I did 140g carbs / hour last weekend on an 4ish hour ride and felt great. Finished feeling super strong

Almost all syrup / honey, with a 2 honey buns towards the end

Can’t believe I didn’t make this shift before

You should probably add some sodium to that mix. I switched to sodium citrate (vs salt) for longer sessions. I find the chloride in salt bothers my stomach after a few hours. That's especially true if I do any intensity.

But, yeah.... It's initially surprising how well just getting an appropriate amount of carbs (simple sugars) works. It's also surprising how tasty sugar+salt is while working out. It doesn't sound like it should be.

Great suggestion. I’m at ~1.2g Trisodium citrate (off just sodium citrate depending on what I take) / hour. Last weekend I dissolved it in the gel (vs water bottle) abs it worked great . I also put a bit of caffeine via espresso shot in one :)

Geezus that's a lot of honey! Close to two cups of pure honey, that's expensive as all hell. Why not just use dextrose and sucrose mix?

Teach me! I’m open to ideas. Just getting started on this transition …

Read this thread, it's gold!!

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ing=maurten#p7417228

Awesome! That's a super high rate. 140g/h is a replacement rate for ~220w, so if you can hold that for an IM bike you can start the run at very little caloric deficit.

What power output were you holding this weekend? It does get exponentially harder to hold down high calories at higher output, but it can be trained to an extent.

255ap / 285np (endurance + sprints throughout). TP shows ~4k calories burned - not sure how accurate that is.

Luckily I'm only bike racing these days, so no need to run afterwards :)

This weekend I'll do a bit more steady and test it out again.

drop the honey buns, junk oils in there doing nothing but clogging up the arteries.

What would you suggest I eat when I need more calories?

I would never eat that crap when off the bike, but I can unwrap / swollow the entire thing so quick, vs a powerbar or similar which takes some effort in a peloton

More salty sugar water. The honey buns aren't doing anything good that the salty sugar water isn't already.

That's really high watts for a 4h ride bro. Well done!

Check out this thread, then read more of Dr. Harrison's stuff. Highly recommend his Saturday app - it will do all the math for you on amounts of sugar and sodium citrate you need for a given ride intensity and duration.

I've been training on his mix for half the year and it has been a game changer. One, because it has dramatically increased by ability to fuel well. Two, because sugar and sodium citrate (and regular gatorade powder in my case for flavor) is incredibly cheap and can have the equivalent fuel of 10+ gels for less than $1.

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ing=maurten#p7417228

there are gels, which are more compact. it seems you have a desire to chew, there is gum for that.

I dunno.

I think I’m feigning for more calories. TP says I’m burning ~1000cal / hour and I’m only consuming 400. I feel hungry, not that I need to chew.

Is there a point when you need to eat more calories or is it all about carb consumption ?

I am planning on trying 160g carbs this weekend , but don’t expect that little bit of extra is enough

try a little bit of protein before you leave in the morning . all carbs can trigger some hunger signals. so a few bits of toast with honey or a small bit of porridge and then get into your 140g an hour . 160 may be too much and it may slosh around a lot. one of the cat 1 guys i follow on podcasts and says he hates it now everyone knows how to fuel properly on these rides - he used to be able to crush people in the last efforts on a 4 hour ride as he was the only one properly fueling, his overall power is pretty average but he could put it out at the end of a 4 hour

A calorie is not a calorie in the human body. Try eating 400 cal of pure protein or fiber and see how you feel during your ride. Seems waverider might have a point, your pre ride satiety needs help

Remember, at an intensity that you can sustain for 4+ hours you are burning ~60% calories from carbs, the balance from fat. You only need to replace the carbs. No matter how lean you are, you have more than enough fat...it does not need replacing. So, you are really only looking at a net carb deficit of ~200 cal / hr or so. That's sustainable for ~8 hrs before you are approaching depletion.

On the other hand.... How often do you need to do 4+ sustained efforts above you maximum replacement rate? Are you getting any training / performance from it? Or would a different approach be better? Finishing ~800 calories depleted is manageable, but much more than that probably risks extended recovery requirements that might compromise downstream training. Could you gain the same training benefit from 4-6 hrs at your replacement rate?

After a couple week’s of transition, just wanted to post that focusing only on pure carbs as fuel, has been a game changer for me

i did a 100mi race this weekend and did 140g/hr and felt great.

I’m also drinking less water (maybe because I’m not digesting as much food??)

I’m posting this recap, in hopes that it helps someone else in the future

Credit Dr Alex.

100g of pure carbs is 400 cal (i'm a cal guy). I can't go above about 240 cal/hr or i'd be a bloated mess. It does depend how hard you are working. Simply, the harder you're working, the less you should expect to be able to assimilate.

I would never consider anything but liquid calories. As you've noted, it's a pain in the ass to unwrap and even eat (ie, chew) solid food. More importantly, solid food doesn't clear as fast as liquid and takes more resources. There are a variety of powdered fuels available. I've had success with Hammer products.