thirst mechanism becomes less sensitive and your body doesn’t conserve water quite as efficiently, which can exacerbate dehydration. This might be a factor in having worse hangovers. 

That said, it’s not just dehydration but also inflammation that plays a fundamental role in hangovers. Inflammation is the body’s primary immune response to injury, infection, or trauma. Signalling molecules called cytokines are key players in this response. Studies show the massive inflammatory response after a heavy night of drinking, and the subsequent release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, might be a major culprit for all your hangover symptoms – and we know that inflammatory levels do typically rise as you age. 

Finally, alcohol places a tremendous burden on your nervous system. After a single glass of wine or bottle of beer, your heart rate may increase by eight to 10bpm overnight. Indulge in half a bottle or more of wine and your heart rate may increase by 15- 25bpm, compromising your sleep quality and recovery. 

How can you offset the pitfalls of alcohol while still enjoying a few drinks? Aim to avoid alcohol on four or five nights per week, and do your best to limit to two or three sociable drinks on weekends. Finally, try adding non-alcoholic beer or glasses of water between drinks to prevent excessive dehydration and accelerate recovery after enjoying a bottle with friends.

6. Develop healthy habits

The biggest barrier to people changing their diet, starting a new training regime or losing weight isn’t physical. Rather, it takes the right mindset, and patience, to succeed. Results don’t happen overnight. You need to trust the process and build the right habits to adhere to your regime in the long run. 

A common myth is that you simply need more motivation or discipline to succeed. But this isn’t exactly true. Inspiration and motivation are great to get you started and help to build discipline, but what most people don’t realise is that these things are all finite resources; you don’t have an endless supply. So, how do you achieve long-term success if motivation and discipline aren’t the final answer? You need to build habits. 

By using motivation and discipline, you can form habits – where you simply ‘just do it’ without having to focus or really think about it. You just eat the right breakfast, you just hit your daily steps, you just go to bed on time, because you’ve repeated the action so many times. It essentially becomes second nature. 

It’s easy to tell people to develop new habits – the hard part is actually doing it. Interestingly, taking the time to know yourself a little better by identifying the things in life that are important for you (i.e. your values) is a major piece of the puzzle. Your values act as your North Star when struggling with low energy, weight gain or poor health and help to highlight when your habits are out of alignment with who you believe yourself to be. 

For example, if you want to be your most productive at work but stay up late to have an extra glass of wine, you’re not orienting your behaviour toward your values. Maybe being positive and energetic with your kids is a value you hold strongly. If so, weight gain, high blood sugar levels and poor health are sabotaging your ability to show up and live up to your own standards. Take a minute to identify your values and you’ll be amazed at how much easier it becomes to develop new, enduring habits.

And sleep! Get your seven hours - minimum

Better recovery starts with sleep. Unfortunately, the average person gets only 6.5 hours of sleep nightly, failing to meet the National Sleep Foundation’s recommendations of seven to nine hours. Lack of sleep is strongly associated with increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, and dementia. Failing to hit your minimum of seven hours nightly also lowers your libido, reduces testosterone levels by 10-20 per cent, and ramps up your risk of low mood and anxiety. In fact, 30 per cent of the population gets less than six hours of sleep per night, further exacerbating these risk factors. 

The biggest challenge, in elite sport as well as the general population, is that while people know they should get more sleep, they still struggle to actually achieve their aim. Even Olympic athletes have been shown to have poorer sleep quality and more fragmented sleep than age-and sex-matched controls. In midlife, the early mornings and late nights can become a serious problem. 

Sleep expert Dr Shona Halson from the Australian Institute of Sport emphasises that sleep should be the first priority for anyone aiming to improve their recovery, and she offers these key sleep principles: “Aim to get at least seven hours nightly, power down your devices 60 minutes before bed; adopt a sleep routine to help decompress before sleep, such as reading a book, doing some light stretching or taking a hot bath.”

Midlife may be hectic, stressful and demanding, but you don’t need to overhaul your lifestyle to see major improvements in your energy levels, body weight and overall health – all of which underpin your cycling fitness. Make small changes, repeat them consistently over time, and you can ensure the challenges of middle age are seamlessly mitigated and adapted to. The key is to establish habits around a training programme that works for you, and then trust the process. Use the six rules above to get started on living your midlife to the max!

This article was originally published in the print edition of Cycling Weekly. Subscribe online and get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week.

The best recovery drinks for cycling are massively beneficial for any cyclist looking to maximise gains from their training sessions and support the body's overall health. These products ensure you’re getting the right amount of carbohydrates, protein and electrolytes for optimal recovery.

For effective recovery after cycling, carbohydrates are needed to replenish our glycogen stores, allowing us to train again the next day. Meanwhile, protein is necessary to enable the muscles to repair and build up stronger, ready for the next workout. This is also true for electrolytes, which help restore fluid balance, support muscle repair, and, most importantly, prevent cramping.

Your approach to cycling nutrition is one of the essential areas to focus on to ensure you reap the benefits of your training. It is worth remembering that recovery is only one part of the story. You should certainly check out our guides to the best energy gels and the best energy bars for fueling during your ride.

Within this guide, I have included products such as recovery powders, ready-made drinks, and vegan options. Below, I have rated the best recovery drinks and explained why some are better suited for specific individuals than others. I have awarded the best overall to High5 Recovery, which offers the best value, formula, and palatable mix.

Best recovery drinks for cycling: reviewed and rated

Best overall

The High5 recovery drink was the only other protein powder on test to offer the same ~3:1 carbs to protein ratio. It’s the right balance for getting sufficient protein in for rebuilding your muscles, without having to take on an excessive amount of carbs.

A bonus point for High5 is the option to get the product batch tested, which helps to put your mind at ease that there isn’t contamination with any banned products that would fail a doping test. Although most of us won’t get tested, it is good to know what you are taking is ‘clean’.

The drink mixed very well and gave a more watery consistency than many of the drinks, possibly preferable for some after a hard session, as it’s easier to drink than a thicker shake. The flip side is that it’s maybe a little less filling – not by much, though. Flavours were good on the whole, but I found the banana one to be a little too weak.

Value was pretty good among competitors, and the only reason we docked half a mark was due to the inconsistency between flavours. Other than that, an ideal recovery drink.

Best pre-mixed drink

The For Goodness Shakes Recovery drink was as close to perfect as possible. Not only a great ratio of carbs to protein but also a good profile of vitamins and minerals for hydration and recovery. Obviously not lactose-free, but using milk as a base gives a great source of protein and calcium (great for cyclists where bone mineral density is important), but also very good for hydration post-exercise.

The taste and consistency are close to that of a really good milkshake, and left me feeling very satisfied after drinking. The taste may be a little sweet for some, especially the vanilla fudge flavour, but I loved it and my desire to raid the sweets cupboard after a training session was quenched!

The price is good too, with the ready-made shake being one of the more competitively priced options, there isn’t a need to buy in bulk! Being pre-mixed, it’s also easier to bring along with you for consumption after a race or a gym session. 5/5 was well deserved!

Best Informed Sport tested drink

SiS REGO Rapid Recovery has been around for a long time, and does well with a high amount of protein and solid amount of carbs. It is a 1:1 ratio, though, so the carb content is perhaps a little lacking – but it can be consumed alongside a meal more rich in carbs.

The drink mixes very well with no lumps and has a nice flavour without any artificial taste. A nice addition is a full profile of electrolytes, which makes this a great drink for rehydration – an aspect sometimes forgotten by other recovery drinks and a big bonus.

The drink left me feeling satisfied after a workout, but still a bit hungry after around 30 minutes or so. When bought as a 1.6kg tub, the value is exceptional. Additionally, all SiS products are batch-tested, which is a great feature.

The lack of carbohydrates is the only point we could mark down, but the addition of salts and other vitamins and minerals for better hydration was a big enough bonus so we only docked half a mark – especially as it’s quite easy to get your carbs from another source.

Best vegan formula

The great taste and value of MyProtein's Vegan Protein Blend is very hard to match. The single-scoop, 30g serving size mixes very easily with minimal shaking, and we found there are never any lumps or grittiness in the resulting shake. It has a neutral colour and MyProtein assures us that no artificial colours and flavours are used in this product.

Each serving provides a whopping 22g of protein, coming from a combination of pea and fava bean isolate, meaning the full amino acid profile is covered. With only 3.9g of carbs per serving, you'll need to ensure that your glycogen stores are topped up post-workout by some alternative source of carbohydrate, such as an oat bar or a larger helping of pasta with a meal.

There’s a wide range of flavours to keep the taste buds tantalised, including strawberry cheesecake, turmeric latte and ruby chocolate. My favorite is the (admittedly rather traditional) banana, though I can also vouch for the white chocolate raspberry and caramel biscuit – which is astonishingly caramel-biscuity!

Perhaps the best thing about this product – given the financial crunch we’re living through – is its excellent value.

Best meal replacement

Torq’s recovery drink is very different to most on this list, in that it contains a huge amount of carbs. The price per serving is high, but the recovery drink you get is near enough a meal replacement which – for people having just finished a race or short on time – might actually be ideal.

The drink also features branched chain and essential amino acids, as well as a very long list of vitamins and minerals that are essential to recovery and hydration.

When mixed, the drink is quite thick but has no lumps and tastes delicious – it was one of my favourites in that regard. Due to the high carb and protein content, it left me very full afterwards and not in need of any additional fuelling.

Torq recommends a different serving size dependent on the duration and intensity of exercise, from one 50g sachet for a moderate workout up to two for a hard session (or none for a light workout).

The smaller sachets don’t really offer either enough protein or carbs for recovery from a hard session. The ratio is good, but the total content is low. To get enough protein, you do need the full two-sachet dose – but that will constitute a meal replacement for most people, with around 340kCal of energy content.

Consumed like this, the value isn’t bad. But given the $3.40/£3.40 per serving we couldn’t give it higher than a 4, despite its great hydration benefits that are only present to this extent in a few recovery drinks.

Best with whey and casein protein

OTE Sports’ Whey Protein recovery drink offers a little more protein than most of the others on test, landing it slap-bang in the middle of the recommended 20-30 grams. The carb content, on the other hand, was a bit lacking for a recovery drink, though.

That said, the inclusion of essential and branched chain amino acids was a bonus for muscle recovery. And the option for batch testing, along with everything being made in a facility that is Informed Sport Certified is another perk.

The drink mixed very well and left us feeling full, ready for a proper meal later on. However, there was a strange artificially sweet taste – although there are apparently no artificial sweeteners present.

The drink is quite expensive compared to some of the more value-oriented options, but it still sits around the middle of the spectrum when bought in bulk. The option for sachets is useful for those travelling or bikepacking, but it is more expensive.

One point is lost due to the reduced carb amount and funny flavour, but when bought in bulk this offers a great protein drink at a solid value.

Best savoury drink

As a peanut butter addict, I was excited to try US brand PB’s powdered peanut protein. Could it really provide that uniquely satisfying peanut butter hit of flavour? The answer is: very nearly. The two-scoop, 45g serving, mixed with 250-350ml of water or milk, provides 20g of protein and 190 calories.

The powder’s main ingredients are roasted peanuts and brown rice – and you couldn’t ask for a more full-bodied peanuty flavour. It contains no added sugar. We found that it’s ‘dry’ rather than sweet, to use wine terminology, which is exactly how I like my peanut butter. The texture is slightly chalky, with the occasional hard fragment of nut – caution advised – but it mixes easily leaving no powdery lumps.

There are Dutch Cocoa and Madagascar Vanilla versions, as well as almond-based alternatives for those less keen on peanuts, and the whole range is vegan and gluten-free.

Most natural ingredients

The Veloforte Vita recovery drink is ideal for those who want completely natural ingredients, without excessive processing or artificial flavours. This does lead to a slight grittiness in the drink when mixed, so it tastes more like a smoothie or fruit juice than a milkshake. The flavour was refreshing and natural and I did quite like it.

It is a little weak, though, and didn’t leave me very full. The amount of carbs and the ratio of that to the to protein is quite good, but the overall protein quantity is still too low. You can mix it with milk, though, which will boost the carbs and protein as well as leading to a thicker consistency.

The price per serving is high, likely due to the quality of the ingredients. Another nice touch is that Veloforte has a recycling service for all their waste and wrappers, as well as not using any plastic in their delivery. This is really the only option for those who are environmentally conscious. But considering the lower protein content and the high price, it missed out on the top scores.

Verdict

All the drinks contained levels of carbohydrates and protein that would be beneficial for recovery. Many of the additional selling points were the types of carbohydrates and protein, added vitamins or minerals, or the quality of the ingredients. Some avoided sugar, but for a post-exercise recovery drink, fast-acting sugars are ideal.

Protein-wise, whey protein has been found to be faster acting than casein, and animal proteins are often more complete (all the essential amino acids) than many vegan proteins, as well as being more bioavailable. This is why we’ve grouped the vegan ones separately.

All the drinks would be beneficial to add to a recovery routine for those who train intensely during the week or are perhaps time-limited, making post-session meal prep more difficult. I always advise people to get their macro- and micronutrients from their diets, but I also found that these shakes were very effective during the testing period, especially with a hectic work/life/training schedule.

My personal favourite for value and taste was the Wiggle recovery drink. It surprised me, as I thought the lower cost might mean it wouldn't mix as well or might taste artificial. The SiS rego offers the best option for those racing who need to ensure sports supplements are batch-tested and not contaminated – OTE also offers this, but at a higher price, and I wasn’t as keen on the taste, personally.

For Goodness Shakes Recovery Shake was top for taste, satiety, ease of use, and a competitive price point. The bottles are fully recyclable, which is a nice touch, and I found them great straight after a gym session - they would also be ideal for after a race with a longer drive home.

