Video: How Do Enduro Pros Fuel Up For Race Day?

 Fat is easy to burn so not bad. When I was a teen playing sports it seemed like having a big pasta dinner the night before actually made a difference the next day.

 @friendlyfoe: Most people associate pasta with carbs. Dietary fat is harder to burn than protein, which is harder to burn than carbs.

 Well, don't sum it up with "BS" and that's it, I guess it depends on the context, also AFAIK it's not so much about carbs or no carbs, but about high carbs or low carbs, and when to ingest which.
If you're a rider looking to go fast, you need carbs, as you'll burn 'em straightaway. But although you may need high glycemic carbs just before and during the activity, low glycemic carbs are better the day before and after the race.
If you're a 9 to 5er commuting by car, you don't need carbs, you don't need much fat either, but high glycemic index carbs will make you fat, diabetic, etc...

I wonder though to which extent an athlet high carbs diet may come around as a payback when you retire. If your body got used to burning a lot of high glycemic carbs for years, then you more or less stop high intensity activites, you may turn fat in no time.

 @Will-narayan: Agreed best would be to stay clear of high glycemic stuff unless you really know what you're doing. Funnily enough though I thought the best purpose for the high glycemic carbs were directly after exercise to repair the body (which does take energy). Seems to me that if you take high glycemic carbs just before or during exercise you trick the body "thinking" there is more to come. It would be like there were a second captain on the ship and you're more fighting the body than working with it.

That said, I don't ride such long days at such a level. But after an early morning session (mtb, muni or just running) before breakfast I typically stink of the proteins I've been burning. Beyond a certain intensity level you just can't perform on fats only. And with a lack of carbohydrates you're going to burn proteins. It doesn't bother me, but I know there are people who try to avoid this.

 My cross country team had a huge spaghetti meal before every race the next day. Ran my best 5k the first I went to a dinner.@friendlyfoe:

 EAT MORE

 @xphysnerd low fat, high fat, low carb, whatever is a discussion for folks who have no fkng clue what they are doing. Same with morons who either want to take 200g of protein a day when training for bike riding or those who claim that humans eat too much protein. Some people need a psychologist in the first place, then a nutritionist

 @vinay: Yes I said low carbs after an activity but don't take what I say for granted, this seems to be a pretty complicated subject, depends on age also to some degree.
I was mostly saying to not sum it up as "BS" as high carbs seem to really have a bad impact on the average dude turning obese, IIRC high carbs trigger the insuline production which then tells the body to stock fat. So basically you may possibly stock more fat by eating high carbs than by eating fat.

Someone who spent a stage in a roadbike car told me that the riders eat a lot throughout the whole stage.
If you eat high carbs and burn them straightaway on an enduro race, I guess it's ok (considering you know how to avoid hypoglycemia), but if you just sit on the couch, it is not.

 @Will-narayan: saying that high carb diet promotes hipoglycemia is a pure moronity. Whoever says that is an ahole. There is a giant difference between someone living a sedientary lifestyle, drinking 2L of coke a day, eating sweets after every meal, often rich in refined carbs eaten with high fat meats, AND someone who pretty much comes even with his caloric intake/ expenditure using carbs of any kind as his main fuel source. Giant difference. Folks who race road eill eat ANYTHING considering they easily burn 4000(!) calories per race. Then they rarely sprint during races so they do not need fast carbs as much unlike Enduro racers who need pure energy for the stage runs, and may do well with cashew nuts for liaisons. They still need to eat “Meals” since they race all day. XC Racers do not need that.

The worst bunch of anti carb aholes are found in Marathon and Body Building circles. People who don’t really need carbs because they DO NOT need to perform. They just exercise and eventually train. There is a difference between performance, training and exercise. Sprints and lifting weights (like bunnhyopping which effectively is a form of a power clean) are tougher on your body than even pace and body will crave the best fuel available to recover. Fats are not the best fuel. They are slow burning oil, while you need high octane gasoline for MTB

 @Will-narayan: There are a few Tour riders that got big after their careers ended

 @Will-narayan: spot on.... diet for athletes .......its complicated , and full of contradictions.....hands up..... i'm on a high fat/low carb diet, yet sitting 3rd overall in the scottish enduro sereis in elite at 40yrs old!. high fat doesn't mean stuffing your face with greasy bacon and eating pork rinds. Nor does no carbs mean no carbs.

