Whether you're a seasoned cyclist or just starting, understanding the importance of proper nutrition can significantly impact your performance, recovery, and overall enjoyment of the sport. This comprehensive guide breaks down the essential aspects of a cyclist's diet, providing practical tips and strategies to optimize your fueling plan.
The Basics: What Your Body Needs When You Ride
Every pedal stroke relies on a combination of carbohydrates, fats, and protein. Carbohydrates are the primary fuel source for strenuous efforts, powering those intense intervals and challenging climbs. Fats support longer, steady rides, providing sustained energy for endurance. Protein is crucial for muscle recovery and building strength.
Understanding Energy Systems
Your body utilizes different energy systems depending on the intensity and duration of your ride. Quick sprints tap into stored muscle energy. Short, intense intervals primarily burn carbohydrates. Long, steady efforts rely on both carbohydrates and fats.
Matching your fuel intake to the type of ride is essential for maintaining energy levels and avoiding fatigue. For example, a short, punchy virtual climb on ROUVY mainly burns carbs, while a longer endurance session, like an IRONMAN course, leans more on fat but still requires carbs to keep you going.
What to Eat Before Cycling
What you eat before a ride significantly affects how you feel on the bike. For short, easy rides (under 60 minutes), a light snack or even no food may be sufficient, especially if you're experienced and maintaining a low intensity.
Read also: Optimizing Performance Through Nutrition
However, for longer sessions (90 minutes or more), particularly those involving climbs or intervals, a proper pre-ride meal is crucial. Aim to eat 2-3 hours before your ride, prioritizing complex carbohydrates and a bit of protein for sustained energy. Allowing time for digestion helps avoid gastrointestinal issues and ensures you start with full energy stores.
If eating one hour or less before the ride, opt for smaller, easily digestible carbs like a banana, energy bar, or small smoothie. Avoid heavy meals, as they won't digest in time and could cause discomfort.
Pre-Ride Meal Examples
- Long climbs or endurance rides: Oats with berries and yogurt or raisin toast with honey, banana, and nut butter.
- Short intervals or climbs: A banana, a slice of toast, or a small smoothie 30 minutes before.
Avoid riding on a full stomach or running on empty. The ideal approach is to fuel just enough to feel strong without feeling heavy. With practice, you'll determine what works best for your body and the ride ahead.
What to Eat During a Bike Ride
During rides exceeding 60 minutes, especially at higher intensities, your body depletes glycogen stores. For rides under 60 minutes at lower intensity, water may suffice. However, for longer rides, refueling is necessary to prevent performance decline and fatigue. The intensity of the session also determines fuel needs, with higher output sessions requiring quicker, more accessible carbs.
Fuelling on the bike can involve real food like bananas, dried fruit, or oat bars; sports nutrition products like gels and chews; or carbohydrate-rich drinks. Real food offers variety and satiety, while processed sports fuels provide convenience and fast absorption, beneficial during indoor training when digestion may be slightly impaired. Finding the right balance of texture, sweetness, and digestibility will enhance both enjoyment and performance.
Read also: The Hoxsey Diet
As a general guideline, aim for 30-60g of carbohydrate intake per hour for rides up to 2 hours and 60-90g for longer rides. A 60-minute ride on ROUVY might only require a bottle of isotonic drink, while a 90-minute virtual Gran Fondo needs a combination of drink, gel, and solid fuel. On rides lasting 120+ minutes, establish a pattern: a sip of carbs every 10-15 minutes, alternating between gel, chew, and drink, based on your gut's tolerance.
Refueling on Longer Rides
On longer outdoor rides, a pit stop for a pancake or high-carb pastry and coffee can help you energize and refuel for the remainder of the ride, preventing an energy slump or bonk before you get home. For outdoor rides lasting 4-6 hours, consume a substantial high-carb meal before departing to reach the halfway point. A coffee stop at midway provides an opportunity to grab a calorie-rich, easily digestible carb meal, providing an energy boost and aiding quick refueling, preventing energy crashes before the ride ends.