In terms of sustainability, it’s worth mentioning that Veloforte. In addition to using organic ingredients, the brand offers a recycling service for all its product wrappers and packaging. The products are expensive, but for those who care about their environmental impact, it’s a real bonus.

Meet our tester

How I tested

Given that actually testing recovery effects is a far more complex process than just having different recovery drinks – sleep, stress factors and temperature to name but a few, as well as the need for a large cohort of willing volunteers – I tested these drinks on three main metrics in terms of subjective measures: Taste, how well they mixed and the resulting texture, and how much they contributed to satisfying hunger/need for something after a workout.

I tried all the drinks within a period of 5-40 minutes after completion of a training session, be that on the bike or in the gym. All the drinks (that required it) were mixed and shaken vigorously for about 30 seconds at the time of drinking and consumed at room temperature.

Taste is, of course, a very subjective measure, so I tried to include what was noticeable about the taste in neither a positive nor a negative way. Some people may prefer a sweeter drink even if it is a little artificial tasting, some may prefer a more natural taste. Even texture, thin or thick, is very subjective. However, points were deducted for clumps.

Satiety after exercise again was difficult to measure exactly, but does give an indication of whether the drink consumed adequate levels of carbs and protein for use straight after exercise. Some were more successful than others, and some would work well to complement meals rather than be outright meal replacements.

Price is an easy one to measure and it’s more about your preferences and what you’re willing to pay for. Many of the drinks contain additional minerals and vitamins, but my honest opinion on that is that if you consume a healthy and varied diet throughout the day, you should not require additional supplementation. Studies have shown that the only supplements which fill a void that many diets/lifestyles lack are Omega 3 supplements and Vitamin D for the winter months in northern hemisphere countries.

FAQs

Food and fluid provide the energy required by every function of the body and, for endurance cyclists, our two major fuel sources are carbohydrates and fats. The average human stores over 100,000 calories worth of energy in fat, and a much smaller reserve of carbs – around 2,000 calories. Let’s not forget the importance of hydration, with humans being 60-70 per cent water; even bone is one-third H2O. 

Here, we’ll take you through a quick guide on how much you should consume on rides of varying lengths. We’ve then got a deep dive on everything you need to know about carbohydrates, hydration, on the bike fuelling, post ride nutrition, recipes, and a host of other topics. So sit back and get familiar with the essentials of cycling nutrition.

Quick guide to fuelling

 CW’s quick fuelling guidelines for low to medium-intensity training rides: 

<1hr ride: No on-bike fuel needed 

1-2hr ride: 20g carbs per hour 

2-3hr ride: 30g carbs per hour 

>3hr ride: 40g carbs per hour 

For higher-intensity training and races, sports nutritionist Dr Marc Fell’s research offers the following guidance:

<1hr session or race: No on-bike fuel needed 

60-90min session or race: 30g carbs per hour 

90min-3hr session or race:45-60g carbs per hour 

>3hr session or race: 90g carbs per hour 

*These guidelines take for granted that 1) your gut can tolerate the carbohydrates; and 2) you had sufficient carbohydrate in your diet prior to the session (i.e. glycogen stores are full).

Carbohydrates: the body’s fuel supply for cycling

If we have so much energy available in fat, why do we need carbs in our diet? What about low-carb training? To cut a long story short, it’s easier and faster for the body to extract energy from carbohydrates than from fat. This is why carbs are king, even if we only store them in modest amounts. No pro in the peloton performs without an abundance of carbohydrates on board. 

Marc Fell, a sports nutritionist at Liverpool John Moores University, explains the interaction between carbs and fats for fuel: “At low intensity, you don’t need a lot of carbs. But carbohydrate is a more efficient fuel than fat. For the average cyclist, there is a crossover point where carbohydrate metabolism begins to take over from fat metabolism – at around 70 to 75 per cent of your VO2max.” This is not on/off but more like a dimmer switch – the harder you work, the more your body turns towards carbohydrates as its main fuel. 

Above FTP (around 85 per cent of VO2max), you’re burning almost exclusively carbohydrates. When demand is so high, it’s easier for your body to extract energy from simpler carbohydrates (i.e. sugars) than complex ones. This is why the pros prefer gels to cheese sandwiches in races. Whereas at lower intensities, such as your leisurely Sunday ride, a cheese sandwich might be the better choice than even the best energy gels. 

“The key for fuelling,” Fell continues, “is to match the energy supply to the energy demand. The requirements for energy in training and racing will vary greatly depending on the goal of the session, the intensity and the duration.” 

Since each training session has unique fuel demands, it makes sense to tailor your fuelling plan accordingly, which is the idea behind the mantra ‘fuelling for the work required’ - we discuss how best to go about matching what you eat to your training here.

As Fell explains, the central concept in fuelling is homeostasis – the human body likes to be stable. When we train, we upset the balance, often accruing a deficit. To optimise performance, we need to match refuelling and rehydration as closely as possible to what we are using (or used) during training. When we under-fuel or under-hydrate, we put additional stress on the body, forcing it into ‘protect and conserve’ mode. Even if you’re trying to lose weight while cycling, you should fully fuel your training and racing. 

Hydration: make sure you drink enough to perform at your best

When we train, we excrete water (and salt) through our sweat, which helps to keep our body temperature stable.

In addition to drinking 1.5-2 litres of water across the day, cyclists should ideally be drinking additional fluid to match any loss during riding. An easy way to work out your need is, is to weigh yourself pre and post-ride. For each kilo you have lost, you require an additional litre of water, so if a 60-minute ride leaves you 0.5kg lighter then you just require an extra 500ml of fluid in the diet to rebalance things.

With just two per cent dehydration resulting in a significant reduction in performance, it’s worth paying attention to this statistic. It’s such a small simple step, but it will make a huge difference.

“When we talk about hydration, what we are really concerned about is water and salt losses through sweat,” explains Dr Allen Lim, founder of Skratch Labs. He is a cycling coach and sports physiologist who has been working with professional cyclists since the early 2000s. When it comes to hydration in sport, why do we hear so many differing theories? 

“There are many factors that influence dehydration; the science is not clearcut,” responds Lim. “How much people sweat, and how much salt is in sweat, varies from person to person. When cycling in hot weather, to stay hydrated you might need up to two litres per hour, depending on your body size and intensity. The composition and saltiness of our sweat is partly determined by our individual genetics.”  

We’re saltier beings than you might expect: blood contains around 3,000mg sodium per litre. “That’s about the same as miso soup,” jokes Lim. “An individual can have anywhere from 400mg to 2,000mg sodium per litre of sweat. This is why many of the best energy drinks settle on 1,000mg of salt per litre.” 

Asked about the dangers of over-hydrating, Lim advises: “There’s a lot of fear-mongering in marketing. Hydration is not as complicated as it’s presented as being. The main concern of overhydration is that the amount of electrolytes in your body become too diluted [hyponatremia] – but this is extremely unlikely, provided you drink to thirst.” 

What does this mean in practice? “Drinking plain water is fine for the first few hours of exercise,” advises Lim. “Beyond that, by adding salts to our fluid, it helps to prolong performance because it means you worry less about electrolyte imbalance.”

Fuelling on the bike

Having a fuelling and hydration strategy is one thing; successfully executing it is an entirely different matter. We asked Heidi Blunden from Parallel Cycle Coaching how she helps her athletes to do this. “As a coach, I aim to give riders the basic tools so they understand what they need. I support them to work it out for themselves because it is so individual.” 

Blunden urges her athletes to focus on accessibility – making sure they can easily eat and drink at the right times while riding; preparation – planning what they will be eating before, during and especially after rides; quality – finding what works best for their stomach; quantity – how much they need; and rationale – knowing why you are using what they are using. 

Over the last decade, the recommended dose of carbohydrate for cycling has risen significantly, with new high-dose products gaining popularity at the top end of endurance sport – including Maurten and Skratch Superfuel. Research suggests that 90g carbs per hour is optimal for top-performing endurance athletes. The theory is, it’s possible to consume 60g glucose alongside 30g fructose per hour, since the two different sugars are absorbed via different transporters. 

That said, a even more recent study by Science in Sport (SiS) - published in the Journal of Applied Physiology - looked at it’s Beta Fuel range and showed that riders can tolerate a significantly higher level of 120 grams of carbohydrate per hour to promote high carbohydrate availability during exercise and that there were no no differences in carbohydrate oxidation between liquid, gel, chew or a combined approach, meaning you can choose the fomat you prefer.

Does this mean that we all need to be consuming 90g to 120g of carbs every time we ride? Maurten’s 320 mix provides 80g carbs per 500ml serving and is formulated to turn into a ‘hydrogel’ when it reaches the stomach, thus enhancing absorption. 

Putting in a call to the company’s Herman Reuterswärd and asking about the appropriate application of this high-dosage fuelling, Reuterswärd had this to say: “Maurten is not for moderate intensity exercise or once-a-week cyclists,” he says. “It’s for ambitious performance oriented athletes and people doing intense training sessions. It is aimed at scenarios where you are more likely to be at risk of GI distress.” 

A pro rider whose team uses Maurten told me anonymously: “Maurten 320 is not for normal people, it’s for intense racing when you barely have the chance to take your hands off the bars, never mind grab a gel and tear it open.” 

James Malone, a scientist at Liverpool Hope University, studies how the body turns carbs into energy. He points out that there are many ingredients that can inhibit carbohydrate absorption, including some artificial sweeteners. Malone’s research also suggests that thicker, more concentrated substances can be harder to absorb. Doesn’t this undermine the ‘hydrogel’ principle behind Maurten? “Ultimately, it’s important to find out what works for you,” says Malone. “That’s likely to come through trial and error. What works for others might not work for you.” 

Australian pro rider Tiffany Cromwell (Canyon-SRAM) has been perfecting her fuelling in the women’s pro peloton for over a decade. “The biggest thing to understand is that it’s very individual,” she corroborates Malone’s advice. “Personal preference is important.” Cromwell opts for real food whenever possible. “For training, I make my own banana bread, and I like to use high quality coconut water. Racing is different because it’s about what’s easiest.” Even while racing, Cromwell uses rice cakes as well as gels.

“The timing of fuelling is key,” she adds. “I used to be bad at overtraining and under-fuelling. I’d wonder why I had no energy left at the end of a ride. Now I am much better. In races, as I plan to eat every 30 minutes.” Outside of races, following a routine has helped Cromwell to build positive nutrition habits and make sure she gets enough of the right stuff. “Getting a team chef and a food truck was a game-changer,” she adds. “It means that we all get the food that we need. Nutrition fuels your engine; not getting enough of the right things can be a challenge, especially when you’re away from home.” 

Cromwell’s fuelling rescue remedy? “Nothing beats a Mars bar and a can of Coke to crush a hunger flat – it’s your get-out-of-jail-free card.” 

Cromwell’s past under-fuelling is a common mistake. Coach Heidi Blunden believes that “95 per cent of cyclists don’t eat enough at the right times, before and during their riding.” Fasted riding is possibly one of the most practised but least understood strategies in cycling. The basic concept is that reducing carbohydrate availability will force the body to burn more fat. “It’s true that fasted training can increase certain metabolic processes including fat metabolism,” says Marc Fell, “but you can also get these adaptations while fuelling well. If you are under-fuelled, you cannot help but reduce the intensity of your training, reducing your power, which in turn reduces the training stimulus.”

So should fasted rides be off the menu completely? “You can train low-carb at low intensity for short periods of time,” says Fell, “but chronic under-fuelling puts stress on the body, and riders tend to eat more after a fasted training session. Whether it’s worth it is questionable.” James Malone is equally sceptical and advises: “The more we train, the better we get at burning fat, irrespective of nutrition.” 

In all conversations with the sports scientists, hydration experts, coaches, and athletes, what stood out time and again was the emphasis on taking an individual approach. The ‘crossover’ point at which your body preferences carbs over fat is unique to each individual. The amount you need to eat and drink depends on many variables: your training load, the temperature, how much you sweat and, to a lesser extent, the composition of your sweat. The amount of carbs that you need to perform will depend not only on the training intensity and duration but also on how well your gut can absorb your chosen refuelling substances. 

“Each athlete has to find out for themselves the solutions that work best for them,” concludes Lim – and Malone agrees: “Ultimately, it’s less about the product and more about the practice”. 

Post ride recovery food: when and what to eat after you’ve ridden

The first 20 minutes after a ride is known to be the optimal refuelling period where nutrients are taken up more efficiently and transported to the muscle stores. Refuelling with real food after cycling with a carbohydrate-rich meal or drink in this period will improve the rate at which your energy stores refill, thus impact directly on how much stored energy you have available for your next ride.

With research indicating that an intake of 1g of carbohydrate per kilogram you weigh during this time is perfect for refuelling, a 70g carbohydrate feed for a 70kg cyclist is perfect. Combining this with 10g of protein will reduce your likelihood of getting injured, assist muscle recovery and reduce muscle soreness and has even been shown to speed up carbohydrate muscle refuelling.

A milk-based drink, a whey or soy protein-enriched smoothie, a jacket potato and beans, or a specialised recovery drink all make good, sensible options. With some of the specialised formulas you can benefit from ingredients such as glutamine and colostrum, two proteins that can provide extra immune support after strenuous training sessions or races.

Check out our guide to the best recovery drinks.

Or here you can find recipes for making your own recovery bars: does either no-bake fruit and oat bar, sweet potato and chocolate bar, or cheese and three seed bar sound any good to you?

If you’re not a whizz in the kitchen, here’s a round up of today’s best recovery bar deals...

