Do you find it difficult to eat or drink on the go? Here are some tips to ensure you don't run out of fuel

Nutrition and hydration are often the main limiting factors for the performance of cyclists, much more so than their fitness level. This aspect of cycling routes is particularly relevant when facing a ride with distances, difficulty, and hours on the bike that are not usually common, and which end up manifesting as fatigue, weakness, or the dreaded bonk.

Performance on the bike depends on eating and drinking well. Learn the best way to do it

As we have explained on multiple occasions, nutrition is becoming the main pillar, after training itself, of a cyclist's performance at a professional level. An aspect that teams meticulously care for to the point of measuring every calorie their cyclists consume and every glass of water they drink to provide just the right amount of nutrients, neither more nor less, both in daily life and in competition and training.

With all due respect, nutrition and hydration also have a tremendously important effect on the capabilities of cyclists during their rides or when they decide to tackle one of the events on the calendar. However, let’s be realistic: how many times do you go out to ride 100 km with just a bottle, only filled with water, which often comes back half full? How many of you use bars or gels during your training or eat something other than coffee and toast during the breakfast stop halfway through the route?

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The reality is that very few cyclists pay the slightest attention to such a relevant aspect as nutrition on the road, something essential for being able to perform the same from start to finish of the ride, especially the longer the route is. After all, safeguarding glycogen stores is one of the foundations that allows the cyclist to have fuel for those moments when the struggle begins, and even if it’s on a Sunday ride with our club, we all like to be at the front.

There are many reasons why the average cyclist does not pay enough attention to eating and drinking. The main one is laziness and not giving it too much importance because "after all, I'm just going out for a short, easy ride" (spoiler: they are probably the ones who race against their shadow on every hill). However, we also find other aspects such as the difficulty many have in eating on the go or the intolerance to ingesting and assimilating anything during intense effort.

Although it may seem strange, many cyclists do not have the technical skill on the bike to do something as seemingly simple as grabbing the bottle, drinking, and putting it back down. Especially if we are riding in a group or worse, if we are navigating a tricky path with our MTB or gravel bike. As we have also told you many times, technique is another one of those great forgotten skills that almost no one practices, yet everyone should have at least a minimum of.

When we pedal alone and on relatively controlled terrain, it is the time to practice how to grab and put down the bottle without losing sight of the road, practicing how to handle curves with one hand. Also, being able to take a bar out of the jersey, letting go of both hands in case we have difficulty opening the wrapper with one hand, etc. A bonus for practicing these skills would be to do it on a classic three-roller trainer, one of the best tools available for gaining bike control. In any case, it is also interesting to choose products that make the task easier. Here, gels win hands down over energy bars for how easy they are to consume. When it comes to hydration, if we want even more ease, using a hydration pack will make life much easier.

Secondly, there is the aspect of tolerance to the foods ingested during the ride. Again, as we said before, everything is trained. If we are not used to eating on the bike, it is completely normal, especially if we intend to do so during intense efforts, that nothing goes down if we try to do it during a ride and that what we ingest even makes us feel bad in the stomach. Then there is the aspect of choosing the nutrition products that we tolerate best, both by type and tolerance.

Here again, gels have become the kings due to the speed with which they pass through the stomach and are assimilated, greatly reducing stomach discomfort, especially with the formulations currently used by nutrition brands. The same goes for isotonic/energy drinks, another way to add a good handful of calories during the ride and easy to consume, but to which we must be accustomed so that our stomach does not protest after hours of using these products.

Obviously, we can also use homemade combinations that yield good results without the expense of nutrition products: dried figs, rice cakes, quince paste, or the ubiquitous banana can be excellent options for maintaining a good calorie intake during the ride.

Finally, there is the discipline of eating and drinking on the road. Here we can, until we get used to doing it instinctively, use the alarms that many modern bike computers have, which regularly remind us to take a bite of the bar we have in our jersey pocket or a sip from the bottle. In any case, a habit that will surely help us finish rides with much more energy and will prevent us from being victims of the man with the hammer.