I eat more vegatables in a day than most folk do in a week, but i don't eat rice, potato, bread or pasta (you don't need to ask about cake or biscuits) I also eat pretty much zero fruit other than avacados and bananas. essentially for every fruit, you can eat a vegetable for the same nutrients minus the sugar and get more fibre. its just a different way of doing things. high fat for me is full fat milk, butter, yoghurt, dark chocoalate (80%+), nuts cheese, meat etc......basically i eat food that hasn't been fukked around with.

my gym work is all super explosive HIIT stuff no longer than 20 mins.... i can assure you i have plenty of energy for it. But My rides can be up to 7 hrs ..typically 4hrs...... i don't normally need to take much food other than a bag of nuts . I've also not been ill in 3 yrs now since coming off the white carbs, no colds, no sore throats, no coughs,no cold sores,no runny noses.......nada! and i lost 3 stone in weight in 6 months (but that probably has more to do with reducing calories and doing HIIT traiining) ....

......... however,...... i admit i don't race like that. whilst i feel good on low carbs, on race day I do have a carb breakfast with porridge and fruit and of course an energy drink with me for the race. The reason for this is the science behind high fat diets..... (i aint no scientist...so shoot me down in flames if you know me to be wrong) once the body goes into a relatively ketogenic state (taking its energy from fat rather than glycogen) it means that you burn energy more efficiently and get tired a lot less easily. only when you go explosive does your body take the energy from the glycogen stores, after which you go back to taking it from the fat stores. if you are not ketogenic and have a typically high carb diet, you will always tap from your glycogen stores the moment you start exercising regardless of explosiveness or not, meaning you will always drain your glycogen stores unless you top it up continually..... which I don't need to do, as my body takes from fat stores normally.....

.....think of it like this. If i go at 80% for 1hr i will still have glycogen stores to sprint the last 30secs at full bore. however a normal high carb diet wont allow that as all the glycogen stores will have been used up in the first minute of riding at the 80% pace......hence the continual need to refuel. but when you consider you can only take on about 60gms carbs an hour, (Theoretically 90 for 2:1 fructose mixes) and nothing gets stored as its getting used all the time...that's a shit ton of gels and sugars going into the stomach to make you feel sick......but keep you explosive. yes of course a typical high carbs diets works but so does a high fat diet.........just in a different way.... i just need to eat less carbs to stay explosive all day

bottom line......do what keeps you sane and happy. and that in a skilled sport.......its skills that pays the bills more than the way you eat .

 @forkbrayker: the issue is that for top guys it does not matter since their caloric expenditure during a race and probably even during the whole racing season, is so high that they can eat whatever they want. You at your level are fully allowed to do certain level of trendy stuff. The trouble is folks deep down the “food chain” who read bollocks of some self proclaimed experts posting oica of abs on their instagram profiles and sabotage their already non optimal training programs.

I personally stay away from bread and pasta during the day because it puts me into semi coma and lowers my ability to train afterwards. It just feels like digesting it is yet another world out for my body. BUT! I feel similar about eating too much greens, my body just won’t take the overload of that stuff, like 3 salad days in a row. Buuuut I can also easily eat my wifes Pizza in the evenening, no problem about that. I sleep like a happy child afterwards.

It takes time and a few attempts at trendy sht to figure out what works for you. But treat yourself as a laboratory, check stuff, don’t just read some a*sholes online.

 Wow, there is some cluelessness and bro-science going on here!

 It's not even worth replying to everyone's posts since it is clear that most people have never taken a metabolism course and are brainwashed by BS.

First, it is very well established that low carb is bad for athletes (physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1113/JP273830).

Second, nearly the only time carbs alone are a bad choice is within an hour of the start of a race (risk of hypoglycemia). Hours before the race, or after the race begins, carb away.

