Exercise is the best way to make yourself healthy and stronger. You must have heard this a lot of times and fully understand it. But if you are only focusing on your exercising activities and are not concerned with your diet plan then you ate making a big mistake. Diet is also as important as exercise. As a cyclist, we can assume that you must be concerned about what and how much to eat on your rides.
Well, this is surely a question you must ponder over because a proper diet plan during your riding sessions can help you enhance your experience. In this guide, we are not only going to talk about what to include in your diet but we are also going to have a look at the amount of food in your diet so you do not have to face any kind of complications while dealing with this situation.
Types of rides
We categorized the rides into different types so you can plan your diets and meals according to the intensity of your riding. The types of rides include:
Short rides
The first type of riding that we are going to discuss is categorized as short rides. You can consider rides of one hour or less as short rides. For short rides, you do not need to worry much about your eating since you only require a little amount of energy. If you are a pro cyclist and have been riding for a long time now then we can say that you can easily get through the short rides. However, we still recommend you to keep a banana or apple with you in case you feel weakness or dizziness at some point.
Medium rides
The next ride after short rides are listed as medium rides and they range between 1 to 3 hours. Medium rides can be a little intense than short rides since pedaling hard for 3 hours is not a joke to any human body. But don’t worry if you are considering this a very intense situation because proper diet guidance and staying hydrating will make your medium rides go so well and you can have a great experience.
For medium rides, you must carry at least two bottles of water or other hydration drinks with you since the rides are long and you will lose water through sweating. Fill the sweating void with some hydration techniques and you can truly ace medium rides. Besides, hydration fluids, you must also carry 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates to regain your lost energy so you can pedal back home with full excitement.
Long rides
The last type that we got for you in this list of categories is long rides that last more than 3 hours. Pro cyclists need long ride practices to keep up with the pace but they also need to take care of their diets for a healthy long ride. While going on the long cycling rides of more than 3 hours, you must carry 2 bottles of hydration fluids and water with you to satisfy your thirst during rides. Also, carry 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate with you every hour as you cycle in free air.
We recommend you not only stop with hydrating fluids and grams of carbohydrates for long rides. But you also need to take a proper meal at the beginning of the cycling course so you can get all the energy required for rides. Long cycling rides might cause you some digestion problems so we recommend you to switch to chews and blocks so it is easier for you.
Riding intakes
Since we learned the types of rides and how you can deal with them, here is brief information on riding intakes so you can have a better understanding of things and can plan an efficient diet while keeping an eye on all the aspects of cycling.
Let’s start.
Hydration
The first and most crucial factor you must always ensure before going for a ride is hydration. Cycling produces a lot of sweat and not planning to stay hydrated during your rides can cause you to lose a lot of body water via sweating. This can lead to dropping your blood pressure and you may feel fainting or dizziness.
The ultimate solution for this is to stay hydrated while going on rides and always carry a water bottle and other fluids so you do not lose your control while riding. As a cyclist, you need more water than others because you are losing it through sweating. The ideal amount of water intake for a cyclist on the riding is 10 liters of water to 20 liters of water that means you need 16 ounces of water or fluids every hour.
Carbohydrates
The next main thing for you to consider in your diet plan of riding or cycling is to add a proper amount of carbohydrates so you can get the necessary amount of energy needed for you to ride. You can take multiple carbohydrates supplements with you on rides but do not forget to take carbohydrates in your meals too because well-planned meals are as important as any other thing. The options you get in carbohydrates to take on rides include:
- Energy bars
- Energy drinks
- Protein shakes
- Bananas
- Apples
Conclusion: As we looked deep into the matter and left no stone unturned in providing you all the crucial details, we hope you must have understood everything that we tried to convey in this guide regarding riding diet plans and intakes. This might seem a bit complicated at first but if you focus on the information and plan all the factors accordingly then we guarantee you this will prove to be a wonderful experience for you. Energy bars and protein shakes are great sources to fuel your rides. Also, take enough energy bars and drinks on short and medium rides as a precatory measure.