Recipes: on-the bike cycling nutrition

Nutrition for cycling while on the bike can be obtained from easy-to-consume energy gels, energy drinks or energy bars, and the latter could be ones you make yourself. 

Fancy making some real food ride snacks, how about…?

Vegan rice cakes

INGREDIENTS

600ml water

400ml thick coconut milk

500g sushi rice

25g sugar

25g coconut oil

5ml vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

50g dark chocolate, chopped

150g mixed nuts and dried fruit 

EQUIPMENT

Large saucepan

Lasagne dish, lined with baking paper 

1) Combine the water, rice, sugar, coconut milk, coconut oil and vanilla in a heavy-bottomed saucepan with a lid (or rice cooker if you have one). 

2) Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Once it starts boiling, cover the pan with the lid and reduce the heat to low. 

3) Once the rice is cooked, mix in the chocolate, nuts and dried fruit. Spoon into the lasagne dish and flatten with a spatula. Leave to cool in open air. Once cool, transfer to the fridge to set overnight. 

4) The next day, cut the rice cakes into pocket-sized pieces and wrap in foil. Store in the fridge or freezer.

Looking for more on-bike nutrition snacks? Here’s how to make Superseed Flapjacks and Veggie Rice Balls.

Caffeine: good or bad?

Some people avoid caffeine like the plague and others embrace it for its performance-supporting effects. If you’re a fan, you’ll find most sports physiologists are with you with studies showing that three to six milligrams (mg) of caffeine per kilo of body weight can result in enhanced performance, increased power output and improved mental focus, with larger doses generally offering no additional benefit.

For example, a 60kg cyclist would take between 180-360mg of caffeine – that’s two or three cups of coffee.

Interestingly, caffeine’s effects appear to be negated by the heat, with studies in hotter climates showing no benefit. This may be due to fatigue being limited by thermoregulation in these conditions rather than fuel supply.

If you are thinking of giving a caffeinated drink or gel a try in an event try it in training first. However, it's not for everyone. If you suffer from high blood pressure or a heart condition, caffeine use is not recommended and if you are on any medication, it’s best to check with your doctor before giving it a try.

Good vs bad fats

The type of fat you select is critical to health, performance and weight maintenance. Fats are grouped into 'good' fats and 'bad' fats. Good fats include polyunsaturated fats (Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats) and monounsaturated fats (Omega 9 fats).

Whereas saturated fats found in meats and processed foods are to be limited, Omega 3 and 6 fats are vital to maintaining health and are found in nuts, seeds, fish and oils such as flaxseed, borage and starflower oil.

Additional benefits from these fats include a reduction of inflammation in the body, making them great for those with asthma and allergies while also providing a stimulatory benefit to the metabolism, and therefore assisting in weight loss.

Good fats are known to reduce bad cholesterol (LDL) and are therefore an important part of the diet to assist in the prevention of heart disease. Aiming for around 20g of good fat per day is a great strategy for health support without the risk of adding too many calorific fats to the diet.

Vitamins and minerals: how to get enough

There are two main types of vitamins: fat-soluble and water-soluble ones. The fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K are stored in the body. The water-soluble ones, however, are not stored in the body and therefore are needed in the diet every day. Minerals such as calcium, iron and zinc are also needed daily, but only in very small quantities.

These vitamins and minerals can be found in a variety of foods. The NHS recommendation of five pieces of fruit and vegetables per day is aimed to assist in the daily achievement of these vitamins and minerals along with sufficient fibre intake. Selecting a rainbow of colours and aiming for darker-coloured fruits and vegetables is recommended.

To ensure deficiencies don’t develop, especially when training regularly, a good multivitamin supplement is a wise health and performance booster for cyclists. However, avoid mega-dosing on nutrients unless used as a short-term treatment (for example in the case of vitamin C and zinc use during a cold to reduce severity and duration of symptoms).

Glucose tracking: the next big thing in cycling nutrition?

What’s going to be ‘the next big thing’ in training tech for cycling that we all start to adopt? Well, nutrition-wise it could well be Supersapiens’ biosensor which keeps tabs on blood glucose levels, providing real-time data to athletes via a mobile app.  

Why is it interesting? 

Since glucose and energy is key to performance, this may be a game-changer in optimising performance. It’s causing such a storm that the UCI has banned it from competition. UCI innovations manager Mick Rogers told CW that the ban was aimed at preventing inequality between those who can and can’t afford it, thus avoiding a Formula One type scenario where tech determines who wins. 

What are the key benefits of seeing your blood glucose level minute to minute? 

In training, you can see real-time responses to your nutrition and ensure you have enough energy available to perform. 

Outside training, you can see how your body responds to food. Beyond food, you may be able to see how other factors might impact blood glucose e.g. sleep, recovery etc.

What are the drawbacks?

Blood glucose doesn’t account for stored carbs (muscle glycogen), so it’s not a complete picture of how your body uses energy. It takes time, effort and expertise to understand the data and gain actionable insights from it. Many variables affect energy availability, blood glucose level and performance; it may be hard to untangle correlation and causation.

A 70kg rider pedalling hard burns approximately 1,000kcal per hour. Riders in this year’s Tour de France will cover 3,405km, and if we assume an average speed of 40kph, that’s 85 hours of riding – burning in the region of 83,000kcal, or 4,000kcal per stage. That’s a very rough estimate, of course, and doesn’t take into account the ‘tickover’ energy needed to keep the body functioning 24/seven, but it hammers home the magnitude of the eating challenge: 83,000kcal is the equivalent of 64kg of pasta or 44 loaves of bread – literally gut-busting quantities of food that the pros have to eat to compete in the Tour de France. I wanted to find out how they do it and just how difficult it is to keep up with the vast energy demands of the race. So I decided to find out – by fuelling like a pro for a day. 

Rather than sitting on the couch ordering takeaways all day, I would mimic a Tour de France competitor’s fuelling while riding the equivalent of a demanding stage. I had neither the time nor budget to do this experiment in France on an actual route from the race (sob!), so I needed to choose a stage I could replicate on the Northern English parcours on my doorstep. Stage 10 from the 2022 edition of the Tour de France, from Morzine to Megève looked ideal: a relentlessly hilly 148km. 

I would start in my home town of Otley in Yorkshire, head out through Ikley, then up into Skipton before taking on the steep slopes of Malham; turning for home, I’d make my way up over Greenhow and across the moors to finish. This would mean covering 143km, just 5km short of Stage 10’s distance. Admittedly, no Yorkshire climb was going to replicate Stage 10’s finale (1,384m) but adding together all my smaller ascents, I would accrue just as much overall elevation, a total of 8,225ft (2,507m). 

Carb load  

Sport Performance & Science Reports published a paper entitled ‘Case Study: The application of daily carbohydrate periodisation throughout a cycling Grand Tour’  – showing exactly how much carbohydrate a pro rider in the 2021 Vuelta a España consumed on each stage, casting a light on the vast energy requirements of a Grand Tour.  

The study’s subject, an unnamed 26-year-old rider, consumes a staggering 843g of carbohydrates a day on average, peaking at 1,100g on the most demanding day – equivalent to 4kg of cooked rice. I’d need to consume between eight and 12g of carbs per kilo of bodyweight; in other words, I was going to have to stuff my face like never before. 

Why are such huge helpings of starchy foods vital for a stage racer? “Carbohydrates are king for endurance,” advised Will Girling, team nutritionist for EF Education-EasyPost. “They are the primary energy source when cycling at anything above a moderate effort. Ensuring riders have a high carb intake throughout the race not only aids performance but has been shown to improve recovery after cycling too.” While carb requirements vary day to day depending on the length and profile of the stage, protein remains consistent. “Protein intake doesn’t fluctuate, it is always at a minimum of two grams per kilo of body weight,” added Girling. As for fat: “We try to stay at the lower end, but it’s usually between one and two grams per kilo of bodyweight a day.” 

On the morning of my ride, I weighed in at 74.1kg, and decided to aim for the upper end of the intake guidelines, 12.7g of carbs per kilo, meaning I’d need to eat a total of 943g – nearly a full kilo of pure carbs. My next job was to break this down into breakfast, on-bike and post-ride fuelling. What shocked me most was just how much carbohydrate I would need to consume in liquid form. 

Tallying up the intake 

“Trying to hit 90-100g of carbs per hour can be very difficult on solid food,” explained Girling. “The bulky nature of it, and the process of chewing, increases the feeling of fullness. You just can’t get that amount of solid food down on the bike.” This is even more difficult if the racing is aggressive and the effort level high.

To make my challenge as realistic as possible, I would ride as hard as possible while consuming two sachets of Science in Sport (SiS) Beta Fuel 80 (160g of carbs) on the bike. 

I started the day with porridge, my usual race day breakfast, keeping in mind Girling’s caution that “it’s important to not feel really full or stuffed” before you start riding. The best way to side-step the overfilling problem, he advised, was to add extra carbs in the form of sugary toppings such as maple syrup or honey. I decided to stick to what I knew and added a dollop of peanut butter and strawberry jam to my porridge. 

To help me keep an accurate tally of my cycling nutrition, I used the MyFitnessPal app, and weighed out all my portions. Here’s the breakdown of what I ate across the day: 

My porridge amounted to 78g of carbohydrates, so I still needed an extra 60g. Scrambled eggs on two slices of toast, followed by a large banana, and finally I was there: 134g of carbs were in my belly. Feeling slightly uncomfortably full, I gave myself two hours to let everything digest.

Fuelling on the stage

0 - 50km: Otley to Skipton 

Imagining myself in the peloton and settling into the race, I pushed on at a tempo of around 300 watts over the opening 25km of rolling hills, eating three homemade oat balls (see recipe below) 20 minutes apart. Over the first hour, I consumed 60g of carbs in total, 30g from liquid, 30g from solid food. To stay hydrated, I aimed to consume 500ml of water per hour. 

After 40km I’d already climbed about 1,000ft, and now pushed on up over the first proper climb of the day to the top of the Cringles. In my imaginary Stage 10, this is where the break was likely to go, so I tightened up my shoes and put the power down. The intensity was too high to eat solid fuel now, so over the next hour I drank a bottle of Beta Fuel containing 80g of carbs.

51 - 100km: Skipton to Grassington

Malham Cove loomed in the distance: a climb of 2.6km at an average gradient of 7% – arguably the toughest part of the ride. Still trying to distance the imaginary peloton, I kept the power high and stuck to the nutrition plan, eating one and a half SiS Beta Fuel chews (46g of carbs per chew), washed down with water. Mixing up the textures and flavours definitely helped keep my appetite interested. 

The grind up and over Malham out of the way, I headed into the Dales, and was finally riding with the wind, a welcome relief after 2.5 hours of headwind. But now I was heading into unknown territory in terms of my endurance. Though I’m used to long rides of over 3.5 hours, I usually do them at low intensity - training zone wise that’d be Zone 2  - whereas now I was pushing hard. This is where fuelling would make all the difference, and so far I’d stuck to the plan: 90g the first hour, 80g in the second and 70g in the third hour. 

In the fourth hour, I drank another bottle of SiS electrolyte mix, ate half a homemade bar and one Beta Fuel energy gel. I wasn’t feeling hungry at all and was grateful that I only had a few bites of solid food left. The temperature had climbed to 17ºC – tropical for Yorkshire – so drinking the liquid carbs wasn’t a problem.

101-143km: Grassington to Otley 

After a long, gradual drag up onto the moors, Greenhow hove into view, and my stage win fantasy was entering its critical phase. On the downhill before the final ascent of the day, I popped another gel, grabbed my final bottle of Beta Fuel and raced into the final 40 minutes. This would be the real test, the point where the stage is won or lost. 

I was pleasantly surprised, my legs still felt relatively fresh given the four-and-a-quarter hours of hard effort, and I was able to get out of the saddle and dance on the pedals as I unleashed everything towards the finish line. Done. I’d ridden 143km, climbed 8,225ft, and more importantly I’d consumed 399g of carbs. It had taken 4.5 hours and I’d burnt almost exactly 5,000kcal while averaging 284W (309W normalised) for an average speed of 31.5kph (19.6mph). 

Homemade on-the-bike snack recipe

My favoured on-bike fuel for my ride were these homemade oat balls, taken from Volume 2 of The Cycling Chef by Alan Murchison. They are named ‘Cheryl’s coconut oat balls’ because the recipe was ‘borrowed’ from a British Cycling soigneur. I loved the subtle flavour, and they were really easy to eat on the bike. 

INGREDIENTS 

 - 200g oats

 - 150g dates

 - 100g honey

 - 100g peanut butter (or any nut butter of your choice)

 - 15g chia seeds

 - 15g desiccated coconut

 - 2g salt 

METHOD

 1) Add oats and dates to a blender and blend into a paste. 

 2) Add the other ingredients and beat it all together. 

 3) Roll the mixture into 40g balls (making approx 14). 

4) Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Looking for more on-bike nutrition snacks? Here’s how to make Superseed Flapjacks and Veggie Rice Balls - and you can find even more homemade energy bar recipes over here. 

Post-stage refuelling

In a real Grand Tour, my ride would have been just one of 21 stages, and crucial now, having finished, would be the replenishment of my glycogen stores, as well as taking on enough protein for muscle repair. Following the recommendations, I now needed to eat a further 208g of carbohydrates. “Riders have a recovery drink and quick-release carbohydrates,” Girling said. “The form varies day to day; some riders like sweets like Haribo, others prefer a sugary drink.” I opted for a bottle of chocolate-flavour SiS Rego recovery drink, which gave me 24g of protein and 38g of carbs, before then refuelling with real food.