Third, the glycemic load of your food day/night before a race is essentially irrelevant since your body will maximize muscle amd liver glycogen (carb) stores as long as total calories and total carbs are adequate.

Fourth, your rate of muscle/liver glycogen (carb) repetition is maximized when you mix carb sources (sucrose ,dextrose, fructose, etc). This is the most critical aspect of performance for these types of athletes, since they should be very low on muscle glycogen (carbs) at the end of every stage.

Last, seriously, use Google Scholar and stop believing people who are trying to sell you something.

 @forkbrayker: Probably the best explanation I've heard for a keto diet. Well done sir.
Totally agree with you, go keto, but on race day get quick carbs that you know will burn fast for the first push and the fat stores will kick in to support you far better than having restore glycogen every hours.

 @mountainbikerfisher: It doesn't work that way. If you are typically low carb, you won't have the enzyme concentrations necessary to rapidly utilize carbs when you need to. You can't just live 1% of your life high carb and expect your body to behave as if you had been training on high carbs the whole time.

 @mountainbikerfisher: Here is a case study that suggests your idea doesn't work.

europepmc.org/abstract/med/30160554

 There is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate, not even fiber is essential, there is however; essential amino acids and essential fatty acids, essential means you have to eat them, non essential means you don't. The fundamental laws of dietary nutrition are your friend. Also, these same riders could do near similar performances on the same day/conditions fasted if they chose to. It takes many biological processes for the food you eat to become usable energy. If your eating properly in accordance to your uniquely individual biology then you dont need to "fuel up" before race day, only refuel after.

 @Y12Sentinel: Have you read any of the articles I posted? 'Essential' is in reference to its requirement for survival, not peak performance. It's dangerous to be confident on a topic when you are clearly just regurgitating bro-science you have heard fitness gurus without a degree in nutrition or exercise science say.

 @mountainbikerfisher: keto diet for mountain biking, actual mountain biking like riding around Finale ligure. Well done indeed. Holy sht.

@xphysnerd Without saying that anything you said is wrong, in fact it corellates with my belief system, I know 3 graduated personal coaches and 2 graduated nutritionists. One of them claims deadlifts are useless, another one drives functional movement and yoga classes, and yet another one surely sold a nutrition program to @mountainbikerfisher. He may have problems with delivering power from each pedal stroke but he can surely last long. Same nutritionist claims humans eat too much protein. As to youtube, you can’t assume that everyone is watching Kali muscles. Sorry, bro science or estrogen driven science, I don’t really care, in both cases it is hard to separate good stuff from the weeds. I think you should check out “ask rip” on scientific journals. What I like about him is that both supplement whores and academia hate him equally.

i will now go and perform 5 sets of 5 that so many scientists have proven not optimal if not entirely wrong. I will also not follow it with 3h of volume training under 140 BPM in the evening. It’s all about incremental losses, enjoying the journey.

 Also 99% of folks quoting "scientific data" on ketons, fructose, vegan diet, BCAA, paleo, time restricted eating, please read the f*ck who or what was tested in their research. When they mention "athletes" please check what sort of "athletes" did they check. Was it Wendy from Starting Strength? Jeb from Planet Fitness? Cory from college football team? Or Milo who they met at Taco Bell as 5 employees were helping him to stand up. More often than not the data is collected by PhDs in the middle of their first midlife crisis on people they know from Star Wars collectors club. Then they consistently check folks with food disorders and apply it to normal people. Oh Bill does lots of fructose, it's bad for everybody, they forgot to mention he consumes 200g of it a day! Aside of tons of other shit! Meanwhile Jeremiah from vegan club went keto because he got scared he will die after eating his first Snickers bar since 3 months!!!

Even Dr Rhonda Patrick who is a damn legit scientist, I read her papers on Time Restricted Eating, it's done on average Joes and Mice. She and here colleague Dr Sanchin Panda (straigth face) says people who eat within 12 hour window lose weight and people who eat within 16 hour window gain muscle! Oh no fkng shit!!! Are these power lifters? endurance athletes doing 15h+ ? ummm NOOOOO. If you don't exercise, and suddenly get on some routine cuz some doctor asks you to then yeah, you will get gains. from ANYTHING. Like crossfitters. So much gains, steep gaining curve. Then they get injured.

