Cycling Nutrition and Hydration Guide

The simple version

From what we see in UK cycling. The single most common nutritional error we encounter on UK sportives is riders skipping the first feed station because they "don't feel hungry yet". By the time hunger arrives at hour three, it is too late; recovery from the deficit takes 30-40 minutes off the bike and adds an hour to the finish time. Eat early, eat often, eat enough.

For rides under 90 minutes, you need water and nothing else. For rides 90 minutes to 3 hours, you need 30-60 grams of carbohydrate per hour and 500-750ml of fluid per hour. For rides over 3 hours, you need 60-90 grams of carbohydrate per hour and 750-1000ml of fluid per hour.

Those numbers cover 90% of British cycling. The rest of this guide is the detail behind them.

If you take only one thing away: most cyclists who suffer a "bonk" or run out of energy on a long ride do so because they ate too little earlier. The fix is preventative, not reactive. Eat before you are hungry. Drink before you are thirsty. Once you feel either, you are already late.

Pre-ride: what to eat and when

The pre-ride meal needs to do two things: top up muscle glycogen, and not upset your stomach. The second is harder than the first.

Three hours before a long ride. A real meal of 600-900 calories with carbohydrate as the main component. Porridge with banana and honey, toast and peanut butter with a banana, rice with chicken and vegetables, pasta with tomato sauce. Any of these work. Avoid high-fat foods (fry-ups, full English) which sit in the gut and slow absorption.

One hour before. A small top-up if needed, around 200-400 calories. A banana, a flapjack, a slice of toast with jam, a sports bar. Avoid anything you have not eaten before a ride; a long ride is not the time to discover that energy bars give you stomach cramps.

30 minutes before. Plain water. Coffee if you want it (caffeine 30-60 minutes before improves performance for most riders). Not energy drinks, not gels, not anything new.

5 minutes before. Just water. The "energy gel at the start" approach causes more stomach upsets than benefits for amateur riders.

The morning of an early sportive (start time 7-8am) is the hardest case. You cannot eat a full meal three hours before because you would be eating at 4-5am. The compromise: porridge plus banana plus coffee at 5am, then a small flapjack and water 30 minutes before the start.

During the ride: by duration

Under 90 minutes. Water, 500-750ml total depending on temperature. No food needed. Your muscle glycogen is sufficient.

90 minutes to 3 hours. 30-60g of carbohydrate per hour. Water with electrolytes, 500-750ml per hour. The carbs can come from anything that digests quickly. Cheap and effective options: a banana (around 25g carbs), a Soreen malt loaf (around 30g), a flapjack (around 30g), a cereal bar (around 25g). One of those per hour, plus a sports drink, hits the target.

For sportif and event use, gels and dedicated energy bars are convenient and easier to eat at speed. SiS Beta Fuel gels (40g carbs each, £1.50-£2), Maurten Gel 100 (25g carbs, £2.50-£3), High5 Energy Gel (23g carbs, £1-£1.50). Two gels an hour is the simplest way to hit 50g.

3-5 hours. 60-90g of carbohydrate per hour. This is where most amateur riders fail. The gut can absorb only so much per hour, and that limit is well below what an elite rider can hit. A practical mix: one gel every 30 minutes (40g) plus a bottle of energy drink (40g) gives 80g per hour. Or solid food (a banana plus a flapjack) every hour plus a sports drink.

Over 5 hours. Same 60-90g per hour, but variety matters more. The brain rebels against the same gel after the eighth one. Mix solid food (sandwiches at feed stations), gels, drinks. A peanut butter and jam sandwich is hard to beat for ultra-endurance use.

The key skill in long-ride nutrition is automation. Set a timer on your bike computer or watch. Every 30 minutes, eat. Do not wait for hunger. Do not "save" food for later. The body's hunger signal is delayed by 30-60 minutes; by the time you are hungry, you needed food half an hour ago.

Hydration: the actual numbers

Sweat rate varies massively between riders, conditions and intensities. A 60kg rider in 12°C British conditions at conversational pace might sweat 400ml an hour. The same rider at 25°C climbing a long Welsh col might sweat 1.5 litres an hour.

Practical rules:

• 500-750ml per hour in cool conditions
• 750-1000ml per hour in moderate conditions
• 1000-1200ml per hour in hot conditions, with electrolytes

Plain water is fine for rides under 90 minutes. Beyond 90 minutes, use an electrolyte drink. Sodium loss in sweat is the limiting factor for hydration; without sodium, the body cannot hold onto water and you keep urinating it out.