For my post-ride meal, to be eaten as soon as I’d showered and changed, I opted for 250g (raw weight) of pasta with some pesto, chicken and sweetcorn. This was arguably the biggest challenge of the day, as I just wasn’t feeling hungry. After much slow chewing and resentful staring at my fork, the bottom of the bowl eventually came into sight.

Food fatigue and repetition can be a real problem for riders, and I began to understand why. Eating was the last thing on my mind as dinnertime approached. For my biggest meal of the day, I was expected to eat a whopping 217g of carbs – almost three grams per kilo of body weight. How do pro riders manage it? “We rotate themes,” Girling told me. “Mexican food one night, Japanese the next, then perhaps local cuisine from the area – whatever it takes to keep it interesting and appetising.” Heeding Girling’s final tip, “learn to love rice”, I cooked myself a chicken stir-fry. 

Behind the scenes 

It’s the challenge you don’t see taking place behind the scenes of the Tour: nutritionists and chefs making sure their riders are getting enough carbs and calories. Across the single day of my challenge, I consumed a total of 942g of carbs and 5,726kcal, which still left me with a deficit of 1,800kcal. If I did that over a few days, the diminishing energy reserves would soon take their toll. 

Aside from energy requirements, how do the pros make sure they’re getting all the vitamins and minerals they need? “Most take a multivitamin, which covers all bases, an omega-3 supplement to help with recovery, a probiotic to boost immunity and gut function, as well as whey protein, and tart cherry juice to help with inflammation.” All of these are worth considering to “help support overall health,” Girling suggested. 

It’s been an eye-opening experience as an amateur rider to eat like a WorldTour pro for a day. My usual training volume is around 15 hours a week, and I rarely consume more than 20g of carbohydrates per hour on the bike. Reflecting on how strong I felt on my Stage 10 simulation ride, while consuming vastly more carbs, has taught me a lesson. I’ve realised that there are times – such as in the fourth hour of an endurance ride or in the final set of intervals – when I could benefit from taking on more fuel. It’s not every day I’ll need to consume 5,500kcal, of course, but I’ll certainly be thinking more carefully about the amount of nutrition my rides and races really demand.

This full version of this article was published in the print edition of Cycling Weekly. Subscribe online and get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week. 

We’re a nation of coffee lovers – slurping down a staggering 90 million cups every day. Cyclists might very well be bumping up that average, given our renowned love of coffee – the cherished mid-ride cafe stop is a rite of passage. It would be useful to know, therefore, what effects our coffee intake might be having on our health and performance. Is that coffee stop helping our cycling, and if so, how?  

There's a wide array of available sports supplements for cyclists – powders, pills and potions - and as with any nutritional message reported by the media, the hype around coffee is pretty confusing and conflicting – some articles hail it as a magical superfood, while others suggest it might be an addiction we need to kick. Here, we’ll look at what the best evidence shows us, so you can make an informed decision about how much coffee to drink – and perhaps even use it to your advantage.

You might be surprised to learn that coffee, or more specifically caffeine – the constituent that provides the buzz – is classed as a psychoactive drug. That’s because it’s a stimulant, i.e. it is mind-altering, in that it affects how we think and feel. And perhaps most interestingly to cyclists, it affects how we perform too. 

Cycling-specific studies tend to show improvements in performance of up to a few per cent when participants are given caffeine (or placebo) ahead of a cycling test. This seems to be true across a range of intensities and distances. For example, studies have shown a 3.1 per cent improvement in a 1km time trial, a 1.9 per cent improvement in a 5km time trial, and 34 seconds extra staying power (0.8 per cent improvement) when cyclists were challenged to perform to exhaustion after an hour cycling at 70 per cent of VO2 max. These kinds of improvements might seem marginal, but they can make all the difference in both competition and training sessions.  

Many research papers in exercise science have predominantly focused on men, with sports science only telling us half the story. But studies have also demonstrated the positive effect caffeine can have on performance across women as well as men. The results, published in the journal Nutrients found that the male participants improved by 2.1 per cent with caffeine compared to with the placebo, whilst women improved by 1.8 per cent. Compared to the control, men improved 1.2 per cent and women 1.1 per cent - with researchers concluding that the caffeine affected both genders to a "similar magnitude".

The effects of caffeine on general exercise performance have been extensively researched. Once enough studies have taken place on any topic, it’s possible to conduct what’s known as a meta-analysis, where researchers combine the results from all previous suitable studies to give us an overview of the entire scientific literature on that topic. These meta-analyses are known as the ‘gold-standard’ of scientific research because they combine large amounts of data and don’t rely on any one study alone. So much research has now been done on the performance enhancing effects of caffeine that it’s been possible to conduct several meta-analyses.

The ‘super-review’ confirms that caffeine does indeed exert a significant ergogenic (performance-enhancing) effect on muscle endurance, muscle strength, anaerobic power, and aerobic endurance. So, whether you’re a track sprint cyclist, compete in ultra-distance multi-stage events, or anything in between, coffee, or caffeine in some other form, could be a useful tool to improve your times. It’s worth noting that many of the individual studies included in this large review were conducted in hobby and leisure cyclists, so whatever your level, you could benefit from a nice brew beforehand. 

Interestingly, several national and international institutions, such as the Australian Institute for Sport and the International Olympic Committee, have classification systems for grading the effectiveness and safety of sports nutrition products. All of them place caffeine in the highest tier, because there’s so much evidence showing that it is reliably effective, with low risk to health at suitable doses. 

Why isn’t caffeine a banned substance?

This raises the question, if caffeine has such potent performance-enhancing effects, why hasn’t it been banned? Well, until 2004, it was – at least at high concentrations. The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) could throw athletes out of competition, including the Olympics, if high concentrations were found in their urine. The trouble is that monitoring caffeine intake is uniquely complicated. It’s naturally occurring in various foods and drinks, like chocolate and caffeinated soft drinks, i.e. things consumed as part of an athlete’s normal diet. In addition, caffeine is metabolised at different rates in different people, making it hard to determine usage patterns. 

Performance-enhancing doses of caffeine are also much lower than previously thought; even the amount in a regular cup of coffee could have an effect. So, it was removed from the WADA banned substance list. Some still argue that caffeine may provide an unfair advantage, and some agencies, such as the USA’s National Collegiate Athletic Association, still limit its use (at high doses). 

How does caffeine work?

A key mechanism is thought to be how it stimulates the central nervous system by blocking a chemical called adenosine. Ordinarily adenosine builds up in the brain throughout the day and has a negative effect on neurotransmission, wakefulness, and pain perception. So it makes sense that caffeine can reduce fatigue, dampen pain reception, blunt our perception of effort, and improve alertness and concentration. All this leads to significantly improved performance, in most people.  

Recent research shows that, contrary to popular belief, caffeine does not, even at moderately high intakes, lead to dehydration during exercise. What’s more, using caffeine regularly doesn’t seem to diminish its short-term performance-enhancing properties. Even before your ride, caffeine may help boost motivation to exercise – so it could tip the balance between powering through a productive indoor cycling session or deciding to spend another hour on the sofa watching TV. It’s another very real potential benefit.

How much caffeine should you take and when’s the best time to do so?

Optimising your caffeine intake - quantity and timing - can see improvements in performance. 

As with any nutritional advice, intake should always be tailored to the individual, but as a rule of thumb studies show that the effects of a cup of coffee can be noticed after just 10 minutes, with peak caffeine concentrations in the blood occurring between 30-60 minutes after consumption. An hour or so before training or competition is therefore an effective time window for most of us. 

The majority of studies on caffeine use a large single dose, between three and six milligrams (mg) for every kilo of bodyweight. For example, a 60kg cyclist would take between 180-360mg of caffeine – that’s two or three cups of coffee. However, there’s a growing body of evidence to show that lower doses, under 3mg per kilo of bodyweight, can still have a significant ergogenic effect – that’s as little as a single cup of strong coffee.

As the response to caffeine ingestion is individual, it is important to test your caffeine strategy in a training session before taking for an important event, or tackling your goal of the year, say, riding your first 100-miles.

Can you consume too much coffee?

To weigh up whether caffeine might be appropriate for you, it’s important to consider the potential risks and side-effects. Some people hardly notice a difference after several strong coffees, whereas others are highly sensitive to caffeine and feel jittery, anxiousness and restless after just small amounts.  

This difference in caffeine metabolism is mostly genetic – if you’re in the latter group, then it may be best to stick to lower intakes (under 3mg/kg bodyweight) or eschew caffeine altogether, as those side-effects may offset any improvements in performance and detract from your enjoyment of cycling. Of course, you may be more sensitive to caffeine if you’re less used to consuming it. There’s also some evidence that coffee could increase the risk of non-fatal myocardial infarction (heart attack) among those with the gene for slow caffeine metabolism.  

Especially when taken in supplement form, it’s easy to take too much, so never take more than the suggested dose on the packs of caffeinated gum, tablets, or other medication. In 2015, two sports science students at Northumbria University ended up in a life-threatening condition after mistakenly consuming 30g of caffeine instead of the intended 0.3g.

Several organisations advise keeping under 400mg a day, or lower if you are more sensitive to caffeine. You should also bear in mind how caffeine can impact upon sleep, so you may want to avoid drinking coffee in the afternoon or evening as it can take up to nine hours to eliminate the caffeine from your bloodstream. Recovery is just as important as training, and “sleep is probably the single most important factor for cycling” says Science to Sport performance coordinator John Wakefield. 

Caffeine doses in coffee, tea, energy drinks and gum compared

Caffeine can be consumed as part of regular cup of coffee with breakfast, or as part of sport specific products such as energy gels and drinks. Let's take a look at how much caffeine you can find in common foods and drinks: 

* Data from USDA FoodData Central https://fdc.nal.usda.gov and individual brand nutrition information

**Selected manufacturers 

*** Caffeine Content of Brewed Teas 

So, to conclude, there’s masses of robust evidence showing how caffeine can significantly improve performance. But, as with any other ergogenic aid, it’s useful to think of supplements as the icing on the cake: the foundations – your day to day training sessions, recovery and fuelling – are far more important, so it’s critical to get the basics right first before fine tuning the smaller details. There are no shortcuts when it comes to maximising your performance and you can’t expect a supplement like caffeine to make up for a shortfall in your diet or lifestyle. That said, if you’ve put in the groundwork and feel you could benefit from an extra little pick-me-up, then consuming caffeine could be a legitimate and effective way to give you the edge you were looking for. 

Described as one of the most gruelling endurance events on earth, the Tour de France is as nutritionally challenging as it is physical. With riders spending up to six hours a day on the bike with minimal time for recovery and just two rest days over the entire event, feeding the world’s greatest riders during a Grand Tour is no mean feat.

“To fuel the journey riders need to consume an average of 5,000-plus calories per stage. Maintaining such a huge energy intake is challenging,” says Corinne Mäder, senior sports nutritionist at PowerBar.

But it’s not just the calories. “Suppression of appetite and meal fatigue due to eating the same food every day for weeks must also be managed,” adds Mäder.

“Gastro-intestinal problems can also occur, especially during the latter part of the race, and sports nutrition products and food must therefore be selected carefully and tailored to the individual rider.”

Couple this with eating on the bike, ensuring adequate hydration and recovery, moving between hotels and the sheer length of the Tour de France and you’ve got a mammoth task on your hands. So how exactly is it done?

Diet of a tour rider

09:00: Breakfast

Riders will have breakfast around three and a half hours before the race, with carbohydrate-rich foods such as bread, muesli, cereal, pancakes, rice pudding, smoothies, orange juice - and even noodles - to help top up glycogen stores. An accompanying strong cup of coffee almost goes without saying.

Cycling is a team sport but there’s also individual needs during the race, with the riders playing different roles on each stage. 

“We adapt the food to the needs, not just for the stage and also for the individual rider,” Trek-Segafredo’s nutritionist Stephanie Scheirlynck says. “And it’s not just day by day, it’s also about looking at the demands of the next block of stages.”

This means that the breakfast is adapted to the stage and the role that the rider has that day (or as part of an upcoming block).

“At breakfast we focus on the fuel for the stage that is coming,” Scheirlynck explains. “If it’s a mountain stage, we will go rich in carbohydrates because that’s your fuel for climbing, but we also make sure the food is low in fibre because you don’t want the food to cause any fluid retention.”

“Then, if it’s a flat stage, only the riders who are going for the breakaway will have more carbs and low fibre at breakfast. 

“For the sprinter, who needs to stay in the peloton the whole day and only in the last 200 metres goes all out, energy expenditure is not comparable to a hilly stage or a mountain stage and this is reflected in the food they have at breakfast.”

In those three weeks, riders also need vegetables and fruit, fibre and healthy fats, and it’s on the easier stages that Trek-Segafredo gives the riders this healthier food. “I call them the green days and these are days when we know these sorts of foods are going to be digested,” Scheirlynck says.

10:30: Pre-race snack

Transfers from hotels to stage starts can be long, offering an opportunity to top up carbohydrates and calories in the team bus - typically, rice cakes with honey, raisin bread, sports bars or bananas are consumed with fluid. 

Studies show Tour riders are consuming less on the bike (possibly due to more aggressive racing), meaning greater reliance on pre- and post-race nutrition.

12:00: During the race

Different stages at the Tour require different fuelling strategies, according to duration, intensity and temperature, and also on your role for the stage.

Fat metabolism can be utilised during mid-stage low intensity periods when a rider can shelter in the bunch and get towed along. In contrast, tougher stages will see the body rely on carbohydrates, which means more gels and energy drinks.

Solid foods consumed on the bike include small rolls with jam, rice cakes and energy bars, and most riders will opt for this on the easier days. 

Quick-to-consume gels - especially caffeinated ones - will provide the majority of calories as the pace increases as riders will struggle to chew and swallow solids. Trek Segafredo also ups the concentration of its energy drinks for these tougher stages.

