Sugar free biking

[OakLeaf]

I did my first tour with no refined sugar. Two weeks, mostly 60-80 mile days, sometimes pretty hilly.

I was solo and rode slooooow. It was fine with me and there was no one else to complain about the pace.

Trail mix on the road, hot cereal for breakfast, dehydrated bean and grain dinners. I was also some 30# overweight and riding slowly enough to burn through fat stores. I lost a LOT of weight on that tour.

But I was a lot younger then. I don't know whether I truly need nutrition during a ride more now than I did then, or whether it's just that I'm both riding harder and that I'm more aware of my body. I certainly don't get hungry during a ride, nor have I ever bonked (although I do get dehydrated and/or hyponatremic pretty easily) - I just run out of energy and my muscles hurt.


ETA: How refined do you consider "refined?" In lieu of gels on my long runs, I've been using three parts brown rice syrup to one part blackstrap molasses and a pinch of salt, and water to thin it. There's a good amount of complex carbs (although not as much as in commercial preparations, obviously), a gram or two of protein, the molasses adds minerals (other than sodium) out the wazoo, and with the right brand of rice syrup it actually tastes pretty decent. I prefer the taste of Lundberg - although as a company and a product I really prefer Eden, their rice syrup is just too bitter for me. That's all probably too heavy to carry on a long tour. Although as a complete newcomer to touring, I did carry a lot of liquids that time, that I really could've left home .


Edit again: Have you experienced sugar crashes during exercise before? I'm prone to them when I'm being sedentary (and have been since before that tour), but one sure way for me to avoid them is to exercise. Really, my activity level and mental stress level are a MUCH better predictor of whether I'll experience a sugar crash, than my food intake. Are you sure you're not worrying for nothing?