Calorie intake on bike

Triathlon Forum
1

I’m just wondering, how many calories do you think a person needs while biking. I just did a hard 75 mile ride, and I averaged 19.7 mph. At the last 30 miles, I still had my heart and lungs in check, my muscles were a little aching, but I was losing power.
I ate a 1/2 powerbar at mile 20, an ensure plus at mile 40 and the other 1/2 powerbar at mile 60. I also had about four bottles of lightly mix powerade and water.
I’m 5’9" and 160 lbs.

I did a search and found this.

The following table appears in the '92 Schwinn ATB catalog which references
Bicycling, May 1989:

Speed
(mph) 12 14 15 16 17 18 19
Rider
Weight Calories/Hr
110 293 348 404 448 509 586 662
120 315 375 437 484 550 634 718
130 338 402 469 521 592 683 773
140 360 430 502 557 633 731 828
150 383 457 534 593 675 779 883
160 405 485 567 629 717 828 938
170 427 512 599 666 758 876 993
180 450 540 632 702 800 925 1048
190 472 567 664 738 841 973 1104
200 495 595 697 774 883 1021 1159

(flat terrain, no wind, upright position)

2

300 cals an hour for rides lasting 3 hours or more… follow these rides up with recovery shake to boost your glycogen level back up. Your system cannot handle more than 300 an hour so dont try shoving too much more than that down.

3

Thanks, that’s good to know.

4

My nutrition target for the bike is 2 Powerbars every 50 miles and 1 gu every 10-12 miles. I drink mostly water with a somewhat diluted Gu2O mix, probably another 200 calories per 56 miles there. This adds up to about 1100 calories per 50/56 miles or close to 400 calories per hour. Any more and I have a hard time digesting it. Any less and by mile 100+ I am already getting fatigued at a 22-23mph pace.