Gam Jams Reviews: On the Bike Nutrition - Assorted

On-the-bike nutrition is a tough call. It's a very personal thing, and even with one person your tastes change over time, or even over the duration of a ride. I've found a handful of things that are just plain money though, and I'd like to share them with you. Maybe you try them and they work like they do for me, maybe not. I'll just throw the ideas out there for you to think about. I'm including several because there's no one mystery product - most people probably need a few different products in combination, particularly if they ride longer than two hours. Yeah, you may love Gu. But tell me how you like that stuff after 10 hours of popping one every 15 minutes. So here's the menu that rolls in my jersey pockets.

Drinks
I'm an Accellerade person for the most part, but rarely bring it for rides lasting up to 90 minutes. For rides up to 3-4 hours, it's money. There's a lot of protein in Accellerade, and I'm a protein-fueled carnivore, so it works fine for me. Them who like it loves it; them what don't hates it. The downside is that it gets fizzy and almost fermented tasting in really hot weather. And the protein bits goop up water bottles severely. It definitely powers me better than the straight carbo drinks, however, so the hassle is worth it. But if the ride is going for over 3 hours, out to 12... Hammer drinks are the only way to go. Heed is adequate to really good in the situations where I'd use Accellerade. For long long rides, Perpetuum is the schizzle. The weird thing about Hammer drinks is that they are almost sickly sweet tasting - not high powered white sugar sweet, but this almost syrupy sweetness. I can barely drink the stuff pre-ride, or early in a short ride. It's awful! But the longer the ride goes, the more desparately beaten my body feels, the easier it goes down. When I'm really hurting, I can guzzle gallons of the stuff without getting The Bloat. Unlike boutique flavored stuff like cinammon apple gels, Hammer products seem to be what your body craves, rather than what your palate craves. Ultimately, your screaming leg muscles shout way louder than your tongue and will win the argument over what to drink. I find I can only drink the sweeter, carby-er drinks in cold weather.

Rolling Food
Clif bars are sort of the standard go-to option here, and if the ride is a couple or three hours I may eat two of them. They have around 230 calories, and if you wash one down over an hour with a bottle of sports drink, you'll be at around 400 calories, which is pretty close to what most people's stomachs can digest in the space of an hour. The downside with Clif bars is that even the best tasting ones (e.g. Blueberry Crisp) still have a grainy texture that is hard to chew when you're hurting or breathing hard, and the texture is like they mixed the hulls of soybeans into it, which is really rough on the stomach after a few hours. Let's just say that they help clear the, um, pipes. I've been experimenting with other stuff and have stumbled into Odwalla bars and Luna bars. Both are wicked yummy, soft (hence easily chewed and gulped when you're hurting) and both come with either bits of tasty fruit and nuts, or nice yogurt glazes. Unlike Clif bars, which take a gulp of water to wash down, these go down without having to do the chew-drink-chew-drink routine. And they seem easy on the stomach. Which is nice. I used to think that you should try to really balance what you were eating but now I'm starting to think that for most rides it's more important to just get a mix of complex carbs and some protein in, and the more important thing is finding something you can eat, and which will go down and rest comfortably in your gut.

Break Food
For really long rides I'll eat just about anything. Seriously - whatever you can eat after 7-8 hours on the bike must be damn good stuff, because I get sick of everything else. Two foods are really key to my refueling on long rides - turkey sandwiches and dry roasted, full-salt peanuts. The peanuts have a ton of healthy fats, which are slow burning. They also replenish sodium which, if you're a sweathog like me, drips off you in great big chunks. When you're a bit short on salts, your body will crave them, and though it sounds like it would be hard to eat peanuts on a break or while rolling, they actually go down real easily. As for the turkey sandwiches - a nice turkey sandwich with swiss or provolone on a roll or some nice bread, maybe with a couple thick slices of tomato and some salt and pepper just tastes awesome to me. You'll notice it has a big whack of protein and fat - the slow burning stuff - and a fair bit of carbs. The lycopene in the tomato is supposed to do something good for you - I don't know what it is but I suspect it refuels your inner Italian. Italians eat tomatoes, and they ride well, so we all should eat tomatoes, right? I've also refueled successfully with a big greasy salty cheeseburger and berry pie. Like I said, whatever goes down easy. The turkey sandwich is what I'm talking about when I say it's individual. I don't get tired of eating them mid-race or on a randonee or charity century, and at an event like Baker's dozen, they fueled me pretty nicely. They weren't enough by themselves, but they formed the backbone of a decent nutritional strategy. (It wasn't nutrition that did me in at Baker's...) Other surprisingly nice break foods include chilled melon, and dill pickles. I had some pickles at Baker's and everybody who tried one reported a quick pickup afterwards. It's funny. Pre-Gatorade, coaches used to make athletes working out in hot weather drink pickle juice. Maybe those old boys knew a thing or two. Plus an ice cold dill on a hot day scratches the cool stuff itch at the same time it meets the sodium need.

Bailout Foods
Emergency foods are something we all need from time to time. About every two or three months, I'll have a ride where I get into a bit of trouble. When that happens, I need fuel fast. The bonk is rapidly approaching, and things will go bad if I don't get it together quickly. If it's not in your pockets, help is available at the nearest convenience store, thankfully. Good bike-friendly bailout foods include Gu or better yet Hammer Gel, of course. Like Bounty paper towels, they're the quicker picker upper.

If you have to hit the Sheetz, a nice fat muffin may help. A 16 ounce bottle of milk is an awesome bailout drink too - tons of calories, fast absorbtion because it's liquid, and a bit of fat so you feel good for quite a while and there's no blood sugar rush with its commensurate crash.

But the ultimate bailout food is a 16 or 20 ounce Coke, full sugar, full caffeine. I've found that if the reaper is approaching and I'm teetering on the edge of the abyss, milk and Hammer gel are willing to extend a helping hand to help me walk back from the edge but Hi-Test Coke swoops in, picks me up, and puts me right back on the road. The only downside to the Coke is it comes with a blood sugar rush and crash. A Coke buys you maybe 40 minutes or an hour to get your nutritional act together. If it's going to take a while to get home, you'd best eat something substantial after you down the Coke, or with it; otherwise the bonk will be back with vengeance.

The Main Thing
The main thing about on-the-bike nutrition though, is to do as LeMond says, eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty. In other words, don't get in a hole. Comrade Scott Gibbons reminded me of this earlier in the year; he said he'd had a bad 12 hour race last year because "once you get in a hole nutritionally, you just can't dig yourself out." Find some stuff you can eat and drink and not get sick or bloated on, then down 400 calories of it per hour with 16-24 ounces of fluid, right? That'll do the trick, even if it's Milk Bonez and near beer.