Three Essentials to Fueling Multi-Day Efforts

A performance dietitian’s 3 essential tips for fueling multi-day efforts 

By Uriell Carlson, RDN 

Five consecutive days of riding, just under 200 miles, with 16,000 feet of climbing, in the heat of Mexico…and I was feeling wildly unprepared. Not so much because this was my first-ever bike packing trip or even that I had only just committed with a “might as well” attitude at the end of September, only 8 weeks out from the trip, but more so because I had no plans and little opportunity to be on my bike and do any sort of training before this trip. With a solo trip back east to visit family with my toddle, running my own business, the sporadic weather of fall at home in Breckenridge, and two weeks on the road in November, my fall was shaping up to be a season of my life in which bike time was looking limited. Except for this trip, which is what made it all the more important! Fortunately for me, there was one thing I knew I could control to set myself up better than anyone: how and what I fueled my body with for this multi-day adventure 

If you’re not familiar with me, my name is Uri Carlson. I’ve been a dietitian for the last 10 years and my niche is performance nutrition. If I can’t train optimally, I can always fuel optimally. That is my superpower.

So, whether you’re like me and find yourself winging it for the sake of the experience or if you’re a multi-day effort regular, I’m going to share my top nutrition strategies for multi-day bike trips. These are the controllables that I found to be the most important factors to keep me happy and it all allowed me to never truly feel so depleted that I wasn’t able enjoy the fact that I was riding my bike through (and up and over) the incredible mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico 

First, carbohydrate loading can make a huge difference. 

What this means is that you can and should eat significantly more carbohydrates than you usually do in the 1-3 days leading up to a long and/or hard effort. An easy way to think of it is to aim to add an additional serving or source of carbohydrates to most meals and snacks you consume in a day. For example, add an extra scoop of rice to your burrito bowl, have a cookie after lunch, or grab a pastry and coffee as an afternoon snack. Instead of the old way of thinking that had you stuff yourself with an extra large plate of pasta the night before, add in smaller amounts of carbs over more consistent eating opportunities on a daily basis, without stuffing yourself uncomfortably.

Pic above: Boulenc Pan y Cafe was our favorite spot in Oaxaca to carb load and stock up on day 1 ride fuel. 

 

Now, once you’ve started your ride, fuel variety can make or break your day as well as your entire experience. 

During a multi-day effort, we’re often riding through meal time, which means at least one or multiple meals per day may be replaced with the more typical “ride fuel” such as bars, liquid calories, etc. Add that to the fact that you’re skipping opportunities to get in a larger amount of calories while also burning more calories than average per day and this will quickly catch up to you if you don’t stay on top of it. 

Because of this, take opportunities to eat meals at least multiple times per day. We made sure to have a hearty breakfast if we were staying in town, or we would have a small breakfast at camp and then plan to get a second breakfast or early lunch in as soon as possible after that. Since breakfast and lunch both happen before or in the middle of a day of riding, aim for smaller amounts of protein and fiber and go higher on the carbs. This is because too much protein and fiber will make you feel like you have a brick in your stomach if you start riding again soon after. Instead, allow space for more of that for the end of each day. Fortunately, in Oaxaca, the staples of tortillas with beans and a bit of protein were perfect for this. I’m not usually a soda drinker, but I found that a can of Coke during our mid-day meals was an amazing way to add in some easy-to-digest calories and replenish my energy before the second half of our day! These mid-day meals were also when we often ordered seconds to provide us with some hearty snacks for the rest of the day or to serve as dinner at camp.

Pic above: a bottle of coke with a tortilla, beans + a small amount of protein was our staple mid-day meal. Notice the bagged extra portion to serve as fuel for later. 

 

Pic above: this afternoon re-fuel of taquitos dipped in a small bag of salsa + wafer cookies, while sitting on a ledge overlooking a tiny mountain town was, arguably, one of the best meals I’ve ever had. 

 

In terms of ride fuel, my goal was to stock up often and grab whatever sounded good! We ended up with a combo of taquitos, bananas, cookies, candy and chips. Wherever you go, always make sure to have at least one savory option at all times because when you’re riding all day for multiple days flavor fatigue is a big factor! 

Pic above: savory chips are always a win! 

Pic above: gummies and cookies were always present and the goal was to eat them consistently! 

 

Third, hydration is a game changer. 

The one thing I did not leave to the fate of the small tiendas was my electrolyte intake plan for the day and I think this should be a strong consideration for everyone. My rule of thumb is that, anytime you’re sweating, you should be drinking electrolytes instead of pure water. This is because, when you sweat, you lose electrolytes in your sweat. If you’re only drinking water, you’re watering down the electrolytes that still exist while also not replacing the ones you’re losing. Double whammy.

This matters because, if you find yourself dehydrated, even to a small degree, your performance declines very quickly. Plus, I knew it would be much easier to find food than it would the right kind of electrolytes. As someone who lives at 9,600 feet in a very dry climate that doesn’t often get above 75F in the summer, I knew that my sweat rate would be significantly higher in Oaxaca, especially as we neared the coast’s heat and humidity. Because of that, I planned accordingly by bringing more electrolytes than I usually would. Both of us felt great with 4 single-serve packets of Skratch Labs Sport Hydration per day. It doesn’t matter what electrolytes you use as long as you’ve vetted them beforehand to make sure you like them and that they work for you.

Pic above: we filled our water by buying large garrafones to refill bladders and then added electrolytes to our more readily available bottles 

 

CLOSURE: 

As a dietitian who works with mostly female athletes, there’s one thing that bums me out. And that is, that we have been taught to think that, in order to be fast and strong we need less calories. That small is fast instead of that fueled is fast. I want more women to know that fueling with enough food can be their superpower and that, no, they don’t just need to train more or harder to feel good on the bike. Turns out that fueled is also the most fun! 

If you have any questions about the route we took from Oaxaca to the coast or the nutrition content in this piece, please don’t hesitate to send me a DM on Instagram. @uri_carlson or via my website, innerwildnutrition.com. 

Lastly, special thanks to my Juliana Wilder that got me through this amazing trip. As someone who is used to the 160mm Roubion as my go-to bike, I wasn’t sure what to expect on the Wilder. I’m also not lying when I say that I was amazed by its capability, both as a trail bike and a bike packing rig. Fully loaded, our bikes were heavy and we rode some really tough, rutted roads that the Wilder handled beautifully. The only adjustment I made was adding an extra 20 PSI to my shock and fork, with more in my tires as well. My body had not been on a bike for any extended period of time, let alone consecutive days in a long time, but I stayed comfortable and I was endlessly grateful to have an incredibly capable bike with just enough travel to make the rough, rutted roads enjoyable.