So if somebody gets anxiety attack over eating a flap jack on a MTB ride, please go F yourself...

 @xphysnerd: Essential means your body cant make it. Also that was an inconclusive study. Nice try. Its you who are far too confident.

 Auger is the devil . Keto all the way

 @WAKIdesigns: .............LOL.... cheers, thats the funniest thing i've see/read all day. and despite me being on my trendy diet, i actually 100% agree with what you wrote there..... and you SO should have typed that whole "99% of folks" reply in capital letters..... as i can totally imagine you shouting as you typed that....... out of interest who's the 1% that dont need to check the research data?

I'm researching on my self, thought i would try something different to the previous 35 yrs of gaining weight and eating refined sugars, and processed foods (with loads of bike riding and sports in the mix)..... i feel great , don't get any energy lows during the day, and i lost weight and gained muscle. The 2 big changes are cutting out refined sugars/carbs and taking my gym sessions from 1 hour of 50-60% intesity to 20 mins of 100% intensity. sports nutrional science is complicated, sure if i eat high carbs i'll probably be able to output 900watts on the rower instead of 850watts, i might be 0.5 secs quicker on a 20 sec sprint......... but on a 20 min trail not entirely sure how my 0.5secs is really gonna help me, when i could just learn how to ride smoother and spend less energy maxing out wattages on every corner exit.

i dont think i'm right and everyones wrong, but nor do i think i'm wrong and everyone else is right. its a far from black and white world. I have very little biology science in my brain, so can't go quoting PHD articles, but like most folk i can make a semi educated decision from reading scores of laymans articles to try something and see if it works, i dont think swapping from weird yellow looking liquid plastic margarine to natural full fat butter is going to kill me off. but I'll be sure to let you know when i get me cholestrol checked though please keep cutting through the BS, Waki, as you are a breath of fresh air in this brave new world

 EPO for the win!

 @Will-narayan: this new article suggests that overall health is typically best when you are somewhere in the middle. Highest risk of death with low carb, lowest risk of death with 50% of energy coming from carbs, and slightly higher risk of death with high carbs.

www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(1 30135-X/fulltext

 @xphysnerd: overall helath is best when you keep your energetic balance and metabolism in check. That takes some skill and commitment. Unfortunately for some it is way too much. I have a “student” at work. All he talks about is how he doesn’t want to look (like a body builder or powerlifter) than he just wants to be lean, but he sees calorie counting as something extreme. He shows me pics of big dudes who have trained for years and is affraid he is on the way there after a month... He wants to build muscle and loose weight Zzz...

@forkbrayker - everyone should be on something trendy. It means you commit to something. Just don’t stuff it up anyone’s butt as the ulmtimate truth, which you don’t seem to be doing.

 @xphysnerd: Ok.
Well, just to clarify, what I "know" about this comes from reading a 40p study couple years ago, by a doctor or scientist who seemed rather knowledgeable, but I don't remember his name. I don't know if he's respectable or if he's just trying to sell things.
But he was NOT against carbs, he was trying to find out and explain what was wrong in the westerner diet. The 40p study detailed how white/refined carbs are way too "pure" for the body. Basically how a small quantity of processed food contains as much carbs as a whole meal from natural food, so how we eat 3, 4 or more times as much carbs than we need, and how the body assimilates it fast compared to carbs contained in a fruit.
There may be as much carbs in a glass of orange juice than in an orange, but your body will assimilate the glass way quicker than if you eat the whole orange.
He was also explaining how we were hunter/gatherer back then which led our body too get as much energy from everything we found, cuz' there were times were we found nothing, which still happens when you eat throughout the day (soda, snacks, icecream, etc), basically training your body to constantly stock carbs.
Well I can't sum up 40 p^^

Well basically the problem is not so much about carbs than about sugar (I mean, on food products, you have the fat/carbs/protein values, but along with carbs you also have the sugar value which are specifically high carbs I guess, I don't know I'm French so the words may be different^^)

Ingesting 30g of carbs from rice is totally different from ingesting 30g of sugar from snacks.