Fuelling on the bike also depends on personal preferences and what the rider is used to. 

Scheirlynck gives Jasper Stuyven and Giulio Ciccone as examples of riders within Trek-Segafredo who fuel very differently. 

“Stuvyn likes it simple, with everything in his bottle and he only takes on extra gels,” Scheirlynck says. “He trains at altitude training camps like that and so we know we can give him lots of fluid food and he’ll still be okay after seven hours.”

Then, other riders prefer to eat something solid. “Guillo Ciccone never wants his drinks to be overdosed because he prefers to eat something with it,” Scheirlynck shares. “Even if it’s a mountain stage, he wants solid food.”

17:00: Post-race recovery

As soon as the stage ends, recovery begins. “Recovery drinks with 0.3 to 0.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, up to a maximum of 40 grams, are given to riders as soon as they finish a stage,” says Scheirlynck.

“We give this to riders in a shake because it’s easy to drink and it helps with rehydration too.”

They’re also freshly made. “We have a blender so we put in some fresh fruit, and some ice cubes too if it’s hot,” Scheirlynck adds.

Trek-Segafredo gives all its riders the same quantity for their recovery shake to drink while they’re cooling down, it’s the size of the recovery snack that riders also have that varies. 

Depending on how long the transfer is (which could be up to a few hours), riders shower and change in the bus before eating a snack or small meal prepared by the team chef — pasta salad, a wrap or sandwiches, something with cooked rice are all standard. “It’s around half of what we give them at dinner,” Scheirlynck says.

20:00 or later: Evening meal

“Dinner depends on the next day, not the day they have just had,” Scheirlynck says. 

Post-massage evening meals start with salad, soup or juice for a nutrient boost, followed by meat or fish and carbohydrate-rich foods — but gone are the days of overcooked pasta. 

With long transfers this evening meal can end up being even later than 8pm. 

“The good thing is that the riders are used to eating late because it’s also the case for other races,” Scheirlynck notes.“It seems as though they can digest everything a little bit faster  than we would be able to. 

Eating so late could reduce sleep quality though, which is not what you want during a Grand Tour. "If the riders are arriving at the hotel so late, then the team will give more to the riders in the bus so they can have a slightly lighter dinner," Scheirlynck adds.

The calories

The most important nutritional consideration for riders is getting enough calories to meet the extreme demands of the race.  This can be anything from 4,000 calories a day on a flat stage to 9,000 calories on a hilly stage.

Guzzling around 6,000 calories a day might sound blissful, but the reality of consuming such huge quantities of food day in, day out for three weeks presents one of the biggest challenges for the riders.

“Nutrient-dense foods are needed to remove the bulk of large volumes of food, to make it easier for riders to maintain energy balance and get enough nutrients,” says Mäder.

So bulky salads and vegetables are swapped for fresh fruit and vegetable juices, and carbohydrate powders are stirred into food and drink to increase calories.

The amount of food needed is close to the body’s maximum capacity for digestion, so failure to keep up with the enormous calorie intake can spell disaster, because playing catch-up is near impossible. And ending up in calorie deficit is a no-no because riders risk losing precious muscle.

The carbs

Carbohydrate consumption must begin as soon as the stage does. 

As the body relies on glucose for energy during hard exercise, a high proportion of the calories consumed by riders come from carbohydrate — around 70 per cent, or 1,100g a day for a 70kg rider, according to Emma Barraclough, senior sports nutritionist at SiS.

“Carbohydrate is needed for high-intensity efforts, such as breakaways and tough climbs,” explains Barraclough.

Swallowed in energy bars, gels and energy drinks, riders consume around 250 calories or 60g of carbohydrate per hour. “Riders take in energy little and often — 36g of carbohydrate from their drink every hour with a gel or bar every 30 minutes as well,” says Barraclough.

During the longest stages, carbohydrate intake can jump to 80 or 90g per hour — but the key is to start early. “If riders don’t fuel and drink properly, they will not be in contention when it comes to the critical part and finale of a stage,” says Pete Slater, co-founder of OTE Sports.

“Riders start taking drink, food and gels on board as soon as they get going.”

Food logistics

Race food must be easy to eat, but variety is necessary too. 

Food consumed during the race needs to be portable and easy to consume on the bike. Riders start with food and gels in their jerseys, picking up additional supplies from musettes around halfway through the stage, packed by soigneurs at the start of each day.

Teams will label bottles so riders know what’s inside and can calculate what they need based on their role within the team for the day’s stage. 

“In the musettes we put everything so the riders can choose what they like themselves,” Scheirlynck explains. “You can’t have bottles or musettes with names on because you never know who is going to come first.”

A typical musette bag may contain two 500ml bottles, one of water and one sports drink for hydration and fuel, an energy bar to eat when the pace is less intense, and isotonic gels with caffeine for that extra lift when needed.

There’s homemade rice cakes or fruit cakes to prevent hunger, and help with variety on long stages. This solid food is all low in fibre and rich in carbs. 

There’s also always one small can of coke in the musettes Trek-Segafredo gives its riders. “From a nutritional point of view, it doesn’t make any sense to put a coke in there, but if taking a few sips helps the riders morale then that effect is more important than the disadvantage that doesn’t exist,” Scheirlynck explains, “and that’s why we leave it in there.”

Bars and sandwiches are kept for the flat stages, with gels and drinks used on climbs as it’s more difficult to take on food then. Bottles with a sports drink and three gels taped on are picked up from team cars, with sandwiches and gels available from support teams on the side of the road.

Food consumed off the bike is just as important. Most teams travel with their own nutritionist and chef, a practice that has helped improve the quality of food and prevents one of the biggest blights of the high calorie regime — food fatigue. The chef and nutritionist work together to plan menus, taking into account rider preferences, with some requiring gluten or lactose-free meals.

Providing food that the riders like helps ensure that they eat enough for the efforts they have coming up and this is why the teams put effort into making functional food into a package that looks good, such as pizza.

“Food is also more than just functional,” Scheirlynck notes. “It gives you the energy to do the race but if you’ve had a bad day, or you crashed, it can make you feel better.” 

Hydration

Avoiding dehydration in hot weather is another challenge — sweat losses can be in excess of three litres during hard stages, and riders may need to consume up to 10 litres a day to maintain fluid balance.

Fluid is lost through sweat and breath, and losses are exacerbated in hot weather. But it’s not just fluid — electrolytes such as sodium and potassium also need to be replaced to avoid the risk of hyponatremia, or low sodium levels, a potentially fatal condition that can be caused by overdrinking plain water.

“The sodium content in an electrolyte drink is crucial in helping the riders keep fluid balance in their body. Up to a litre an hour can be lost in the heat at altitude in the mountains,” explains Barraclough.

“Pre-hydrating starts in the morning by putting extra electrolytes in the rider's drinks,” Scheirlynck says. Taking on fluids then becomes an all-day task whether the riders are on their bikes or not.

On particularly hot days, Trek-Segafredo also freezes the gels to help riders cool from the inside.

Recovery

After each stage recovery takes precedence, with the priority on replenishing glycogen stores and helping muscles recover as quickly as possible.

Most teams drum into their riders the importance of the nutritional 20-minute ‘golden window’, which starts as soon as exercise stops.

Recovery involves three parts: carbohydrate, protein and fluid. A cyclist’s body needs carbohydrates to replenish depleted glycogen stores, high-quality protein for repairing the damaged muscle tissue and fluid plus electrolytes for effective rehydration.

A recovery drink is ready to go so riders can consume while cooling down. 

As training techniques and bike design advance, so do the nutritional products that support the riders. “Research findings are translated into practical application — not just the ingredients but also factors such as mouth feel, taste, packaging and application — for example, how easy a product is to open and consume during a ride,” says Mäder.

Many transportable carb-based products contain multiple forms of sugars (glucose plus fructose) which help riders absorb and use more carbohydrate per hour than conventional nutrition products, maximising delivery to the working muscles.

Multi-day racing batters immune function, but probiotics can bolster the body’s defences. “Probiotic drinks are also used to aid immune function, as the rider’s body will naturally be under a lot of stress,” explains Slater.

While the team nutritionist helps the riders judge how much carbohydrate and protein they should take to recover and fuel for the next day, Scheirlynck notes that some things aren’t easy to calculate and that the riders have control here.

“If you’ve crashed you need more energy to recover and we can’t really estimate how much, but if the riders listen to their body they can at least take a bit more if they feel like they need a bit more.”

Caffiene

Caffeine is one of the only legal performance-boosting aids available, and riders will often have a coffee with their breakfast or take a caffeine gel before the start of the race.

“It helps lower the perception of effort,” says Barraclough, “so it can be useful on a long hilly day.”

Riders will also take another caffeine gel during the race, around 30 to 45 minutes before they need it.

“The timing depends on your task,” Scheirlynck points out, “because sometimes you need to start working earlier than someone else.” 

This is also why many riders start with a caffeine gel in their jersey pocket and keep one reserved for when it really matters.

“If you’re suddenly in a position where you didn’t expect to be, but you have the opportunity to win, you can be flexible,” says Scheirlynck.

If you’re serious about your cycling, you’ll want to maximise the benefits you get from each training session. Since each one has unique fuel demands, it makes sense to tailor your fuelling plan accordingly.  

That’s the idea behind the mantra ‘fuelling for the work required’ (FFTWR), named after a landmark paper by sports scientists Dr Sam Impey and Professor James Morton at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). In the paper – Fuel for the work required: a practical approach to amalgamating train-low paradigms for endurance athletes – the two scientists described a new strategy that marked a paradigm shift in sports nutrition. It helped Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers) and Chris Froome win the 2016 Tour de France and has since been adopted by many professional and amateur cyclists.  

It was already known that training in a carbohydrate-restricted state (‘training low’) could increase endurance training adaptations and improve fat burning and glycogen sparing. But training low has several drawbacks. Firstly, it makes exercise feel much harder than training with full carb stores, so even an ‘easy’ session can feel taxing. Over time, it becomes near-impossible to complete intense training sessions, and you can lose your top-end performance. Second, training low puts your immune system under stress, leaving you at much higher risk of illness and infection. Third, it can lead to an increase in the breakdown of muscle protein for use as a fuel. Over weeks, this protein breakdown can amount to a significant loss of muscle, which will have a negative effect on your performance.

To get round this, the LJMU researchers’ proposed new training model, FFTWR, incorporated the benefits of training low while still permitting the completion of high intensity workloads on heavy training days. Instead of adhering to the same diet every day, you do your low-intensity sessions with low carbohydrate availability (i.e. low pre-exercise glycogen and no carbs consumed during exercise) and your high-intensity sessions with high carbohydrate availability (i.e. high pre-exercise glycogen and carbs consumed during exercise). In other words, you adjust the amount of carbohydrate you consume before, during and after workouts in line with your training intensity and volume. 

“Fuelling for the work required makes logical sense,” explains Dr Impey. “Just as you don’t do the same training every day, so you shouldn’t have the same nutrition every day. It needs to flow and flux in the same way. Each workout targets different elements of your fitness. Some may be high-intensity intervals or climbs, others long steady rides or different activities such as yoga or strength training.” 

How to apply this to fuelling? “Ask yourself, ‘What is my training goal for this session?’. When you know that, then you can plan how to fuel your body before, during and after.” This innovative approach to fuelling is, of course, in contrast to the traditional advice that every training session should always be done with high carbohydrate availability. It’s also preferable to chronic low-carbohydrate diets, which have been shown to hamper your capacity for high intensity training. 

Matching carbs to intensity 

The benefits of FFTWR come from strategically limiting your carbohydrate intake around low-intensity endurance training sessions. Doing this amplifies the training adaptations in skeletal muscle, such as increased mitochondrial biogenesis. This results in a higher capacity for oxidative metabolism (fat-burning), allowing your muscles to burn a higher proportion of fat at any given intensity, which helps to spare precious glycogen. 

“By matching your carbohydrate intake to the fuel demands of your training sessions, you get the benefits of train-low sessions as well as the performance enhancing benefits of high-intensity sessions. The net result is an increase in your metabolic flexibility; that is, your muscles’ ability to use both fat and carbohydrate as a fuel,” says Impey. Research suggests that FFTWR can not only lead to favourable enhanced metabolic adaptations but can also result in improved performance and body composition. 

A 2021 study by researchers at LJMU, showed that cyclists who employed a ‘sleep low, train low’ training strategy (doing high-intensity evening sessions with high carbohydrate availability, and fasted low-intensity morning sessions with low carbohydrate availability) for three weeks improved their functional threshold power (FTP) by 5.5% compared with those who did all their training with high carbohydrate availability. A 2016 study showed that triathletes following a ‘sleep low, train low’ strategy for three weeks improved their cycling efficiency (power output per calorie) by 11%, 10km running performance by 2.9%, time to exhaustion during high-intensity exercise by 12.5%, and also cut their body fat by 1% compared with those who did all their training with high carbohydrate availability. Another study in 2016 with elite cyclists showed that those who did ‘sleep low, train low’ for just one week experienced a 3.2% improvement in a 20km time trial.

How to fuel hard sessions

With FFTWR, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts or long, hard sessions are done fully fuelled. In practice, this means including high-carb foods, such as pasta, potatoes, oats and rice in your pre-workout meals, as well as fast-acting carbs such as gels and bars during the ride. “If you want to increase your functional threshold power (FTP), you need to fuel well enough so that when you’re doing those hard sessions you can smash your numbers, really hit your targets and then recover from that effectively,” explains Impey. 

