The Anticipation…

Posted by on Aug 31, 2005 in Uncategorized | No Comments

…is killing me. I *should* have my new 29er Thursday. My evening is all booked though. I should say that my wife’s evening is booked, which means I’ll have to stay home with the kiddies. That is fine. I like staying home with the kids. But on the first day that I have a new bike it may be a little “distracting”. I wonder if I can put them in the back yard and do laps around the neighborhood…? Maybe I will go on a night ride. I need to get a couple in before next week. Isn’t there some bike riding taboo about a virgin ride in the dark?

Regardless, check here for pictures of the new ride. Hopefully I have you all saying “shocks…pegs….LUCKY!”

Now on to important things. I put my PowerBar PowerGel in my water bottle today. It was awful. It tasted like some sort of bad banana smoothie that had been left in the sun. I like the idea of this though. The gels are to pasty, to sweet to consume in high volume on a long ride. This method could be a better way to get the stuff from them. So, what is the trick? 2 gels in a bottle? Eat them as intended from the pouch? Or…I could just go with what I have done in the past. That is carry a gel or two with me for “emergency bonk deflection”, and use other things such as dried fruits, candy, and liquids liquids liquids to get my carb needs. I find that I am not to big on solids after a few hours on the bike. But I am planning on eating smaller quantities more often. Grab a bite of a bar here, a handful of dried apples there, and so on.

Eating during an endurance event can be a tricky game to master. Some rides I crave salts, some days sugars, others days, like this year’s Brianhead Epic 100, well that day I craved nothing and it was the worst bonk of my life. In a lap format event, like a 24 Hour race, I recomend having a bit of everything. In the weeks leading up to the event test out foods that you want to have on hand. Find out what tastes good to you, what sits well in your stomach, etc.

Someday someone will invent a pill or a paste or a drink that is all things to all people, and that guy will be rich and famous. But in the meantime we have to do the work discovering what does and doesn’t work for us during the long efforts on the bike.

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