 @Will-narayan: , i agree with this whole heartedly. just to be a boring fukk my typical daily diet is this

breakfast -
6 scrambled eggs with whole milk
glass of beetroot juice with iron tablet + glucosamine tablet

10am
full fat yoghurt + banana

lunch
any fish or meat in a mayo mix with a hearty salad of spinach, red cabbage, cherry tomatoes, carrot, red onion, peppers, beetroot buttrenut squash etc etc etc, different flavours every day and about 5 different veggies

dinner -
any typical dinner from steak to casserole to roast chicken with various veggies mushrroms, spinach, parsnips, onions chillies, green beens and pulses etc etc + a vitamin c drink

evening snack
full fat cottage cheese+pineapple with peanut butter

and the typical consumption of water throughout the day

if im riding add in 4:1 high5 mix and bag of nuts with dark chocolate

if im gym traiining or done a proper hard bike ride (either very long epics or intesive sprint sessions) add in a protein shake after wards

if i'm fealing weak willed i snack on nuts, and peanut butter

if i'm racing my breakfast will add on porridge with honey and peanut butter (and maybe a few M+Ms chucked in too lol) and my yoghurt gets a nut mix added in too

i will eat home baked goodies as a treat, but shop bought cakes are crap.

i have found that anything processed now tastes of shit to me. and anything with refined sugars is ok to taste but to eat is rank as its just far too sweet.


technically speaking its a high fat diet....... round about 2500 calories, small amount of energy derived from low GI carbs in the form of veggies, large amount of energy derived from fats via nuts, avocados, whole dairy products and animal fats. large amount of proteins for my body weight derived from meats and nuts. its not the sasauge and bacon diet with butter in your coffee that everyone seems to think a high fat diet is.

going pure ketogenic is nigh on impossible (zero carbs) even meat has carbs in it. as i understand it the body needs 50gm carb a day to let the brain function...... the brains source of fuel is......glucose. going pure ketogenic is a bad idea, but in my view going some way there that suits your needs is a good idea. just the same as the brain and muscle functions needing glucose and other sugars doesnt mean you go wholly carb either with no fats for the body to stabilise metabolisms

As i hope most folk know, different carbs have different effects on the body at different times of the day. eating a snickers before or after excercise is fine, and also necessary if you are feeling light in the head. eating that snickers and can of coke just before you go to bed..... well.... yer a fud if you do that.

now as @WAKIdesigns has intimated....body builders who have impressive looking bodies are not interested in performance. i have a pal who is a scottish body building champion.... come competition week he is like something out of a cartoon, bulging muscles and popping veins, but can't work for more than 10 mins without getting dizzy. he tells me his gym capability is half what it is when hes in the bulking up phase. utter fukking madness in my opinion. the only sport in existance whereby you are at your weakest in competition day. what waki also intimated was a mantra i hold dearly regarding performance gains

the couch potato with shit diet
100% gains by leaving the sofa and doing excercise
50% gains by following a training plan with recovery etc
25% gains by eating healthily (as in a normal healthy non trendy diet)
10 % gains by flollowing a nutrional plan tailored to their sport
5% gains by taking supplements for vitamins etc
2% gains by taking boosters like pre workout drinks etc
1% gains by taking banned substances

never ever think you will double your endurance, strength and power by taking the banned substances..... they'll only help you 1 % if you put all the healthy hearty hard work in before that.....by which point you are really really taking the piss out of your self and trashing all the good work you already did.

