What are you drinking when training / racing?

[fatcyclist]

What is this long rides in zone 2 you people speak of? This was Saturday, and all I was doing was trying to hold on for dear life 🤣

[JohanDiv]

3 hours ago, Mamil said:

 

For ultras (36one etc) I carry a bar bag full of gels and smash 30 to 40 g of carbs in addition to whatever looks appealing at the race villages and water points.

 

 

 

Interesting! For 36One I just pop a gel whenever I see a hill approaching in the distance. The last one I think I popped around 40 of those Biogen Liquid Energy Gels on top of the All-you-can-eat buffets and normal Biogen gels at every waterpoint. For me they go down much easier than the regular gels

[betaboy]

1 hour ago, Ncayi said:

I use the following products and rotate them. 

-USN Ctyopower: Mainly during races as each serving has 150mg of caffeine.

-Biogen Carbogen and Cytogen (has 50mg of caffeine): mostly during training but I use it in races and increase the caffeine dose with gels.

-Sugar water: With electrolyte tabs and lemon juice to balance out the sweetness

I used to be a strong believer in 1 bottle with liquid carbs and 1 with just water. But recently I have moved back to liquid carbs in both bottles especially for short races. This way I don't have to pack in 3 servings into 1 bottle.

Ps. Got the best piece of advise recently from David from the Active Hobo. And it's changed my approach to fueling entirely. The less time you spend digging through your pockets, the more time you spend focusing on the effort!

Active Hobo? Are we now getting athlete science straight off the streets? I’m concerned about hygiene. Just saying 😆

['Kaze Pete]

1 minute ago, betaboy said:

Active Hobo? Are we now getting athlete science straight off the streets? I’m concerned about hygiene. Just saying 😆

😆
The podcast / YouTube channel. Lekker home brewed. Worth a listen/follow in general. 👍 https://www.youtube.com/@activehobo
Some crossover with The Breakaway

 

[Mamil]

12 minutes ago, JohanDiv said:

Interesting! For 36One I just pop a gel whenever I see a hill approaching in the distance. The last one I think I popped around 40 of those Biogen Liquid Energy Gels on top of the All-you-can-eat buffets and normal Biogen gels at every waterpoint. For me they go down much easier than the regular gels

Ha Ha --- those damned "rollers" - one weary Mamil stopping in the scarce shade rummaging for the tasty papaya and pistachio bar he knows is in there somewhere, looking for the psychological boost he needs .....

['Kaze Pete]

23 minutes ago, fatcyclist said:

What is this long rides in zone 2 you people speak of? This was Saturday, and all I was doing was trying to hold on for dear life 🤣

Saturday was a bit of an effort
 

Had a PVM bar right before the start.
I dropped a bottle at 11km after first sip
Had to make do with 3 USN vooma gels and 99grams(55g malto, 44 fructose) of carbs in the other. Finished well, maybe a bit too depleted

Edited February 25 by 'Kaze Pete

['Kaze Pete]

And speaking of zones, the past year attached. I so not ride on leas than 60g/hour. Maybe slightly less on really long rides, so use PVM bars to top up on those

 

[Cardiogoth]

22 hours ago, fatcyclist said:

What is this long rides in zone 2 you people speak of? This was Saturday, and all I was doing was trying to hold on for dear life 🤣

Are you sure that your heart rate zones are calculated correctly? Your zone 2 and zone 3 look really low.

[cadenceblur]

On 2/25/2026 at 10:14 AM, Ncayi said:

I use Jesse Coyles post ride recovery protocol and it works like a dream for me. He uses a TSS/h formula to determine a g/kg of body weight carb intake.

care to elaborate on this?

[fatcyclist]

2 hours ago, Cardiogoth said:

Are you sure that your heart rate zones are calculated correctly? Your zone 2 and zone 3 look really low.

I'm 51, and this is what Garmin says... can you adjust it on the Garmin app or Garmin Connect dashboard?

[Jensie]

4 minutes ago, fatcyclist said:

I'm 51, and this is what Garmin says... can you adjust it on the Garmin app or Garmin Connect dashboard?

I use this..

Joe Friel’s cycling heart rate method bases training zones on Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR) rather than max heart rate.

Determine LTHR via a 30-minute solo time trial, taking the average HR for the final 20 minutes. Zones are then calculated as percentages of this LTHR.

[Eugene Oppelt]

On 2/24/2026 at 10:27 AM, fatcyclist said:

Been out of the scene for more than a decade. In CrossFit the WOD's were usually quick and explosive.. warm up, die for 20mins, cry a little on the floor, drive home, drink a protein shake and some creatine, rinse and repeat.

Specifically: How are the Biogen products? I can get a 15% discount on them through my old CrossFit coach (she's a sponsored athlete of theirs).

A few of my clients who are professional endurance athletes use Biogen. Several thrive on the product. A few had to turn away from it and try alternatives like SiS or Cadence.

The golden rule for nutrition is to figure out what works well for your fuel tank. Experiment, test, stay curious and review over time. 

[Ncayi]

3 minutes ago, cadenceblur said:

care to elaborate on this?

It's basically a table that tells you how many grams of carbs you need to eat after your immediately after your ride. Its based on duration  and TSS per hour. Then you get figure that is specific to your weight. I don't have a soft copy of the table though.

Example

I bang out a 2hour ride with a total TSS of 120 and I weight 90kgs:

The TSS/h=60 and the required carbs for this kind of ride would be 1-1.1g/kg of body weight.

Therefore I need to 90g or more of carbs as soon as I end my ride. Then I can have my lunch with more carbs and protein. This often means I don't have to go heavy on the carbs during the lunch meal.

The table has a range of durations from 45m to 240 and beyond. The required grams of carbs/kg of body increases depending on the duration and TSS/h

 

['Kaze Pete]

3 hours ago, fatcyclist said:

I'm 51, and this is what Garmin says... can you adjust it on the Garmin app or Garmin Connect dashboard?

To change it, on connect.garmin.com pick a device in top left🤦‍♂️ right 👍corner and then select user settings.
For reference, here is mine and I'm 57  

Edited February 26 by 'Kaze Pete
rigting be***