Fat content should be kept to a minimum in order to keep gut residue low, and low fibre is also desirable – you don’t want to be looking for a toilet halfway through your ride. Having a long event coming up isn’t an excuse to reach for the biscuit tin. The idea behind carb-loading is to top up your fuel reserves ahead of your ride (Pic: Science in Sport) How do I carb load? The process of fueling should start around 48 hours before the start of your ride, with a slow build-up to ensure that you don’t become bloated and sluggish. However, you only need to consider carb loading if your target event is longer than 90 minutes, and even then you may only want to consider altering your diet if you are targeting a significant ride in your diary. That’s why during a long ride you need to keep your energy reserves topped up with food, gels and bars. Our muscles will naturally hold enough energy to fuel us for around 90 minutes of exercise, after which you risk running out or energy – hitting the wall or ‘bonking’. It may not help you ride faster, but it will give you a bigger store of energy to initially draw upon (before you need to top up your supplies) and by increasing stores of glycogen, it’s estimated that endurance performance can be boosted by 2-3 per cent. The idea, then, is that by boosting the amount of glycogen you have stored in the build-up to a major event, you’ll boost the amount of fuel available to your muscles. As cycling for the same amount of time will need about roughly 400kcal, your next source of fuel is muscle glycogen. You can comfortably process around 60g of carbohydrate per hour (that’s why 60g is often used as a guideline for how much carbohydrate you should consume per hour during a big ride), which equates to approximately 240kcal.
Your body can also draw energy from your fat reserves, but glycogen is the most easily accessible source, particularly when you’re riding hard. The purpose of carb loading is to maximise stores of your muscles’ primary energy store, glycogen. Carb loading involves more than just tucking into a bowl of pasta the night before your sportive or race (Pic: Luca Nebuloni via Creative Commons) What is carb loading?