Exactly how much carbohydrate should you consume? Impey recommends two grams per kilo of body mass in your pre exercise meal (which translates to 140g for a 70kg cyclist) to top up glycogen stores. As a rule of thumb, you should aim to finish eating 90-120 minutes before your ride to allow time to digest and minimise the risk of stomach problems. Suitable pre-exercise meals include pasta with lentil or beef Bolognese, porridge with blueberries, a simple risotto or pilaff, pad Thai, or cous cous with chickpeas. 

For long, hard rides, Impey advises consuming 60g carbohydrate per hour, and 90g for more gruelling efforts. “Onbike fuelling is important if you want to maintain your power output and speed during the latter stages of a three-hourplus ride,” he says. “You’ll need to build up to intakes of 60 and 90g per hour, though. Start with small amounts, see how you feel, find the types of carbs that you like, whether that’s drinks, gels, whole foods or bars, and use that as your way to sustain your power output and your average speed in the final segment of your ride.” Good options that serve up 60g of carbs include 600ml energy drink (10g carbs per litre), two 50g gels, two or three bananas, four Medjool dates or two 45g energy bars. 

Carbs are still king the day before and on race day. “When performance is the goal, it is vital to fuel with carbohydrates. Protein and fat are still important, but the main focus should be on carbs for race day,” emphasises Impey. For the 24 hours prior to the race, he advises loading up with 8-10g carbs per kilo (560-700g for a 70kg cyclist) to maximise muscle glycogen stores. During the race, aim for 60-90g carbs per hour to top up blood sugar levels.  

Practise your strategy during training to get your body used to dealing with the volume of food and drink you will have to consume.  

How to fuel easy rides

Train-low sessions should be done with low pre-exercise glycogen stores. “This doesn’t need to mean zero carbs, though,” says Impey. “Restricting pre-exercise carbs to around 0.5-0.75g per kilo of body mass could bring about aerobic benefits similar to a much longer well fuelled session. Choose a relatively low-intensity ride that’s between one and two hours duration. If you’re planning a fasted ride first thing in the morning, have a low- or medium-carb meal the night before.” 

Your pre-exercise meal should contain 20-30g protein to help protect against muscle protein breakdown during train-low sessions. “It can contain some fat but not too much, as you want to achieve a state of low carb availability as well as a slight calorie deficit to promote fat oxidation,” explains Impey. “It’s thought that both lower carbs and lower energy are important triggers for muscle adaptations.” Suitable meals include smoked salmon with avocado, a spinach-filled omelette, Greek yoghurt or cottage cheese. 

If you’ve ever done a ride on an empty tank, you’ll know that it feels harder than training high-carb. A strong coffee or some other caffeine source beforehand may help alleviate some of the pain. Studies show that 3-6mg of caffeine per kilo of body weight (which translates to 210mg or a double espresso for a 70kg cyclist) can reduce perceived exertion and boost performance. Alternatively, try swilling a carbohydrate energy drink around your mouth for a few seconds before spitting it out – before or during workouts. The carbs stimulate oral sensors that activate the brain’s pleasure and reward centres and can help override the perception of effort and fatigue. 

“You don’t want to do too much train low, as that would compromise how well you do in hard sessions. Generally, choose just one or two sessions per week in the early season or base training phase,” advises Impey. “Some people don’t respond well to train-low. If you find you’re picking up respiratory infections or not seeing any benefits, then don’t carry on training low.” 

But it’s after the ride when the magic happens. “This is when those all-important muscle adaptations occur. After a train low ride you need to refuel and ensure you’re putting enough carbs and calories back into your body, particularly if you want to follow-up with a high-intensity session.”

How to lose weight but not muscle

If you’re looking to lose weight, you’ll need to create a calorie deficit but still fuel your body with enough energy to train and recover. “This can be achieved during your train-low sessions,” explains Dr Impey. “Then you do your high-intensity training fully fuelled, so you won’t compromise high-end performance.” In other words, FFTWR can be a good strategy for weight loss without harming your performance. 

Impey cautions against cutting carbs and calories too much as this could endanger your health. A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2018 found that 28% of male riders exhibited symptoms of low energy availability (LEA) – a state in which your body doesn’t have enough energy left to support normal physiological functions. This can result in reduced testosterone in males, low oestrogen in females, and an increased risk of bone fracture.  

“If FFTWR is done properly, there’s little risk of developing LEA,” assures Impey, “The key is to focus on your recovery after train-low sessions. That way, you’ll adapt fully to the training you’ve done and avoid LEA. High intensity sessions should always be done properly fuelled.” Early warning signs to look for include persistent fatigue, poor recovery, recurrent respiratory tract infections and, in females, loss of, or irregular, periods. 

Win-win scenario 

To cut out all that number crunching, technological help is available to help you calculate the appropriate carb intake. Impey has been collaborating with a team of data scientists to develop the Hexis App (hexis.live) to take the guesswork out of FFTWR. Currently it’s the only system to personalise, periodise and plan your daily carbohydrate and calorie needs to the demands of your workouts and goals. Input your age, weight, height, gender and training programme and you’ll get a colour-coded fuelling schedule to help you plan your meals and snacks. 

FFTWR is an intuitive way of combining your nutrition and training that’s supported by an increasing amount of scientific and anecdotal evidence. By adjusting your carbs and calories to your training intensity and duration, you’ll not only boost your metabolic flexibility, but also find it easier to improve your power-to-weight ratio – giving you an edge in races. Take care, though, not to cut carbs too drastically when training low, to safeguard your health and performance. Stick to a maximum of one or two train-low sessions per week, ideally in the low season. And remember that carbs are king before and on race day.

Using energy bars for cycling, regardless of season or intensity, will help you fuel your rides properly alongside gels and energy drinks. Anyone who’s bonked mid-ride can attest to the importance of consuming enough calories to keep your muscles going and avoid bonking.

Conventional wisdom says we should aim to consume 1 gram of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight per hour during rides lasting more than 90 minutes. This should come with a caveat, however. Different individuals will have different requirements. Fuelling like a pro may see this number increase, though ingesting 120 grams of carbs per hour may seem a feat of endurance in itself and requires training. Likewise, the intensity of rides will impact how we fuel them. For example, our nutritional needs during winter may cause us to reduce our hourly carb intake as we embark on base miles at a slower pace.

Energy bars for cycling can be quite subjective; therefore, when testing, we have tried to stick to the formulas of what’s in the bar to aid your fuel decisions, the bar texture, and how palatable they are without veering too far into taste and flavour unless there is a unanimous vote by the Cycling Weekly team that a particular bar doesn't sit well.

That being said, these are few and far between now, with the majority of bars I have tested being pretty good. This is especially true of our best overall, the High5 Energy Bar, which is a great choice for before and during rides. For those who aren't fans of energy bars for cycling, check out Clif Bar, our tip for those who prefer 'real food' when riding but need a little extra boost.

If you prefer something overall just easier to consume, check our guides to the best energy gels and best energy drinks.

Our pick of the best energy bars for cycling 2026

Best overall

At 55 grams the High5 energy bar is one of the larger on the market. It packs quite the calorific punch, in part due to its size. However it's important to read the ingredients for each flavor as the contrast in nutritional values can be quite marked.

For example, the banana option provides 180 calories, 36g of carbohydrate and 2.4g of protein with 2.4 g of fat while the peanut flavor offering gives you 255 calories, 25g of carbohydrate and 7.2g of protein with 13g of fat.

The former would be better used both pre and during exercise while the latter, with its increased protein, is probably best used as a post-ride recovery snack. High5 states that its energy bars are designed for 'before' and 'during' a ride - it offers a specific recovery bar as well as an energy bar with protein.

The bars are designed to be easy to chew. This is often a knock on energy bars; certain brands' bars just aren't that easy to get down during a ride. However, it's somewhat subjective, and much like finding the best cycling saddle , there's no substitute for trying them out to see what works for you.

The berry flavor bar has a nice fruity taste though, with 60 per cent fruit including a mix of sultanas, cranberries, pineapple, apricots and apples, which High5 reckons gives you one of your five a day, the balance being around a quarter oats.

Most palatable

If you've watched any cycle racing, you can't have missed NamedSport's huge orange inflatables strategically placed at the side of the road. The brand has an impressive ability to promote its wares and also sponsors many Italian races.

NamedSport isn't just about promotion though, its bars manage to mix chewy with fruity, making them an enjoyable mid-ride fuel that's easy to swallow even when riding harder. There's a range of 13 flavors, including two organic options, making for plenty of variety.

In the nut-based bars, energy comes mainly from a mix of marzipan (which is substituted by fruit puree in the fruit flavor bars) and rice crispies and NamedSports also packs a medley of vitamins into its bars, making for quite a long ingredients list. Despite this, they're vegan.

They're the smallest bar here though and that's reflected in their comparatively low calorie content of under 150kcal per bar, All that promotion makes for a high price per calorie as well.

Closest to 'real food' option

Cliff Bar is pretty ubiquitous at amateur road races and gran fondos in the US (as well as being the favorite of climbers, hikers and many more). The California based company's USP is a natural product that tastes, well, natural. The brand uses organic and whole ingredients such as rolled oats, oat fibre and dates to make its bars – so you know you're getting real food.

So it's no surprise that on review the Clif Bar looked as though it were home baked and tasted like it too. If you're a fan of 'real' food on the bike it's probably a good match for you. However this means that it does take some ingesting - we find you need a generous gulp or three of water if you're consuming while still pedalling, particularly if the weather is cold.

We'd suggest that it's a bar that's great for long rides, touring, bikepacking and similar rather than something you might want to eat during a race or during high-intensity training.

The bars are quite large: a 68g White Chocolate Macadamia Nut bar contains 266 calories, 7.5g of fat, 37g of carb and 10g of protein, giving you more than just your basic carb-focused bar. Its higher protein count makes it a suitable choice as a post-ride recovery snack too. Like the OTE bars, it takes up a lot of jersey pocket space.

Best post-ride bar

Although they're less well-known in the UK, Hammer Nutrition products are widely available stateside. There's a range of six flavors from the fruity to the nutty and chocolaty and they're all made in small batches from organic, kosher natural ingredients.

The bars weigh 50g each and are compact and easily pocketable, but despite this pack in plenty of carbs, so they're a good option if you don't want to carry too much on longer rides. They stay easily chewable when cold as well.

The all-natural ingredients give the bars a stronger taste, so you feel as if you're getting a good burst of flavor. Nut butters feature in even the fruit flavors, so you get a protein fix of up to 10g per bar, although this does also add to the fat content which heads up to 11g per bar for the Almond Raisin flavor.

Whereas it's not discernible in the fruit flavors, the chocolate chip flavor bar has quite an oily texture, although that's tempered by the included fruit pieces. Hammer recommends its bars for occasional use during longer workouts, to vary your energy input. The protein content also makes them a good post-exercise recovery snack.

Best soft bar

Perhaps the first thing you notice about the Torq bar is its size. At just 45 grams it's smaller than most of its rivals. This means that it fits nicely into your jersey pocket or handlebar bag. But it also means that it packs less of a carb punch than a larger energy bar. By the numbers the Torq bar reads: 45g in weight, which promises around 150 calories, 34g of carbs and 17g of sugars.

Torq's bars use a blend of glucose-derivatives and fructose to get close to the 2:1 glucose/fructose ratio which studies have shown offers a higher delivery of carbohydrate per hour – delivering 40 per cent greater absorption according to the brand.

We found that the Torq bars, which are now all-natural and vegetarian, have a very moist and natural taste that reminds us of the dried fruit squares we ate as kids. Around 13 per cent of the bars come from real fruit and flavors such as Apple, Sun Dried Banana and Mango provide a wholesome mouthful.

If you're looking for cold weather nutrition, the bars can get very solid and hard to chew as the temperature dips to zero.

Torq's energy bars are now both certified organic (by the Soil Association) and vegan friendly. It's also extended its range to include an 'Explore Flapjack', again in a wide range of flavors. At 65g per serving with over 40g of carbs, it could be the answer for cyclists who like the Torq brand but require more carbs per bar than the traditional offering supplies.

Torq's products form part of the brand's overall sports fuelling system. This allows you to mix bars, gels and energy drinks to consume two or three items per hour, which Torq says should ensure optimum fuelling.

Easiest to consume

At 65g, the OTE Duo bar is larger than most, but that's because is each packet is designed to be eaten as two servings. OTE has recently reformulated its bars to remove palm oil. OTE hasn't skimped on flavor, with the chocolate variety really tasting of chocolate.

Consume the whole bar and you'll have digested 286 kcalories, 41g of carbohydrate, 7.5g of protein and 10g of fat (for the chocolate flavor). At over £40 for a box of 24, the added content is reflected in the cost, but you are getting more calories for your buck, which is as well, as the bars' size soon fills up a pocket.

The bar is offered in just two flavors: Vanilla Crispy Rice and Chocolate Crispy Rice. As you'll no doubt have guessed, the primary ingredient here is rice crisps. The idea is that the bar resembles, in some way, the rice cakes that are used by pretty much every team in the professional peloton. These cakes are popular for a number of reasons, including the high carb content as well as being pretty palatable and easy to digest mid-race.

We're also big fans of OTE's oat-based Anytime bars - these are designed for snacking but work well on the bike, being gluten and nut-free, suitable for vegetarians and very crumbly and easy to swallow. Each 62g bar provides 213 calories, 36.6g of carbs and 2.8g of protein. The latest lemon drizzle option brings the range of available flavors up to 11.

How we test the best energy bars for cycling

Anyone who spends time around cyclists knows we can all eat a lot. While excessive eating isn't ideal, proper fuelling on the bike can make a significant difference. The team here at Cycling Weekly is always eager to try new snacks and fuelling strategies that can enhance performance, make our lives easier, or simply because they are tasty.

