Gary Bloyd

This past weekend, I embarked on a 130-mile training ride with about 20 miles of severe hills and about 90 miles of rolling hills. I was using Accelerade in my water bottles and had brought plenty of refills in plastic film canisters. I had a jersey pocket full of Mountain Rush e-Gel, which I had recently started using. Because I felt so good during the first half of the ride and because of the hilly terrain, I didn’t consume enough e-Gel, even though I was drinking plenty of Accelerade. It was too hard to eat on the climbs, and I neglected to stop at the summits or eat on the descents. When I hit the halfway point, I bonked or nearly so. I felt like my legs just wouldn’t go any more on the rolling hills of the return loop. I was really in trouble. I started sucking down e-Gel packets every half hour, and even though I had been in a carb deficit, I actually began to feel much stronger, and my energy level increased dramatically. I know it wasn’t where it should have been (had I eaten properly on the first half of the ride), but my on-bike recovery was much more rapid and complete than I would have imagined possible, having been so depleted. The last hour and a half of the ride, I felt at about 85 percent, instead of 25 to 30 percent of my capability, as I had earlier. I’m sure the e-Gel did the trick, and I plan not only to continue using e-Gel but also to start using e-Fuel as well — and to make sure I eat more consistently on long rides.