Massapequa Park Bicycle Club

THE MASSAPEQUA PARK BICYCLE CLUB is the oldest active bicycle club on Long Island. We are bike enthusiasts and friends who love cycling, as well as lots of eating and hanging out.

The club advocates for the cycling community and we give back to the community in the way of scholarships, Bikes for Kids, and raising money for Long Island charities.

This highlight section was taken from their webinar with Matt.

What’s the first thing we can do?

• Proper hydration + electrolyte strategy. If you are failing to hydrate then most of the fueling is going to go out the window.
• When moderately warm out, we’re sweating about a Liter an Hour. The “bottle an hour” rule is actually a helpful one in this case.
• Know your sweat rate and tendency to be thirsty. The sodium need can range from 600-1200mg an hour for athletes depending on individual needs. While most sports drinks are 400-600mg, you can begin to see the picture.

How do we moderate hydration depending on temperature?

• Below 60ºf, you can probably afford to drink a little less. However, for example in the 60º-75ºf range you may not feel like you need that much hydration but you are still perspiring a significant amount.
• In general, we don’t face a risk of “over-hydrating” while training on the bike so erring on the higher side, when in doubt, is better.

What is a safe –or reasonable– amount of weight to lose while riding in warm conditions?

• You should be totally safe to lose a lb an hour.
• In the Tour, the guys can lose up to 8lbs over the course of a race. While we’d prefer that be lower, it goes to show that it’s okay to be losing some while racing.

The History of The Feed Fueling Strategy

• It’s the Tour de France in mid-2000s. The riders were becoming sick on the bike and not eating enough carbs. They would push and push to take on glucose, become tired of it, and then become dehydrated because they weren’t drinking.
• Bring in Stacy Simms and Allen Lim...they were critical in fixing this problem for high performing athletes. They worked to develop ways to take on (previously thought...) hyper-amounts of carbohydrates while training.
• Maurten comes onto the scene and changes the game. Eluid Kipchoge was proof of the first bit of application with this method. During his marathon record in Berlin, he took on 14 gels in 2hrs.
• Now, we are aiming to fuel training “high” to get the most load out of it, while improving recovery and minimizing the urge to binge eat off the bike.

Carbs Not Calories

• A fit, but not elite athlete, is burning somewhere around 3g of carbs/min – this is around 180g/carb an hour. There is no way we can replenish or match that.
• Regardless of gender or size, this goal is not relative to body mass.
• When you get fitter you actually burn less carbs you burn because you become more metabolically flexible (burning fat for wider range of effort)
• Goal: 80g/carb per hour. Where a gel is normally ~20g, that’s 4 gels an hour or 2 packs of chews.
• This is where putting carbs in the bottle (liquid form) comes into play. For example, Maurten offers either a 40 or 80g drink mix that helps provide the extra bump needed to get us to that goal.

Performance Boosters

Caffeine

• Sports most effective performance enhancer. It works...but our understanding of the needed amount has been botched.
• The clinically proven amount that we should aim for though, however, is around 300-400mg. That’s a lot.
• Stage this over time, as it lasts awhile, and you won’t want to impair sleep if taking it later in the day.

Nitric Oxide

• A supplement that encourages dilation of the arteries and blood vessels
• This means more blood being transported and recycled and thus, longer time to anaerobic effort.
• SwissRX Nitric Oxide and Sur AltRed are the best options.

Ketones

• Check this article for the reasoning behind the newest top-level performance supplement.