Post-Ride Cycling Nutrition
Recovery begins immediately after your ride, making post-ride nutrition essential. The body is primed to replenish glycogen stores and repair muscle in the first 30-60 minutes following exercise. Your post-ride meal should focus on carbohydrate intake to refill energy stores and protein to kick-start muscle recovery. Neglecting this window can delay recovery, increase soreness, and reduce your capacity for subsequent training.
The ideal post-ride nutrition depends on the ride's intensity and duration. For short sessions, a simple smoothie with milk, banana, and protein powder may suffice. After longer rides or intense intervals, consider a more substantial option like chicken, sweet potato, and avocado salad with couscous or a quinoa bowl with roasted vegetables and feta. Recovery drinks are helpful when in a hurry, but whole foods should always be the primary choice when available.
When indoor cycling, you often sweat more and may not feel as hungry immediately after a ride. Still, it's vital to rehydrate and refuel even if the appetite is low. A warm meal or easy-to-digest snack can ease this process. A good rule of thumb is to aim for a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein in your post-ride intake. Rehydration should also begin at this stage, especially if the session was done in a warm or poorly ventilated space.
Read also: Walnut Keto Guide
Keep a go-to recovery option stocked and ready post-ride-something quick and nutritious like a smoothie pack, protein drink, or overnight oats.
Cycling Hydration and Electrolytes: More Than Just Water
Many cyclists underestimate the importance of hydration for their cycling performance. Even a 2% loss in body weight due to fluid loss can impair endurance, reduce power, and slow reaction time. During indoor riding, sweat loss is significant, and cooling is limited. Structured indoor sessions, such as those on ROUVY, require a proactive hydration plan.
Dehydration doesn't always manifest as thirst. Headaches, dark urine, dizziness, or sudden fatigue are all signs that your fluid levels are sub-optimal. These symptoms often appear too late, potentially compromising your performance. For longer or more intense rides, especially those lasting more than 90 minutes, pre-hydrating with water and electrolytes before the ride can help delay fatigue.
Electrolytes-sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium-are lost through sweat and must be replaced to avoid cramping and support muscle function. Sports drinks, electrolyte tablets, or a homemade mix with salt and fruit juice can all do the job. For indoor cyclists, adding electrolytes to water becomes crucial for cycling performance, even on shorter rides.
Common Cycling Nutrition Mistakes
One of the most common mistakes cyclists make is waiting too long to eat on a ride. Once you feel tired, hungry, or sluggish, it's too late - your energy levels have already dropped. To avoid this, start fueling with your carbohydrate intake early in the ride and keep fueling consistently. It's much better to sip and nibble regularly than to wait until you're ravenous or already low on energy, especially relevant for indoor rides where calorie burn is high even though you're stationary.
Overfueling, particularly on shorter rides, is another common pitfall. Consuming more energy than you need can lead to stomach upset, bloating, or even weight gain over time. Not every session requires a gel or recovery shake. Learning when your body truly needs extra fuel is a skill that comes with experience and tracking how you feel post-ride. Save high-energy foods for long or high-intensity sessions.
Not hydrating is a hidden danger, especially indoors. The lack of wind and constant pedaling can cause excessive sweating without the usual cues to drink. You might get off the bike drenched in sweat, not realizing how dehydrated you are. Make it a habit to drink at regular intervals and monitor your fluid intake, even if it means setting a timer on your watch if you forget to drink. Weighing yourself before and after longer sessions can help you estimate sweat loss and adjust accordingly.
Supplements for Cyclists: What's Worth It?
The supplement landscape can be overwhelming, but a few well-researched options can enhance your cycling nutrition. Carbohydrate powders can be helpful on long rides or back-to-back sessions. Caffeine has a well-documented performance-enhancing effect, especially in time trials or high-intensity efforts. Beetroot juice is rich in nitrates, which help your body produce nitric oxide-a compound that improves blood flow and helps muscles use oxygen more efficiently. This can boost endurance and delay fatigue, especially in longer rides. For best results, take a beetroot shot 2-3 hours before your session. It won't work for everyone, but many riders find it gives them an extra edge on sustained efforts.
Avoid the hype surrounding proprietary blends with vague ingredients or miracle claims. A solid foundation of real food, hydration, and structured fueling will do more than any pill or powder. Use supplements as a boost to your routine, not a shortcut. It's an idea to test new supplementation during training indoors first to see the effects before experimenting with it outdoors in a race or event.