sorry to bash on..but final commetn to @xphysnerd i think you are right in some respects and i think your anger is rightfully directed to folk pushing a 100% ketogenic diet. i can't argue against some of the things you wrote asi dont have any scientific background. but the link you put in -

physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1113/JP273830

is highly flawed in what we are arguing about - i imagine the subject was on a 100% ketogenic diet.....meaning no greens and associated fibres, mineral and vitamins, no carb for the brain etc etc. its also on one person only and would be chucked out of any research analysing for being conducted over too short a period , to few a subject and no detail on quantifying "worst ever result" is his worst ever result a position in race after going from winning regional events to coming 10th in national events ?, or an actual time... is it a 1min drop in his typical times or a 1 hour drop - was it windy that day or very cold, we just dont know. at best its an anecdotal case study and food for thought.

my experience relayed to everyone that can be arsed reading this is also just an anecdotal case study. but what i know to be true, is how i feel eating my high fat low carb diet. which is good, healthy, strong and energetic. it might not work for you, but it works for me. peace out ....also the icecream vans just arrived in my street nyom nyom nyom

 @xphysnerd: ....sorry...my final post i put the wrong link in....this was the link i meant to put in
europepmc.org/abstract/med/30160554 and i must have skim read it too first time round - my bad.... it does have results in the info....... either way the jury is still out for me on highfat diets and all that shite

 @forkbrayker: Wow, impressive, I surely don't have enough organisation skills to plan any diet :p

But like you I now notice how processed food tastes way too sweet.
I used to put 2 sugars in my tea, then slowly reduced to 0.
I once read that the tongue cells are renewed in about 2 weeks, so if you want to eat less sugar, you've got to hold on as even if it tastes bad at first, in a couple of weeks you'll be used to it.

 @Will-narayan:

yeap... was about 2 weeks for me to start to taste the sweetness in sugarsnap peas and carrots etc...... the first time i tasted beetroot juice i was like "whattheutterf*ck!!!!.... thats just dirty water !" now it tastes as sweet as what orange juice used to taste to me. and coca cola now tastes to me exactly what it is 10 spoons of caramelised refined sugar in a medium glass of water.... rank.

what i do find odd though is that if i have any home baked cakes they tend to taste really good and hard to hold back and not have the entire cake, but if i try a bit of shop bought cake its almost always shit. part of that is a texture thing and the other part is a lack of flavour replaced with just more sugar. in a home made cake i can taste the butter, the salt, the cream, the cocoa , the nuts etc, but shop bought cakes....literally just sugar and the processed add on flavour (lemon, coffee, or whatever).

any way i imagine its just me reading this thread now. s'laters!

 @forkbrayker: i hope your friend is not Dotian Yates hahhaha. Please understand the difference between exercise, training and performance. Then consider types of performance. A body builders performance on their beauty pagent is nowhere close to your on your Enduro competition. He is building muscle like a slow tortoise slowly becoming an overweight tow truck, and then gets dehydrated and goes onto the stage. Now you, have to come to a race venue, rise all day to learn the stages which for 90% of folks competing is draining enough, then race for a day or two. Race. Do the same loop you did the day before but now you have to pin it at 170-200 BPM. 4-6 times. Maybe recover for another go for a yet another day. If your body building friend was about to just complete an Enduro race, he’d probably die.

Bodybuilders of all levels can get results with eating absolutely anything. As long as they eat lots of protein. They can go full vegan keto with 3 hour feeding window.

Marathon runners can run away (pum intended) with slower metabolism, they can also go full on vegan keto. No probs.

For both groups lots of fat is a choice that is extremely convenient, we can put all the holistic, health bullsht aside. Fat and protein are very satiating so they can control their apetite much better. Their cravings are less often and smaller.

Funny how you mention nuts, because for a short up to 2h training ride they do nothing for your energy stores since your body won’t be able digest them before you come home. You may as well eat them 1h before you leave. 2h+? Another story.

Now I see how you simply have a negative response to sugars. Which is more than fine. What I can take from my own experience though is that putting something on hold will simply lower your tolerance for it. I started to be lactose intolerant around 10 years ago and the condition worsens. Since 2 years I have cut lactose intake to almost zero. The result is: if I eat fatty diary product with lactose I am farting my guts out. If I eat lots of whipped cream, I shit myself. Same with pasta. I have nearly eliminated pasta, now everytime I eat pasta I fall into a near coma. If I eat more pasta the tolerance becomes better.