Evaluating food and drink supplements can be challenging, as preferences for flavour or taste often dominate; while these factors matter, energy bars for cycling can be highly subjective. Therefore, during our taste testing, we analyze the composition of each bar and its potential to fuel you effectively. We focus on when during your session or ride to consume the bars and how easy they are to eat on the go.

Visit our How We Test page for more information on how we rate and test products and about our team of expert testers.

How to choose the right bars for you

Without getting into depth on fueling strategy or what works for you (which can all be found in our guide to Nutrition for cycling), choosing the right bar for you comes down to the texture you find palatable, what fits your fueling strategy, and, of course, flavour.

Most of the bars in this guide range from 25g of Carbs to just over 40g, so choosing which can have big consequences on your intake. Especially when they range from 35g to nearly 70g, which isn't always consistent with more overall grams, means more carbs, as you need to factor in what else is in the bar. This can be sugars, of course, which again isn't for everyone on a long ride, espically if supplementing with the best energy gels, for example.

For some, simply being palatable and flavoursome can make a big difference in how well they fuel. If it tastes good and you can consume it easily, you're more likely to fuel well and keep energy up.

Before getting too deep into fueling, it's worth consulting a coach or sports nutritionist to get the basics right.

Frequently asked questions about energy bars for cycling

“You take this application device,” says Graeme Obree to the BBC Panorama reporter, waving a cutlery knife in the air, “scoop the jam onto the sandwich and spread it in an even manner like so” – and with that his fuelling ‘secret’ is revealed. In characteristic deadpan style, the Scotsman is making the point that carbohydrate is carbohydrate and serves the same function in whatever form, simple sarnie or supposedly advanced drink formula. For Obree, putting a diagonal slice through two slices of bread is as cutting-edge as any cyclist’s nutrition needs to be. “He doesn’t use sports drinks,” booms the voiceover. “His energy-booster is nothing more sophisticated than a jam sandwich and plain, old-fashioned water.” 

That BBC documentary, providing a highly sceptical take on sports drinks, was broadcast nearly a decade ago, but it always sticks in my mind when the topic of fuelling comes up. Not because there was anything revolutionary in Obree’s dismissal of fancy carb products, but because of the paradox it so neatly encapsulates. Yes, the carbohydrates in a £1 jar of jam are basically the same, in terms of their nutritional value, as those in a £10 pack of sports drink – and that’s a valuable truth for any leisure cyclist seeking to save money while training for long rides. But at the same time, it’s an oversimplification and potentially misleading for serious racers who want to optimise their fuelling for high performance. 

As a recreational rider and has-been distance runner, I’m in the former camp: I don’t need to invest time, expertise or money on perfecting my fuelling, as it wouldn’t make any meaningful difference to my low-stakes, short-duration racing. Counting carbs or calories would be overkill for me, and a pre-race jam sandwich will do. But what about for an ambitious, improving rider who wants to be the very best they can be in multi-hour, even multi-day races? How important is it for an athlete in this altogether higher-stakes position to take a scientific approach to their fuelling? It was time to take this question to a specialist team of scientists for whom pro-cyclist fuelling research is their bread and butter – if not their bread and jam.

McQueen’s pro coronation

Our elite cyclist guinea pig – and a regular presence in these pages – is Callum McQueen. Getting his fuelling spot-on is critical for 21-year-old Callum because he is aspiring to take his cycling all the way to the top level – and he’s on track, having just signed his first professional contract with Continental outfit Yoeleo Test Team p/b 4Mind. We sent him to Liverpool John Moores University to be assessed by professor James Morton, who heads up research for nutrition brand SiS and was lead nutritionist at Team Sky between 2015 and 2019. When it comes to designing fuelling strategies for toplevel cyclists, Morton’s track record speaks for itself.

Callum was to be put through the same testing protocol Morton uses to assess WorldTour riders preparing for a Grand Tour. The technical term is “substrate utilisation” – working out exactly how an individual rider turns fuel (primarily fat and carbohydrate) into pedalling energy. This information can then be used to calculate precisely how the rider should fuel during races but also, just as importantly, during training to enhance physiological adaptations. The aim for a high-performance cyclist is to make their body as efficient as possible at using the fuel available to it. To use a motoring analogy, the goal is maximum miles to the gallon without compromising topend performance.

On arrival at the lab, the first step for Callum was to get measured: height, weight and body composition. Within minutes the results were in: 185cm (6ft 1in), 66.3kg (10st 6lb) and 12.5% body fat. As you would expect of a full-time rider training 20-plus hours per week, Callum is skinny enough to cause his mother sleepless nights. But what does prof Morton think from a scientific perspective – what is optimum for an elite cyclist? “If you want to be a climber, it’s all about power-to-weight, and at the highest level, one to three kilos can make a huge difference in terms of climbing performance,” he says. “I’ve seen riders who, having been not at all competitive at 70kg, dropped to 67kg and were suddenly very, very competitive.”

The next step for Callum was to lie inside a sealed bubble known as a calorimeter to measure how many calories his body was using at rest, his resting metabolic rate (RMR). This produced a figure of 1,744kcal – that’s the amount he would have to consume each day to stay at the same weight if he did no activity at all. But Callum burns thousands of calories in training every week, so what is the relevance of RMR? “Firstly, it’s very useful for weight management,” says Morton, “because you should never consume less than your RMR. Secondly, assessing your RMR is a good indicator of relative energy deficiency. If your measured RMR is significantly different from your predicted rate, it shows that your metabolism is slowing down.” 

Estimated RMR is calculated using an algorithm, based on height, weight and age – to find yours, simply google “RMR calculator”. In Callum’s case, his estimated RMR matched the measured figure almost exactly, confirming that he had been fuelling adequately and was not in a state of energy deficiency. So far, so good, but let’s imagine Callum wanted to lose a kilo or two, how would knowing his RMR help him? “By recording his energy expenditure on the bike, he could add this figure to his RMR,” explains Morton. “He would also need to allow another 10% of his calorie intake for the thermic effect of food – the energy cost of digestion – and then he would know his total daily energy expenditure. To lose weight, you need to be consuming less than you’re expending.” 

Hang on, though. What is a safe calorie deficit for a high-volume cyclist, given the risk of relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S)? “There are no golden rules here,” says Morton. “Every athlete is different. I’ve seen WorldTour cyclists accrue calorie deficits of 1,500-2,000kcal per day – but of course you can’t do that for a long period of time.” For amateur riders without nutritionists guiding them, Morton suggests a maximum daily deficit of 500kcal. “You can be a little more aggressive at times and go up to 1,000kcal – but the trick is that you don’t do the same every day.” 

There is an important caveat to add here. The type of weight loss Morton is outlining is not geared towards health; it is solely about maximising power to weight ratio – and it is not sustainable all year round. “Most of the top guys stay at their optimal race weight for two races a season only,” clarifies Morton. “Seven to 10 days after the Tour de France, they’ll be two to three kilos heavier again. I think that is the best way to do it.” Fat vs carbs No more lying around; it was time for Callum to begin the pedalling part of the testing. He was set to work on an incremental ramp test while hooked up to equipment precisely measuring his energy usage – not just calories but also the fat and carbs being burnt. This showed that while spinning at 125W Callum was using 9.3kcal per minute, from an almost 50/50 split of carbs and fat, whereas while pushing hard at 300W he was using 22.8kcal per minute, 100% from carbohydrate. It’s fascinating data, but again I wanted to drill down into its practical usefulness. How would these figures really help, for example with weight loss? 

“If you’re trying to lose weight, you’re usually trying to lose body fat,” says Morton, “so you want to be oxidising fat as a fuel, but you also need to be in an energy deficit.” While you could ride at a low intensity for maximal fat-burning, this would mean burning energy much more slowly, making it harder to accrue a deficit. It’s generally best for weight loss, therefore, to ride at a moderate intensity, burning some fat while keeping the rate of overall energy expenditure reasonably high. The point at which the body switches over from using a mix of carbs and fat to solely carbs corresponds to the lactate threshold. At this level of intensity, breaking down fat is too slow a process and cannot keep up with the energy demand; fast-burning carbs are the only option. For Callum this occurs at around 250W; the fat tap is closed and the carb burners fully opened. This is a key benchmark for Morton because the higher the lactate threshold, the more carbs are conserved. “To improve his performance, Callum needs to shift his fat-oxidation curve,” says the scientist, “so that he is burning more fat at higher intensities. At 250W he’s burning 100% carbohydrate. In a WorldTour cyclist, that switch over to carbohydrate happens at a much, much higher power.” Morton provides an arguably unfair point of comparison: Chris Froome in his Tour-winning heyday, whose lactate threshold was an eye-popping 430W.

Making the most of fat stores

The tests showed that, at his more relatable lactate threshold of 250W, Callum was burning three grams of carbohydrate per minute – that’s 180g per hour – which means he is rapidly emptying the tank. A rider of Callum’s body mass is able to store around 500g of carbohydrate (2,000kcal of energy), so at this intensity he would run out after less than three hours’ riding. His fat stores, on the other hand, are practically infinite: his 8.3kg of body fat is enough to provide 65,000kcal of energy – but that’s of no use at 250W because, as we know, he’s burning solely carbs. He has two options: slow down and switch to fat-burning or replace carbs by eating and drinking on the bike.

In the latter case, studies have shown that athletes can absorb up to 120g of carbs per hour from fuelling on the bike. Morton’s favourite example of this maximal intake in action is Chris Froome’s 80km solo break to win Stage 19 of the 2018 Giro D’Italia. “If he had not fuelled during the ride with 90-100g [carbohydrate per hour] – the most he’d ever fuelled on the bike in his career – he would have emptied the tank after three and a half to four hours,” Morton proudly recalls the masterplan. “He could not have ridden like that if he hadn’t fuelled so aggressively.”

Let’s assume Callum is able to replace almost as much as Froome, 80g per hour, while sustaining his 250W effort; this still leaves him with a sizeable shortfall of 100g per hour. In a long, hard race he may still run out of carbs despite his best efforts to eat and drink plentiful amounts. Hence Morton’s insistence on raising the lactate threshold – training the body to burn fat and preserve carbs even at relatively high power outputs. The question is, how?

Raising the bar

“You can target either intensity or volume to improve the threshold,” says Morton. “An endurance athlete without doubt needs high volume.” When I point out that Callum is already doing 20 hours per week, Morton is unimpressed. “A good WorldTour cyclist is doing 30 hours a week,” he shrugs. Which specific sessions best target the lactate threshold? “It’s about the balance of sessions,” says Morton. “You need to apply the stress to signal to the muscle to create more mitochondria. The reality is, you can do this multiple ways; a six-hour low-intensity ride could send the same signal as a two-hour higher-intensity ride.” 

It’s not only training intensity that matters but also the amount of fuel available to the body. “Callum would probably benefit from doing a lot of carbohydrate periodisation,” says Morton. “I haven’t seen his training log but from the test data he looks like someone who fuels his rides consistently.” The goal of carbohydrate periodisation is to stimulate adaptations by varying the fuel reserves available – deliberately riding in a depleted state on selected rides while fully fuelling other sessions. There are several ways to do this (see box), but with a core guiding principle.

“You need to keep the muscle guessing throughout the year,” explains Morton, “by alternating between sessions that target fat oxidation, teaching the muscle how to use fat as a fuel, and sessions where you’re fuelled and teaching the muscle how to use carbohydrate as a fuel.” At this point Morton draws on another motoring analogy. “Think of it like a six-gear car: if you’re doing low-carb rides all the time, you’ll be very good in gears one to three, but as soon as you need to ride fast and go hard, you won’t know how to use gears four, five and six.”

As we have seen, fuelling at the top level has come a long way since settling for a jam sandwich and hoping for the best. If, like Callum, you want to squeeze out every drop of your potential over long-duration races, then approaching your fuelling with scientific precision has proven value. It will allow you to train your gut for maximal on-bike intake and stimulate adaptations in your body to make it frugal in its use of precious carbs while fully exploiting plentiful fat stores. It’s a fastidious approach requiring monk-like devotion, accuracy and caution – probably a step too far for most amateurs – but if you want to perform like a pro, you need to fuel like one too.

This article was originally published in the 27 January 2022 print edition of Cycling Weekly. Subscribe online and get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week.

“If it flares up and my stomach disagrees with what I’ve put inside it, I know I’m ruined,” says Mel Sykes. “For seven years, if I’d eaten something I shouldn’t have on a Thursday, I wouldn’t be able to ride on the Saturday because I would be so bloated that I wouldn’t be able to get any fuel in me for the ride. Until two years ago, I couldn’t ride for more than two hours because I couldn’t find any food that would sustain me.”

Sykes, 38, is a committed amateur club cyclist and won’t let digestive issues hold her back. The Yorkshirewoman rides 6,000 miles a year and competes in ultra-marathon and Ironman races too. The symptoms she describes above are the effect of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a chronic intestinal condition that disturbs the functioning of the digestive system. Conservative estimates suggest 10% of the British population have IBS, and some reports put the prevalence as high as one in five.

In spite of its high prevalence within society and its impact on sufferers, IBS is a topic that few ever speak about, partly owing to embarrassment around the unpleasant symptoms, which include bloating, diarrhoea and constipation. We know that many cyclists are affected, so it’s incumbent on us all to gain awareness and be sensitive to fellow riders who may seem to have inconvenient dietary and/or toilet habits.

“We have to break the poo taboo – it’s really important we do,” says Julie Thompson of the charity Guts UK. “Half of people will wait six months before going to a doctor about these issues, but if the underlying cause is a serious condition like cancer, that can make the difference between curative treatment and not.”