How to Fuel for Ideal Indoor Cycling Nutrition
Indoor cycling demands a specific nutrition approach due to the controlled but sweat-heavy environment. The lack of airflow translates to higher core temperatures and fluid loss, making hydration and quick-absorbing carbs particularly important. Even in a one-hour workout, you may sweat more than on a two-hour outdoor ride. Fueling smartly keeps you sharp and strong throughout.
Match your intake to the session type. For short, high-intensity intervals under an hour, a small carb-rich snack and electrolyte water may be all you need. For sessions over 75 minutes-like simulated stage races or long endurance rides-start eating 30 minutes in and aim for 40-60 grams of carbohydrate intake per hour.
Easy-to-Eat Snacks for Long Indoor Endurance Rides
Staying fueled during long indoor rides is essential for maintaining energy and performance. Cycling energy foods include bananas, which are easy to digest and provide a quick source of carbohydrates and potassium. Energy chews or gummies are another popular choice-they're portion-controlled, designed for endurance athletes, and easy to consume without breaking your rhythm.
Dates are an excellent option for a natural sugar boost. They're rich in simple carbohydrates and offer sustained energy over time. Mini rice cakes with nut butter or honey can also work well; they're light and gentle on the stomach. Fig bars or fruit-and-nut bars offer a more substantial snack, balancing carbohydrates and healthy fats in a compact form. If you prefer something savory, boiled salted baby potatoes provide a source of both carbs and sodium.
Homemade Carbohydrate Snack Ideas
- Rice cakes with mix-ins: Cook sushi rice and mix it with honey, nut butter, and a pinch of salt. You can add mashed banana, raisins, or cocoa powder. Then, press into a baking dish, cool, and cut into squares. Wrap individually for mid-ride fuel.
- Oat and nut butter energy balls: Blend oats, nut butter, honey or maple syrup, and add-ins like chopped dates, dried fruit, chia seeds, or dark chocolate chips. Roll into small balls and chill. These provide a balance of carbs, fat, and protein.
- Sweet potato bites: Roast small chunks of sweet potato with a light brush of olive oil and sea salt. They're naturally sweet, rich in carbs, and gentle on the stomach.
- Baked pancake squares: Make a batch of banana or oat-based pancakes and cut them into bite-sized squares.
When to Refuel in Workouts
Some ROUVY workouts, like FTP builders or long climbs, lend themselves to preset fueling routines. For example, during an 80-minute threshold workout, fuel approximately every 15 minutes with alternating sips of sports drink and half a gel. Use each recovery part to refuel if possible. During a 90-minute endurance ride, schedule one carb chew every 20 minutes and sip an electrolyte drink continuously.
Make your nutrition strategy as structured as your ride plan-this consistency improves performance and accelerates adaptation.
Cycling Nutrition for Specific Goals
Your cycling nutrition plan should align with your specific goals.
Fat Loss
If you aim to lose fat while maintaining performance, focus on fueling your rides strategically, not restricting food overall. Consume carbs before and during intense sessions to support performance, and reduce overall intake slightly on rest days to create a calorie deficit. Fasted rides can support fat adaptation, but only when done correctly.
Ultra-Endurance Events
For ultra-endurance or multi-hour events, train the gut to handle large volumes of carbs - up to 90g per hour - and test your fueling strategy thoroughly during training.
Basic Nutrition Principles for Cyclists
Nutrition can seem complicated and confusing because it’s highly individualized. What works for one person may not work best for you. To help, let’s think about basic principles instead of a long list of rules. How many calories you need each day is highly individual and starts with your resting metabolic rate (RMR). RMR is the number of calories when your body is at rest for 24 hours. RMR isn’t a static number and does fluctuate over time. It’s influenced by age, sex, and lean body mass. But what about your activities and training? You can estimate your daily activities, but calculating calories is relatively straightforward with cycling training. You can monitor the number of kilojoules (kJs) expended during a ride or workout with a power meter. While your calories per day will fluctuate, you can get a good idea of your cycling nutrition needs by adding your RMR and activity calories together. Now that you know how many calories you need, it’s time to determine what foods are most beneficial to get there. Macronutrients categorize nutrition into three groups-carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. It’s helpful to think about macronutrients as a lever for optimizing your diet for cycling performance. On one end, you have fats, and on the other, you have carbs. The fulcrum rests on protein, so the first step is determining how much protein you need. That is between 1.2-1.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily for endurance athletes. Then prioritize carbohydrates at 6-10g per kilogram of body weight because it’s the body’s preferred fuel source when performance matters. If you are trying to lose weight, your macros will be slightly different with an even greater protein intake.
