So your 4hrs into a 6hr ride. Both your bottles are empty and pockets pretty light.
You stop at a petrol (gas) station shop. What supplies are you buying to keep you going?
Was in this situation the other day and trying to work out the best carb per buck items to go for.
I tend to start with 2x750ml bottle with around 100g table sugar in each. Then some small chocolate bars in my back pocket. But liquids are always my preference.
Most shop bought “sports drinks” don’t actual have many carbs in them, Maybe 30g per 500ml.
Being able to buy 1.5L of pre flattened coke would be great, but hate the sticky, fizzy bubbles normal stuff leak onto the frame.
Maybe just carrying more sugar to mix with plain water is the best option for me, but what the best way to carry that?
I’d personally buy a couple of Clif Bars to get a bunch of carbs down, and then grab some water and whatever type of juice they have that’s somewhat natural with a good amount of carbs.
There’s no way I could drink table sugar in water to keep me going.
What ever they’ve got but I’d try to go for something like Lipton Ice tea for my bottle (still with caffeine, sugar and flavour) and some sort of flapjack.
In the gas station Chocolate milk is great and (for me) easy to drink about 50g carbs straight away.
For bottle refills I’ll cut coke/Fanta or redbull 50/50 with water. This eliminates the fizz and makes it more refreshing IMHO.
Solid food, Snickers bar seem to be the best universal food and if the y have bananas or flapjacks your golden.
I’d suggest the table sugar + a packet of LMNT. If you haven’t tried LMNT, check it out. It’s flavor and sodium. You can even split the packet across two fresh bottles.
If not, I can’t do fizzy soda either. Typically go with the gatorade for the hydration and a donut or something because I like them. I like the idea of a fruit juice.
Unfortunately I keep running into shops that have fridges full of ‘diet’ drinks thanks to the sugar tax - or so I’m told. Coke Zero - I mean, how useless is that? Why buy brown water?
I’m honestly shocked that Coke has not done “Coke Sport” by this point…first, it would be huge with triathletes and there could be a solid market at convenience stores / gas stations.
Just flattened Coke…maybe you throw some added electrolytes for marketing purposes.
I’ll bring little baggies of drink mix (skratch). And usually down a big fountain drink (coke) while I’m there, or a slurpee if needing to lower core temp. Both have big calories and are cheap (under $2). But I don’t rely on my hydration for the bulk of my calories. I usually carry about 1500 calories of maple syrup in a small flask and will supplement with sour patch candy (or any other pure sugar gummy candy) at the store if my maple gets low.
For long long rides I started bringing the single serving Skratch packets and then mixing them into a large size Gatorade. So it changes the Gatorade from something like 44g of carbs and 300mg of sodium to like 70g of carbs and 700mg of sodium. Otherwise the plastic baggy of premixed carbs/salt is the way to go. Either enough to mix with water or to supplement a Gatorade.
Otherwise I’ve been going for 7-11 or Wawa Lemonades. They use cane sugar and have like 60g of carbs in a 12oz bottle. If it’s super hot then I’ll get a Coke Slurpee. And if they have glass bottled coke I’ll get that.
As for not liking the bubbles, I just open it and spend a minute shaking, opening, shaking, opening, and it pretty quickly goes flat enough to not make me burp for the next hour.
I also prefer to get all my calories from bottles, with gels and other solids as backup. When I’m out for any ride longer than two hours I bring my DIY mix (90-120g of carbs) and electrolytes (usually a Nuun tab) in zip lock baggies (and pray no cops pull me over to ask what the white powder is). At the mid-ride stop I’ll get water to refill my bottles. I’ll also get something sweet like gummy bears / worms or maybe chocolate if I need a shot of carbs and/or chips / crisps if I need sodium.
Each bag of my DIY mix is about 3/4 - 1 cup in volume, so not insiginificant. I have carried them in my jersey pockets before but I don’t like the way it pulls on the jersey, especially to one side when I have an odd number of bags left. On these longer rides I’ve started using my top tube bag from my gravel bike. If I needed even more storage I guess I would next use a frame bag and then a bar bag. Orr Cycling bags have worked well for me.
A hot sausage baguette or all day breakfast or cheese and onion sandwich. I’d get a coke or Ribena and drink it whilst stopped or put it in one bottle with bite valve open. Then water in other bottle or both bottles if I decide to drink the fizzy drink there and then. Plus an ice cream if it’s hot. Maybe some salted nuts or crisps or toffee popcorn.
This all depends on where I think I am with my eating and drinking. Ahead or behind etc.
2 hours to go, any form of pastry would be on my list as a first choice chugged down with Fanta/Coke, 6 hotdog/hamburger rolls, a packet of Doritos, refill bottles with a 500ml Coke halved between the two and topped up with water. If shop has wine gums/gummies, I’m taking 100g of that as drip food.
I’ve found it gives me a huge boost and the effect hits within a reasonably short time (10 mins or so).
Probably not that healthy for me if ingested as a long term regular dietary choice, but as a one-off the ‘little red ambulance’ has been a great choice for me on multiple occasions when on longer rides.
Also so nice on a hot day when taken from the fridge
Usually it’s 2 cans (330ml) - one drunk immediately and one carefully decanted into an empty or partially full bottle. I don’t mind it mixed with leftover water or leftover hydration tab / water so it’s all good
Down a coke while you’re there. Pour Gatorade in your bottles and stuff a pack of fig newtons in your pockets. Don’t forget to pay for the calories. Fig newtons are a great source of carbs and keep you from feeling hunger pains which you can get if you’re just consuming pure sugar for 4-6 hours.
Not sure I understand the question. How can pockets be empty? I mean, that’s the whole point of them: to carry something
Joking aside, to contribute to the topic from different angle: really, knowing yourself and with proper preparation, all you need is to buy water and can carry everything else with you.
On recent ride example:
10h/320km,
at ~63% of FTP (170w),
on flat terrain,
with temperature around 24*C,
carried 0.5L + 0.75L bottles for electrolytes (= 3tablets),
and 0.5L + 0.75L bottles for carbs (= 2x80g + 1x40g satchets),
had 2 refuel stops i.e. carried in top tube bag and pockets total 4x80g + 2x40g satchets + 6 tablets of electrolytes.
Of course, with different intensity and other conditions, all those amounts vary wildly but after some experience, you’ll likely know it pretty well.