Difficult to diagnose 

Many gut issues, including ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, coeliac disease and pancreatitis, cause similar symptoms, making them challenging to diagnose. These conditions can affect anyone and may appear unexpectedly at any time and at any age. Though there is no cure, for many there are effective treatments. In addition to the aforementioned diarrhoea, constipation and bloating, IBS often also causes stomach pain and flatulence. An episode of IBS can last for up to three days, and is triggered when the colon becomes hypersensitive, causing the bowel muscles to spasm.

Manageable for most, IBS manifests differently in each individual, but most go through an arduous, lengthy process to figure out how to live with it. Sykes went on a seven-year journey, chronicling her dietary intake in a food-by-food process of elimination. “I have a very boring diet: white rice, white bread and potatoes; veg only if it’s boiled to within an inch of its life, thus removing all fibre,” she reveals. “What most consider a healthy diet is crippling for me. I can’t eat any gels or bars, so my mid-ride snack is part-boiled white rice or eggs.”

There are three types of IBS: diarrhoea, constipation, or a mixture of both. Sykes falls into the latter category. “My problem can be not going to the toilet at all or going too much. It depends on what I have eaten. If I have a meal with raw onion skin on it, or something else that the body has to fight to digest, it clogs me up and I might go three days without going to the toilet. If something kicks it off, it can be two weeks before it properly settles down.”

Sykes is not the only cyclist to have endured a torrid time with IBS. London-based Jasper Cole (not his real name) was mystified by the symptoms he began experiencing. Experts have theorised that IBS may be hereditary, genetic, or the result of food poisoning or gastritis – but cannot be sure. “One of my first episodes was walking from Oxford Circus to the Rapha Club House in London to have a few beers and watch a race, and I didn’t make it because I had to urgently find a bathroom,” 34-year-old Cole remembers.

On a day-to-day basis, sufferers are almost always thinking about the behaviour of their stomach. Kirsten Jackson is an IBS sufferer and dietician who runs the popular the.ibsdietitian Instagram account. She says: “It’s not considered a serious condition because you can’t die from it, so it gets downplayed. But it impacts people from the moment they get up to going to bed. They’ll skip meals ahead of a work meeting in case they have a loss of control; they’re stressed about going on a plane in case they can’t use a toilet when they need to; on a personal level, it’s a barrier to building intimate relationships for fear of embarrassment.” Its effect on cyclists is profound, too. “Initially, it really hit my cycling and my confidence,” Cole adds. “For two months I didn’t cycle outside because I was worried it would flare up while riding, and I was always having to think about the nearest loo. I was embarrassed about it: I didn’t want to bother anyone by stopping the ride to go to the toilet.”

Cole sought help from Harley Street clinics to help diagnose the issue, and now manages the condition by taking two tablets in the morning and two in the evening, but is still adversely affected from time to time. He explained to me how he has to avoid some on-the-bike fuelling products, and now sticks to bananas during events, though medication allows him to follow a generally normal diet.

Experimentation is key: Sykes’s food logs now clearly indicate what her body can tolerate, while Cole used long indoor Zwift sessions during lockdown to successfully reintroduce caffeine into his diet and try different energy bars, adding: “I knew that if it went wrong, there was a toilet a few steps from me. Now I know the Veloforte gels work for me.”

IBS is not entirely unlike the regular digestive disturbances we all experience from time to time, in the sense that these two riders’ troubles provide us with an important reminder: it’s well worth trialling different foods and products prior to your target event to find out what works best for you and to guard against adverse digestive effects.

Eliminating FODMAPs

Speak with anyone who has IBS and they will bring up the importance of restricting or eliminating FODMAPs, which stands for fermentable oligo-, di-, mono-saccharides and polyols. These are short-chain carbohydrates that are harder to digest and disrupt the digestive system in sensitive individuals. Common FODMAPs foods are fruit, dairy products and wheat and barley. Jackson adds: “An athlete [with IBS] really needs to work with a dietician to establish what is best for them. The main thing is to avoid FODMAPs or reduce them. The idea that having a healthy diet is a sufficient way to manage it is condescending. It’s more complicated and nuanced, but with the right plan, based on the person’s lifestyle, having IBS and still being a good athlete is definitely manageable.”

The good news is that pushing the pedals generally has a positive effect on the stomach. “Cycling can help alleviate problems, 100%,” says Jackson. “We know that exercise is good for the gut: exercising outside is good for gut bacteria and the microbiome; the Vitamin D we get from being outside is linked to gut health, and the social impact is as well.” Also positive is that so-called ‘runner’s diarrhoea’, where the act of running upsets the gut leading to toilet emergencies, rarely affects cyclists. Jackson explains: “If someone has a sensitive gut, the hormonal changes that redirect blood from the gut to the muscle during exercise can upset the digestive system. But cycling rarely has this effect.”

Sykes and Cole agree that cycling has remained a positive part of their lives; for Sykes, it’s motivated her not to give in to the lifelong condition. “If I didn’t have my hobbies and my bike, there’d be nothing to keep me going,” she says. “The only reason I stick to the diet I stick to is because when it gets to the weekend, I want to be able to get out on the bike and have a pleasant experience. If I wasn’t bothered about riding on Saturday, maybe I’d have a Friday night burger and chips – then I’d be ruined for four days!”

Cole has learned to control his social anxiety around the condition. “At the end of the day, no one minds having a pit stop in a petrol station if I need the loo,” he adds. “At first, I was hesitant to go out on an outside ride solo, let alone with friends, but I always feel better after a ride.” In this sense, openness, understanding and patience can make a transformative difference, as they did for Cole. “I had to change my mindset and realise I wasn’t bothering anyone,” he adds. “We [who have IBS] are self-conscious about it, but it’s not our fault, and actually more people have stomach problems than we realise. Riding in the fresh air, socialising... it’s far better than being inside. There’s a way around it.”

Real guts racing: ‘My team will show that IBD needn’t be a barrier’

“There are a few who are very open, promoting awareness and are ‘out’ about it. The rest are silent,” says Scottish road and track rider Nico Anelli. “I want to show that there are cyclists with the answers and show that there is a positive outcome.”

Twenty-three-year-old Anelli, a marketing student from Dundee, was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), in 2017. The condition causes inflammation and ulcers in the digestive tract. It affects about one in 500 people – including 2019 Tour of Flanders winner Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-Nippo) who was diagnosed last winter.

Determined to keep racing despite the condition leading to inconsistent results, Anelli decided to create Real Guts Racing, a team that aims to spread awareness of IBD. It’s currently a one-man outfit but Anelli is soon to make an attempt on a prominent cycling record, which he hopes will propel the team into the spotlight. He also has plans to bring in non-attached riders to form part of a composite team under the Real Guts Racing banner in stage races. He is using Zwift to increase his team’s presence and its associated message.

“I want to show that there are answers and it is possible,” he continues. “It seems to be widely assumed that cycling and IBD are not compatible because of fuelling and recovery concerns, but I’m showing that that’s not the case. With Real Guts Racing, I aim to change the narrative.”

How you can help riders with IBS

If you’re riding in a group of 10, the chances are that at least one of them has IBS. There are a few small but meaningful things non-sufferers can do to help these riders 

■ To ease any self-consciousness, announce at the start of the ride that toilet breaks are not a hindrance and that the group will stop and wait whenever it’s necessary to do so.

■ Don’t take offence or show surprise if the bar or gel you offer is declined; even better, show your awareness that it may be unsuitable for them. 

■ At races and events, organisers should provide gluten-free and allergenic food. Do not belittle specific dietary needs – they are not mere fussiness. 

■ Anxiety and stress can provoke a negative reaction in the gut. If you can encourage and support a rider with IBS, it may help them physically as well as psychologically.

■ Never interrogate or criticise someone else’s diet – you’ll likely do more harm than good. They themselves know best how to manage their condition. 

For further help and support, visit Guts UK: https://gutscharity.org.uk/

This feature originally appeared in the print edition of Cycling Weekly, on sale in newsagents and supermarkets, priced £3.25.

One thing is certain, carbohydrates are the unchallenged king of fuels for hard, prolonged efforts. If you want to achieve your full potential, you need to be fully fuelled when you reach the start line - and that requires effective carb-loading.

The key point to bear in mind is that the body is able to store only enough glycogen (carbohydrate in its stored form) for around 90 minutes of hard cycling (above 60 per cent of your aerobic max) - or around two hours for lean, light, super-efficient elite athletes. If your target is a sportive that will take several hours to complete, you’ll almost certainly benefit from making sure your carb stores are filled to the max before you take to the start line.

This isn’t, alas, a green light to panic-buy doughnuts or time trial to the chip shop. Essentially, carb-loading means eating healthily and sensibly, but with a higher proportion of carbs than usual. Frenzied, uncalculated binging on high-sugar foods will not reap the results you wish for. 

How to carb-load intelligently and effectively for your cycling event

In the early days of carb-loading, it was believed that an initial depletion phase was required - a few days of minimal carb intake (and, unavoidably, low energy) - followed consuming plentiful carbs in the couple of days before the target event. More recent research has shown that there is no need to put yourself through such an austere or lengthy rigmarole.

“We now know that, with a normal training taper and increased carb intake to around 10g/kg/day, an athlete is able to carb-load in as little as 36-48 hours pre-race,” explains Trent Stellingwerff, a physiologist at the Canadian Sport Institute.

Ten grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight may seem like a gut-busting amount, but as Stellingwerff points out, “Many elite athletes routinely consume 8g/kg/day, so the increase is not dramatic.”

Bear in mind, some of these additional carbs can be consumed in liquid form - fruit juices, smoothies, sweetened tea, etc; there’s no need to chomp through bowl after bowl of porridge, rice and pasta. Following this carb-rich diet for two to three days prior to the event should not leave you feeling bloated or uncomfortable - but it’s worth experimenting with different high-carb foods to find out which work best for you.

What does this level of carb consumption look like in terms of actual food and drink during the ‘load’? A 70kg cyclist would require 600-700g carbs each day, and a sample day’s diet could look like this:

• Breakfast: A large bowl of porridge (60g carbs), large banana (25g), and glass of orange juice (25g)
• Mid-morning snack: Two teacakes with jam (45g) and a sports drink (40g)
• Lunch: Two sandwiches (four slices of bread) with filling of your choice (50g), frosted cinnamon bun (35g), can of lemonade (25g) 
• Afternoon snack: Banana smoothie (20g) and a cereal bar (30g) as an afternoon snack
• Dinner: A large bowl of pasta with sauce (80g), three slices of garlic bread (50g) with two glasses of cordial (35g)
• Evening snack: Two English muffins, toasted, with jam (70g), and a 500ml sports drink (40g)
• Total: 630g (equivalent to 9g/kg/day).

You might think you eat plenty of carbs in your normal diet, so what’s the point? How great are the performance gains you stand to make from effective carb-loading?

“A thorough review conducted in 1997 found that carb-loading does not aid performance in short events, but over prolonged efforts of at least 75 minutes performance may be improved by two to three per cent,” says Stellingwerff.

That’s equivalent to gaining around one to two minutes for every hour of effort - potentially very significant over the course of an entire sportive.

Carb-loading for general training rides and shorter races is worse than pointless, cautions Stellingwerff. “For every gram of carbohydrate stored in the body, three grams of water are stored with it, so unless the race intensity and distance genuinely require the extra fuel from carb-loading, it’ll result in you carrying a surplus, acting like ballast, only slowing you down.”

Routinely eating a very high-carb diet would likely lead to overconsumption of calories, leading to weight gain and possibly even poor insulin sensitivity. It is now believed advisable to periodise your carb intake, doing some rides in a carb-depleted state. This has been shown to increase the density of energy-creating mitochondria, thereby increasing fuel-burning efficiency - and ultimately racing performance. Carb-loading is best reserved for long, hard events, where it will pay dividends.

Do cyclists really need to carb-load before a big ride?

We spoke to Dr Nick Tiller who is a cyclist, runner and lecturer in Sports Science (Applied Physiology) at Sheffield Hallam University.

How long would it take you to eat half a cow? No, we don’t know either. But if you wanted to get a 20g dose of creatine from a natural food source, that’s what you would need to do.

“We ordinarily get 2g of creatine a day,” explains Luc Van Loon, a professor of physiology and nutrition at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, “a gram through a normal diet and a gram that we produce naturally, But with creatine supplements, you’re loading 20g a day. To get that in a normal diet, you’d have to eat half a cow. We can’t sustain that in a normal, nutritious diet.”

Creatine is one of the most popular sports supplements worldwide - a market worth more than £40bn and which continues to grow. Supplements crop up all the time when chatting to cyclists. It’s quite hard to define exactly what a sports supplement is, but the vast majority of them – whether in bar, drink, tablet or powder form – claim to benefit an athlete’s performance in a ‘natural’, legal manner.

But eating half a cow’s worth of creatine in a single dose – for example – doesn’t strike me as very natural. Are supplements really in keeping with the spirit of the World Anti-Doping Code or the unwritten sporting code between competitors? Besides, do supplements really make a difference anyway?

We decided to investigate further by conducting an online poll of Cycling Weekly readers, asking about their use of supplements. The results revealed a split, broadly speaking, between two contrasting camps – those who take lots of supplements and those take none at all. It appears to be something of a ‘Marmite’ debate.

Eighty-two percent of the 220 people surveyed take at least one supplement each week – predominantly protein/energy products and vitamins. Of those who took none, most believed that supplements didn’t work or that a normal diet was sufficient and covered all their nutritional needs.

You can read the full article on supplements in the January 21 issue of Cycling Weekly magazine. If you're avoiding going out to the shops you can subscribe and get 12 issues for £24.99. You can also order single issues to be delivered direct to you.