Macronutrients
- Carbohydrates: Prioritize carbohydrates at 6-10g per kilogram of body weight because it’s the body’s preferred fuel source when performance matters.
- Protein: 1.2-1.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily for endurance athletes.
- Fat: Unsaturated fats like olive or canola oil are generally considered the healthiest option.
Grocery Shopping for Cyclists
Heading to the grocery store can lead to a bevy of food choices, often leaving you with a myriad of options and heaps of confusion. It’s helpful to remember two basic principles-quality and quantity. Shopping for quality means that you’re getting nutrient-dense foods and ones that will help you hit your macronutrient goals. However, a balance of quality and quantity can be challenging to achieve. Nutrient-dense foods often contain fewer calories, meaning you’ll need to consume much more for your cycling nutrition needs. Simply put, you need carbohydrates that can be quickly consumed and digested.
Here are some grocery list recommendations:
- Fruits and vegetables: Bananas, grapes, spinach, kale, carrots, mushrooms, white onion, apples, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, pickles, frozen fruit
- Protein/Meat: Boneless chicken tenderloins, white eggs, pork chops/pork tenderloin, filet mignon
- Other Carbs: Rice, jam
- Dips: Hummus, spicy guacamole, baba gannouj
Determining Carb Intake
As a general rule, aim for a bottle an hour, and adjust for your physiology and the weather. Post-ride nutrition is vital for replenishing your glycogen stores and kickstarting the recovery process. Once your ride is complete, the body begins to shift from a catabolic state to an anabolic one, to rebuild and recover. There are many ways to handle post-ride nutrition. You don’t always have to drink your post-ride nutrition. A well-planned meal can offer all the carbs and protein you need with the benefit of numerous micronutrients. However, the simplest and most convenient form is a recovery shake. Current research trends suggest around a 4:1 carb to protein ratio, and most recovery shake products hover near that range. Rest days and weeks are an essential part of any training plan. As you recover, your body undergoes the adaptations that make you faster. This reduction in workload provides an excellent opportunity to return your glycogen to baseline levels. Depending on the training block you’ve just completed, the amount of food you need will vary, but it’s not uncommon to feel hungrier. Because your body is preparing for the next challenge, this isn’t the time to cut calories. Your body is healing and adapting in response to the stress of training. During this week, you can focus on eating nutritious whole foods that fill you up. Studies have shown that endurance athletes rarely operate with full glycogen stores. In fact, they are often in a glycogen deficit. This can present a problem, especially if you want to be in top form for an epic event. After carbs are absorbed and converted to glucose by the body, there are essentially three destinations-the liver, muscles, or fat storage. The liver and muscles either use the glucose immediately or store it as glycogen for later use, which is what we want. Storing glucose as triglycerides or fat occurs for two reasons-the glycogen stores are full, or we’ve outpaced our glycogen synthesis rate. Carb loading is a method to help ensure your glycogen stores are full without adding to your fat reserves. So how do you know when your glycogen storage is full? Without lab equipment, it’s difficult to determine. Additionally, the answer is dependent on how much your muscles can store. For an untrained person, it’s about 100g in the liver and 400g in the muscles. The rate at which you synthesize glycogen changes depending on the situation. It declines to an almost non-existent level during exercise, but immediately following exercise, the process is incredibly rapid. At rest, glycogen storage is dependent on the level of your depletion, glycogen capacity, the rate of carb ingestion, and the types of carbs eaten. The key to carb-loading is to avoid huge blood glucose spikes and outpace your ability to absorb and process carbohydrates. This is easier done with low-glycemic carbs. In the three days leading up to your event, increase your carbohydrate upwards to 10g per kilogram of body weight per day. Carb loading is something to reserve for the events where it will be most beneficial. This includes multi-hour events, stage races, and ultra-endurance races. For a single weekend crit, you’ll be fine fueling like you usually would.
