Yeah I guess we’ve all experienced bonking but to various extremes… when I was waiting for my brother at the end of his Ironman yrs back - a guy came round the corner, waddling home in the dark - he was zig zagging about and feeling his face all the time with his hands - it was quite haunting to watch 
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I just looked at the Maurten prices 
I also came to tri from running and found the adaptation to cycling a long, slow process (my best marathon was a bit slower than yours at 3:20). The thing that made the difference for me was getting a power meter - before that I was putting effort into the bike in the same way that I would when running and expecting the same type of perceived effort feedback loop.
Took a long while to realise that cycling doesn’t work like that!
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I think this is the classic bonk video…
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Oh yeah that’s the best!
Looks like a Saturday night in Glasgow
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As others have said, are you sure it’s nutrition / lack of calories? If you are struggling with undulations, are you spiking power and therefore burning too many matches early on in your ride - and that is what you need to bring under control?
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It’s definitely not cheap, but I honestly don’t believe it to be hype. I’ve tried a lot of stuff, and that product is night and day for how a long run feels. It’s not fitness related, as I’ve tested with and without on 20+ mile runs within the same training block. There’s always the risk of placebo, but as I was skeptical when I first tried it, I don’t think that can explain it either. The product is just not like anything else, in terms of consistency, mixing, etc, so it does have the feel of doing something different to other products.
There are places you can get it cheaper with promo codes, and the gels are cheaper now via the IM partnership. I only really use them for key sessions however, due to the price.
So we’re basically agreed that I’m either trying too hard or not hard enough then 
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No, now you’ve described the type of riding, my guess is garbage, but then I already put those caveats in!
So your fatigue in the bike is related to those repeated efforts, but those repeated efforts are not mediated by calories. I don’t think this is surprising, fatigue on repeated hard efforts is much more likely to not be the simple “not enough calories available” that simply fading away or bonking at the end of the long ride might give - it sounded to me that you were fading away, but it’s actually your inability to put out a strong effort over a shorter period that is harming you?
So next question, is how long is that effort - if it’s a sub 1 minute effort over a roller that’s likely a different question to the 5 minute hill?
They’re generally not steep, but they are long.- The ride that’s doing me in isn’t quite the same as this one, ( at about mile 20 i’ve been going round the mountain rather than up.) but for some reason the elevation isn’t recording for me on strava at the moment…
going up the mountain - the mid way point then gives you a long break of descending where the only exercise you get is braking.- going round, the undulations just keep coming- I can think of 2 segments about a 1/4 mile each that I would say are flat.-
I’m going to stick with my “runner not quite adapting to cycling” analogy since what you’re saying reminds me of my own cycling development.
Are you using power and if not, how are you regulating your effort? If it’s by RPE or HR then you are likely pushing harder than you realise on the earlier hills (because it feels easier) and then slowing on the later hills because you put too much effort in without realising. So, you’re trying to pace evenly but actually you’re not even close.
If I’m in any way close to the being accurate, taking in food won’t really help as that’s not the issue - it is one of pacing.
I’ll stop there because I could very well be off the mark … we’re all trying to get to the bottom of what your real issue is so there’s going to be some guesswork going on
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I’m another Maurten user, however, just use it for races. At this time of year, I eat jelly babies. 1 Jelly baby every 10 mins, doesn’t matter if i am on Zwift or doing a run. I find this constant flow of carbs works really well
Also discovered Winforce, which is also pretty good
I’ve done the fasted training sessions, however, I really don’t bother any more, just train with fuel pretty much all the time
I used to do a lot of fasted stuff when I was trying to lose weight. It was good for weight loss but it was like Russian roulette, some sessions great, others you just came crashing down and couldnt recover.
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The other thing is the actual damage caused by the training. It was on the science of sport podcast recently that there’s now research that indicates under-fueling on carbs before/during hard sessions not only inhibits performance during the session, but actually has longer lasting damage to soft tissues etc after the session as well.
So whilst I always knew there was a calorific hole you might be digging yourself into, there’s also a more acute physiological one as well.
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I read the same, fueling in the last 30 mins of a session don’t give much/any performance gains, apparently it does help recovery. Anecdotally I would agree with this. If I fuel right to the end, I do think I recover faster
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I think for weight loss it does work… however, the best way to lose weight is to reduced intake, its not particularly effective trying to exercise weight off
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I always thought fasted training was only for low intensity stuff where you are trying to metabolise mostly fat.
I haven’t looked at it seriously mind. If I’m doing a fasted session it’s only because I got up too late to eat breakfast before cycling to work!
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Agreed. It wasn’t a comment on fasted sessions. But more just a follow on comment about the value of nutrition beyond fuelling
could very well be this.- I don’t have power meters or the budget to justify same.- Mostly I just keep an eye on the heart rate, breathing patterns and feelings of fatigue.- Perhaps I’ll try going out even more slowly and see if I end up getting home quicker.
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Easier said than done of course … it took me years of training with power to know how hard I was working without needing to look at the power numbers.
I’m not using power at the moment and realise I’ve developed the ability to pace properly (I don’t race any more so it’s less of an issue to know the precise power numbers anyway).
I think it was younggun (another old timer who has moved on to greater things) who told me that power is all about how hard you push down on the pedals, not to do with how hard your cardiovascular system is working.
How hard your cardiovascular system is working is a consequence of how hard you are pushing down on the pedals.
I remember my first race with power. Half a mile out of T1 there was a short, sharp climb. I was aiming at c280W on climbs and was pushing out 380-400W - I throttled back and had one of my best ever results.
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yep…