Also sweets... come on man, most of sweets have more fat than sugar. Especially cookies, and chocolate is a no brainer, near pure fat.

It ia fascinating how people come to similar results doing vastly different workouts and eating differently.

Cheers!

 @WAKIdesigns: .... probably just us reading this now and slowly coming to an agreement. my gym training is all high intesity repeat visists to 190bpm (i'm 40 now...long gone are the days when i could hit 200bpm) specifiically designed to improve power, vo2max and recovery times. because I go to that high an intensity they only are for around 20 min sessions.. when i go out on my bike for 1 hr rides, i just have water, when its 2 hr rides an energy drink . when i take nuts and dark chococlate with me its coz i'm riding 3hrs+... most of my rides are 5000ft+ 4-5hrs time . so yes, i agree nuts arent doing much for a 1 hr ride....but i dont need sustanance until i get into 3 hrs anyway so thats when i pack nuts etc...... and eat nuts at the start of my ride.

i think i agree with you on the tolerance thing, its a quite the human thing to happen, tolerance to alcohol, drugs, dairy, wheat, etc.. i'm so dumb i dont think i have an intolerance or allergy to anything, the choice to eat the way i'm eating (look at my boring daily meal plan....you tell me if you think its unhealthy or not geared to wards performance - fast carbs ingested when i need it , fat and protein for rebuild and when i dont need fast energy) is purely that...a choice,

regarding sugar... yes i have an aversion to it......when we talk about super refined sugars found in candys, syrups, and a lot of processed foods...... no of course i dont think i will die if i eat one, nor do it i think i will die if i have single cigarrette, but the the cigarrete does not benefit my health, so same applies to the refined sugars......................

and yes i know chococlate has fat in it... thats why i eat it, plus all the other trendy nutrional values like antioxidants etc ...but its the 80%+ dark chaocolate i eat and enjoy..... typically about 4% sugars compared to a galaxy milk chocolate or cadburys bar at 55% sugars.my body really doesnt need 55g of pure sugar

sweets having more fat in them than sugar is also relative thing.. if i want 50gm of fat i'll eat some peanut butter with only 6 g sugar.....not a cookie with 50 gms of fat and 40 gms sugar, surely thats obvious waki. it actually disgusts me to see sugar put into pretty much any food that has even the slightest amount of processing........ why oh why the fuk has a sausage got sugar added to it, why on earth is there sugar poured into a microwave ready meal of lasagne.... its gone insane in my opinion. because as you have pointed out waki we have the abilty to build up tolerenaces, but just because i've built up a tolerence to alchohol and can drink a bottle of vodka a day sure as hell doesnt mean its good or even fine for me . And thats the way i feel about refined sugars..... yeah fine as treat.....but a treat is just that.... a once in a while thing, not to be had 3 times a day every day every week - thats called "a way of life"

 @forkbrayker: I was repecting your way of life all this time. I would not expect anything less from you than who you wrote. We obviously look for similar effects using different strategies and yours make perfect sense to me even though it is different than mine. However I do stick to strength build up >power build up > performance (actual riding season) sequence and currently I am bulking up, lifting heavy and doing sprints on BMX just to not become a tow truck, keep some agility in. I also use this period for learning "stupid" skills, slaloms, skate park, pump track, dirt jumps, stuff that would feel like waste of time in the season. I don't do long rides because my strength/sprinter body adapts to long distance extremely well. Would love to ride with you one day

Cheers!

