Most cyclists who race will put themselves through hell in training to ad♚d 10 watts to their FTP or 200 watts to their sprint. Many of them will happily spend vast sums of money on aero bikes, faster tyres, power meters and tight-fitting skinsuits. But very few of them will give proper attention to their diets, often following lazy or outdated advice which has been passed down from previous generations. But don’t worry, we’re here to give you a brief but comprehensive guide as to what you should be eating on and off the bike to help you adapt to training and perform at your peak on race days.
It’s important to note that cyꦡcling to get faster in races and cycling to lose weight are two different things. T📖he same is true for your cycling nutrition, and whilst some of the advice in this article might be useful to those wanting to lose weight, this article is mainly focused on improving cycling performance.
It's also important to say that while we've done a tonne of testing and research to put together guides for the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:best energy drinks, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:best energy bars and 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:best energy gels, they aren't necessarily the only thing you should be eating to fuel your ride. Yes, it's important to eat while on the bike, but the majority of your nutrition comes through your off-bike diet, so it's key to loo꧒k at the whole picture, not just your on- or off-bike eating habits in isolation.
Fuelling
Racing road bikes isn’t a simple one-size-fits-all type of sport, so you shouldn’t plan your cycling nutrition as though it is. The most commonly raced events are road races, criteriums (or crits), and cyclo-cross, although the emergence of gravel racing is a welcomed addition. The dem🐭ands of gravel racing are similar to those of similar duration road races, so we’ve grouped the two of those under the road racing banner, likewise crits with cyclo-cross events.
While you might be tempted to use any new advice in your next race, you really shouldn’t. All athletes are different and whilst general guidelines can be given, you never know how you’ll react to new practices. The best thing to do is to plan your race-day nutrition and give it a couple of trial runs on a tough group ride or the local chain gang to see how you react. That way, if anything might not go to plan you can change things before your race, and you won’t end up 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:doing a Dumoulin.
Cycling nutrition for road races
There are two main macronutrients that the body will use for creating energy during exercise: carbohydrate and fat. Carbohydrates are the sugars, starches and fibres found in fruit, grains and vegetables. Once they’re ingested, we can use them for energy, to maintain blood sugar levels, or to replenish live💝r and muscle glycogen stores. Fat is found in some plants and most animals, and is something that we store in abundance; even the leanest of riders will have several kilograms of it on their bodies. It is also much more calorific than carbohydrate, with nine calories in a gram of fat compared to just four calories in a gram of carbohydrate.
We know this is bound to annoy some low-carb, high-fat, ketogenic diet fans, but we must make this clear from the outset: when it comes to road racing performance, carbo🌟hydrate is king. On balance, fuelling properly with carbohydrate is t🎐he single biggest enhancer of performance on a bike. Ketogenic diets do have a place in low intensity, ultra-endurance events, where fat can become your primary fuel source, but in WorldTour and amateur road racing, carbohydrate is by far the most important fuel source. In anticipation of some likely comments; yes , but he did not win the Tour by going ketogenic. To our knowledge, no Tour de France, Giro, Vuelta, world championships or Olympic road race has ever been won by an athlete following a ketogenic diet.
So why are carbohydrates so important?
As you exercise at high intensities, you’ll use mainly carbohydrate that is in your liver, blood and muscle. The feeling of fatigue that develops during long road races is linked to low blood sugar, liver glycogen and muscle glycogen levels, and it is because of this that will have heard the ad𒁏vice to carb load in the days before racing. If your race is longer than 90 minutes then you should be eating plenty of carbohydrates on the day before the race. Anywhere between six and 12 grams of carbohydrate for each kilogram of your body weight, depending on the length of your race.
On race day itself, once again, carbohydrate is the key to performance. There have been concerns that eating carbohydrates in the hour before exercise could lead to reactive hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar). However, there seems to be little evidence that꧅ this has any negative effects𝓡 on performance, so we recommend ingesting 20-30 grams of carbohydrate about 15 minutes before the start of a race. The amount that you eat during a race depends on the length of it, but the following recommendations should be used:
- A race of 1-2 hours: 30 grams per hour
- 2-3 hours: 60 grams per hour
- 3 or more hours: 90 grams per hour
The limiting factor for how much of your ingested carbohydrate you can use during a race is the 🤡rate at which your gut absorbs it, and this is where multiple transporters might come in handy. Glucose and fructose, two of the most common sugars seen in cycling nutrition products, are absorbed by different transporter, so we often see products with the two combined. Glucose can be absorbed at a rate of 60 grams per hour, and fructose at about 30 grams per hour. So, if you’re aiming to eat 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour, you should try and get 60 grams from glucose and 30 grams from fructose. However, it’s important to note that glucose is absorbed quicker than fructose, so if you’re only aiming to eat 60 grams per hour, you should make sure it’s all glucose or maltodextrin.
Crits
During longer road races, the benefits of carbohydrate ingestion are mainly metabolic, such as keeping muscle glycogen levels topped up. While we don’t need to worry about that in crits, there are still benefits to ingesting carbohydrate, even though we don’t have time to fu🦋lly absorb what is eaten. Rather than the advantages being metabolic, the benefits come about by effects on your central nervous system. While it is not completely understood, we know there are receptors in your mouth that can sense carbohydrate, and this can be linked to improvements in performance. So in your next crit, don’t be afraid to take a gel for the last 15 minutes or swig little and often from a carbohydrate drink.
