What is the best pre-ride food for cycling?

What you eat significantly impacts your bike riding performance, so we asked Sports Dietician Rebecca Hay to share some insights. Over to you, Rebecca…

Every person is different, so you need to experiment and decide what works for you.

Should I eat before training? A very common question among cyclists. The answer depends on a few factors:

• What are you planning to do?
• What do you want to get out of your session?
• The duration of your training session.

You can apply some very simple rules based on the planned intensity and duration of the activity. Even if you exercise with weight reduction as one of your goals, you will find you train better if you have a little fuel onboard before an intense training session.

For safety reasons on a bike, I also advise that if you are riding first thing in the morning, you consume something so that you can concentrate and react quickly if necessary.

You may need to try a few different ways to get the energy in—solid or liquid form. Eating early in the morning can be very challenging, so using a liquid may be the easiest option. Make sure that there is not too much fibre or protein to speed up absorption time. You want the liquid or food to leave your belly pretty quickly if you are working with a short time frame between eating/drinking and riding.

Some of the easiest options are the pre-packaged breakfast drinks like ‘Up and Go’ or Sustagen. A glass of milk is also a quick and easy option, not too rich/heavy, and no fibre. If you don’t mind eating solid food, then the humble banana or some toast with jam or honey is a great choice.

Longer rides may require a larger snack. I often suggest a drink (as above) and some sort of simple solid, such as toast/crumpets/pikelets, as an addition.  A bowl of breakfast cereal can also be a good choice – a couple of WeetBix or a bowl of Special K…just keep it simple.

You can learn more about Rebecca on her website.