 @WAKIdesigns: me too dude, one day hopefully - as long as you dont hate on my lack of style ;-) .... y'know my phone screen background image is one of your drawings i took off the web !! the one with the Trek session, aero farings, and tri spoke wheels - cheers.!!

as we've both agreed we both respect each other way of doing things. i defintiely agrree on the tow truck symbolism. I was a 90kg tow truck at one point, now i'm not exactly light at 80kg but lightest ive ever been since i was 15, my work pattern means i do 4 days gym stuff at my place of work during lunchtime, then have 4 days to ride, rest, not count reps etc, lol, before i'm back at work to start again. pretty much all my gym work is explosive speed and power stuff to keep the legs and arms nimble. but once every 8 days or so i do a heavy(ish) weighted squat day..... i dont want to do less often as i'll struggle to walk the day after, and i dont want to do it more often and turn in to a tow truck again.

the thing i really struggle to do, and i know i should do it is what you've described relating to silly stuff like the bmx park , jumps etc. my biggest strenght is bull dozing through mad bastard rock gardens and very steep terrain, and my biggest weaknesses are corner efficiency and very high speed trails..... some time spent on a bmx track could help with that for sure........but i'm also pretty sure my wife would divorce me if i bought bmx. take care waki. and cheers for you being you!!

 @forkbrayker: some banned substances work remarkably well. My favorite study of all time is this study that shows taking testosterone and not training at all can improve your bench press to a similar extent as training with no additional testosterone (10 week study). The testosterone without any training resulted in a 10 kg (22 pound) improvement in bench and ~20 kg (~44 lb) improvement in squat. They also suggest that testosterone plus training got people stronger than just training alone, but I think that is debatable since their statistical methods could have been better.

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199607043350101?casa_token=Wib4yEKDkIQAAAAA%3ABH5Kqr3BNrx2tEWEDsAUCGGuiEDL5rXwOcDOXUuaKvS7N7nOE_IMH8U47Oz5V-G9cNkDJ93-pUI_

 he sure knows how to build a bike.

 @djm35: Yeah, I always thought energy drinks were shitty, and a bad idea, but they give me like a turbo half hour of energy to really buckle down, and ride my bike. It's a real motivator to feel you have energy, even to just get yourself started.

 Dammit man! Don't go giving companies like the big S ideas. Otherwise it'll be another daft acronym like

"Specialized Competitive Aqua Management" or "Water And Nutritional Knowledge & Education for Riders"

 @Mfro: sneaky! Well done!

 @Mfro: Sorry but was thinking more of getting water sponsors into MTB, BUT you are right? bad idea,
Pinkbike please delete these comments, since delete all my other comments you dont like!

 @Mfro: I never comment on PB but this was gold and deserved a high five.

 @Mfro: Also known as SWATer.

 brita filtered water maybe

 All of 50-01 are sponsored by "Drink Water" which literally is a company focused around shifting pro athletes from energy drinks to promoting water for the sake of getting rid of false marketing.

 I 2nd that.

 classic

 You might be onto something... Gonna give gin a go next post-ride

 Not just Shimano. Hope and SRAM, too.

 Because it's called an olive

 Have you looked at its shape?

 @JamesHandley: I'm probably still scarred from the new bike I got in 1982 for my 8th birthday. My parents thought a banana seat bike would be unique and make it cool. Wrong.

 They are called olives in plumbing too.

 Olive yu Bru

 damn beat me to it, still Sam for the win!!

youtu.be/LVPNXsc4wsQ

 Cheek pads. Most of them remove them when going uphill for better ventilation on a full face helmet.

 can't forget crunchy or smooth peanut butter. Very important detail when your racing.

 there is no rebuilding on race day.

 @colincolin: They also asked the question of what they eat after the races for dinner. Watch it again.

 Food are just for photo ops, it's EPO is the preferred fuel!

 He's a Mediterranean Frenchie. They survive on photosynthesis and stoke.

 it's called spirulina . it's a algae based suplement. check it out!

 @cptmayhem: You just won for the Comment Of the Day sir, hahaha

 @LiveAeons: thanks man

 Dude they climb 2000+ meters in a day

 @LOLWTF: But that 2000+ meters of climbing is not timed and therefore it's not done under 'race conditions'. Riders have ample time to pedal between stages and since it's not timed there's no advantage to get there first. It's a long day for sure with lots of ground covered but at relaxed climbing pace compared to XC/Marathon/24hr events.

 @kootenayrider: I have seen a cookie and espresso during a 24hr racer's rest laps as a treat. Dude was so stoked on that.