Tips for Pre-Ride Meals
There are three key variables to consider when planning your morning pre-ride meal:
- Time before riding: NOW (I’m in a hurry, 90 minutes or less before ride) or LATER (I’ve got time, 2-4 hours before ride)
- Intensity: EASY (Recovery day, coffee shop ride, weekend exploration ride) or HARD (Training, racing, mountains)
- Length: SHORT ride (90 minutes or less) or LONG ride (2 hours or more)
If you’re working out within the next 90 minutes at a low intensity, regardless of the length of your ride, you do not need to eat before this ride. Yes, it’s just fine from a health and performance standpoint to do this ride on an empty stomach. If you’d like to eat something, do so at least 20-30 minutes before riding, keep it light and avoid foods with much fat or fiber. There is an important caveat here, however: If you’re undergoing a high level of stress, have slept poorly or are fighting off illness, you should make sure to consume carbohydrates before doing any exercise. Doing any kind of fasted or carbohydrate-restricted training increases your stress response to the session and in turn can suppress your immune system further.
If you’re riding within 90 minutes at a high intensity, regardless of the length of your ride, carbohydrates are the name of the game. Choose a meal with a high glycemic index (GI) rating. These are what we think of as “simple carbs;” foods that are broken down quickly by your body, resulting in a rapid increase in blood glucose. Aim for around 0.8 to 1.2 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight as a moderate recommendation appropriate for the average cyclist.
If you’ve got two hours or more until you ride and it’s going to be short (about 90 minutes or less) and easy, you can sit down to a breakfast of whatever you like; whatever makes you feel good. This meal simply won’t have much of an impact on your ride because on a short ride like this (90 minutes or less) you should have sufficient glycogen stores in you already to fuel that workout.
Finally, if you have two to four hours before your ride, and it’s going to be a long one (anything around two hours or longer), ride intensity is not a key factor. Regardless of how hard you’ll be turning the pedals, there will be a good amount of caloric expenditure and you will, therefore, require carbohydrates beforehand. Aim for anywhere from about 1 to 2.5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight, depending on just how long this ride will be.
General Tips for Your Cycling Fueling Plan
One of the easiest ways to optimize your carbohydrate intake during rides is to think about your hydration and your energy needs separately. While you need to drink fluids to stay hydrated, hydration needs can change based on the environment, duration, and intensity of the ride. Carbohydrate needs will generally stay between 30 to 60 grams per hour for most riders during most types of efforts. Different types of sports drinks have varying levels of carbohydrates, therefore it’s important to pay attention to how many grams of carbs per hour you’re getting in a particular product depending on how much you’re drinking. A simple solution is to drink water or an electrolyte drink based on your fluid needs and eat light, digestible snacks like fig bars, dried fruit, and bananas, or sports nutrition supplements, or both to satisfy your calorie needs. If you’re drinking only water, you’d want to get your electrolytes from sports chews or gels.
Cycling Nutrition for Various Ride Lengths
- Short Rides (1 hour or less): Primary concern is fluid replenishment. Drink plain water or a low-carb, electrolyte hydration drink. Most people start with enough stored energy for a 60-minute workout, but carry a banana just in case you’re out longer than expected or you start to fade.
- Medium-Length Rides (1 to 3 hours): Primary concern is fluid and carbohydrate replenishment (30 to 60 grams per hour). Drink 2 bottles of electrolyte drinks, with 0 to 60 grams of carbs per bottle. Consume 0 to 60 grams of carbs per hour from food, depending on the carbohydrate content of your drinks.
- Long Rides (3 hours or more): Primary concern is fluid, electrolyte, and carbohydrate replenishment (30 to 60 grams per hour); food boredom or palate fatigue. Drink about 1 bottle of water or electrolyte drink per hour, with 0 to 60 grams of carbs per bottle. Consume 30 to 60 grams of carbs per hour total, including carbs from your drinks.