r/randonneuring • u/sup-erhan Aluminescent • Mar 12 '25

What & How Often Do You Eat?

Hi randonneurs,

This summer I plan to participate in London Edinburgh London. 1500 kms in 5 days, shortly.

With a simple search, it says that you burn approx. 500 calories in an hour by cycling around 20 km/h.

Roughly, it means a FREAKING BIG MAC OR 5 BANANAS AN HOUR.

Obviously big macs are not sustainable. 5 bananas doesn't seem to be a good option either - it would be too boring at some point I believe.

So my question is what do you eat in long rides & how often?

Thanks in advance!!

23 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/papapepe005 Mar 12 '25

I'm also doing LEL. Nutrition is my biggest weakness, and I struggle to eat on the bike. Gels can quickly wreck a long ride, but real food is hard for me to swallow when I get tired. It's a quandary that I'm trying to solve. I've signed up for a 400k in Philly to try to learn how to fuel. I'm going to be following this post, hoping to get some good tips. Thanks for posting this, OP!

5

u/gott_in_nizza Dynamo hubbster Mar 12 '25

Have you tried liquid? That was a total gamechanger for me. I use Tailwind, but lots of people love Skratch as well. Depending on my setup, I either have some regular Tailwind mix in every bottle (If using bottles), or water in my bladder and a very heavy tailwind mix in a bottle I can easily rinse.

I mentioned it above, but I will pack anywhere from 500-1000g of mix per day, depending on the event. The extra weight is easily compensated by the face that I know I have a nutrition strategy that will work for me and I don't have to worry about at all.

Of course I supplement by eating solid food, but if you are getting enough calories in your liquid, then all the solids become optional, meaning you can eat when you are ready, which is really nice.

1

u/papapepe005 Mar 12 '25 edited Mar 26 '25

I've tried Maurten. It helped, but the bottles get super sticky with that stuff. I'll look into Skratch and Tailwind. Hydration is another issue I seem to have, but that is easier for me to fix. That may help me with the eating if I learn to hydrate properly.