Electrolyte options:

• High5 Zero tablets (£8 for 20 tablets). 250mg sodium per tablet, dissolves in 750ml water. The British workhorse.
• Precision Hydration PH 1500 (£25 for 30 sachets). 1500mg sodium per sachet, for high-sweat-rate riders or hot conditions.
• DIY mix. Half a teaspoon of salt plus a tablespoon of honey in 750ml water. Tastes worse than the branded options but costs nothing.

How to know if you are drinking enough: urine colour at the next stop. Pale straw = correct. Clear = too much, you are washing out electrolytes. Dark amber = under-hydrated, drink more.

Recovery

The 30 minutes after a hard ride is when nutrition matters most. Glycogen replenishes fastest in this window; protein synthesis is most responsive. Eat real food.

A workable post-ride meal: 80-120g carbohydrate, 25-40g protein. Examples:

• Two eggs on toast with a banana
• Chicken and rice with vegetables
• Greek yogurt with granola, berries and honey
• A pint of milk plus a banana plus a flapjack (the £2 recovery meal, surprisingly effective)
• A protein shake plus a sandwich (if appetite is suppressed)

The expensive recovery shakes (For Goodness Shakes, Maxinutrition, SiS Rego) work fine but are not better than real food. They are convenient if you have a long drive home from the ride.

Hydrate after the ride too. Replace 1.5x the fluid you lost. Most riders chronically under-hydrate post-ride, which delays recovery and causes the "tired the day after" feeling more than the riding itself does.

Bonking, and how to recover from it

A "bonk" or "hitting the wall" is the technical state of running out of available glucose. The brain, which uses glucose almost exclusively, complains first: dizziness, irritability, mental fog, sometimes shakiness. Then the legs go. A full bonk takes 20-40 minutes to come back from even with food.

If you feel a bonk starting:

1. Slow down immediately. Stop if you can.
2. Eat fast carbs. A gel, two gels, an energy drink, a Coke from the next petrol station. The aim is to get sugar into the bloodstream as fast as possible.
3. Wait 20-30 minutes. Do not try to push on. The fuel needs to reach the brain and muscles.
4. Eat solid food once recovered. Real carbs to top up glycogen.
5. Continue at reduced pace. Continue eating every 30 minutes.

Better than recovery: prevention. Eat early, eat often, eat enough. A rider who eats correctly does not bonk.

Caffeine

Caffeine reliably improves cycling performance for most riders, by 2-4% in time-trial efforts and a similar amount in endurance work. The effect is real and well-documented.

Effective dose: 3-6mg per kg of bodyweight, taken 30-60 minutes before exercise. For an 80kg rider, that is 240-480mg. A double espresso has roughly 150mg. Strong filter coffee, around 200mg. A SiS Beta Fuel Caffeine gel has 75mg.

Caveats:

• Habituated coffee drinkers see smaller effects; the body has adapted.
• Skip the first dose of the day; you have already had it.
• Avoid caffeine after 2pm if you race or train in the evening; sleep matters more than the boost.
• Some people get gut issues from caffeine on the bike. Test on training rides.

Caffeine for ultra-endurance is more nuanced; small doses every 90-120 minutes work better than one large dose at the start.

Long-distance specifics

A 100-mile ride or longer requires extra planning beyond the per-hour figures.

Real food at feed stations. After 4-5 hours, the brain rebels against another gel. Sandwiches, malt loaf, fruit, pastries. Most British sportives now offer good real food at stops; eat it.

Salt at hot events. A salt tablet (Precision Hydration, SaltStick) every 60-90 minutes in hot weather prevents cramps that pure carbohydrate intake cannot.

Liquid calories beyond 6 hours. Drinks digest while solids slow. For very long rides, a higher proportion of carbs from drinks vs solids works better.

The first feed station is the most important. Eat well at mile 30 even if you do not feel like you need to. The deficit you create by skipping is felt at mile 70.

Plan your nutrition before the event. Calculate total grams of carb you plan to consume, divide across the ride, prepare bottles and pockets the night before. Improvising on the bike at hour 4 is too late.

Common errors

Drinking too much water without electrolytes. Dilutional hyponatraemia (low blood sodium) is real and dangerous. On a hot all-day ride, plain water alone causes more problems than under-drinking.

Trying new nutrition on event day. Always test on long rides first. Gut tolerance is individual.

Skipping pre-ride food because of nerves. Eating before a hard event is not optional. Practise eating before training rides so it becomes routine.

Eating only sweet things. After 4-5 hours, taste fatigue makes another gel impossible. Mix sweet and savoury (sandwiches, crisps, a flapjack).

Drinking coffee at every feed station. Caffeine over the day adds up. By hour 6, too much coffee causes jitters and gut problems.

Ignoring post-ride nutrition. The recovery meal sets up the next day. Skipping it means the following day's training is compromised.