Race Day Nutrition and Storage

Training
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I took the plunge for one of these… I guess, in part, having been pushed so hard on the OA podcast! See, advertising works! They were running a comp for free entry into the Outlaw Half and I figured there can’t be that many flying off the shelves so was in with a reasonable chance. Anyway… I digress!

I can’t comment on the aerodynamics. Suspect the advantage will be if it marries neatly with your stem? This will be inhibited by internal gear routing, forcing you to mount the flowcell further back. The dimples are pseudo-aero / cosmetic - I’m sure I’ve read studies that the surface needs to be rotating, like a golf ball.

The hatch is easy to slide open, one finger / thumb, so that’s a plus. My gut feel is that they are over egging the capacity unless comparing to a midget xlab 200 etc. I can jam in x6 regular high5 gels but the fit was better on my old soft sided bag (more compliant). There’s also no pouch for tablets (salt / caffeine etc) so these rattle around the bottom, waiting for you to finish the rest of your nutrition first. I wonder if it might be better suited to x2 packets of jelly babies, as suggested in the last OA pod…

Dimensions have been designed to accommodate the sliding lid / base unit vs sensible internal capacity. Fixed width might not suit all top tubes, where a soft bag might “form” around.

These comments all sound fairly critical… and so they should if paying £45 for a top tube bag! That said, it is a solid piece of kit and I’ll be racing with it at the weekend

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Is that a normal thing, for you to take Solpadeine in your bottles when you go on long rides? Or is this just because of a particular injury. Never tried it myself, and wondered if it was counterproductive of used habitually.

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Lol, just spotted this. I usually just have spares and a jacket in my backpack, also makes me less aero, so when I race it’s like a free 40w :joy:

For long races it’s a bladder down the front of my skinsuit, will be doing that at Hamburg

Jeff

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124

No. I was testing it - mainly for additional salt and caffeine (as I bought the wrong Zero tabs)

But also for my hands and neck, due to no long rides on the road bike this year.

Never used it before, Solpadiene that is, but I certainly noticed that using one tablet every 90-105 minutes kept any annoying aches at bay.

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You’ve got me thinking now! Maybe if I cut these with some Prozac for my solo long rides I’ll be sorted :wink:

Do you need them that often though? I thought the dose was suppose to last 4 hours

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My neck is f***** from a bike race crash back in 2007.
As I’ve just started up again, I’ve not been planking over winter or doing my physio exercises to strengthen it, so yes - this is cheating.

One dose is two tablets. I dropped one tablet in a 650ml bottle. Two bottles per three hours.

I got home and had two thirds of a bottle left.
Well within the dosage limits :+1:t3:

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My left trapezius was killing me after yesterday’s ride. It’s worse training because the Spesh Evade reduces vision in the aero position; my Giro A2 doesn’t sit right over my brow, so not straining my neck as much to see.

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No really “race day” or proper nutrition…

…but I wanted sugar fast after my ride yesterday afternoon. But with it being “late” (for me!) I didn’t want caffeine, so Coke was out the window.

Grabbed a bottle of bright red Fanta.
Holy smokes it hit the spot :+1:t3::ok_hand:t4:
I wanted another bottle immediately afterwards :see_no_evil:

Any other garage gems I’m missing out on here?

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The garage in our village has an American section; I dread to think the crap that’s in some of that stuff. The giant cans of ‘punch’ probably make ‘Monster’ look like sparkling water. They have a ready supply of ~500kcal flapjacks too of course :upside_down_face:

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Here’s what I did for Cotswold 113 this year, practiced it weekly in training for the 2 months leading up to the race and it worked well on race day. But any suggestions/ comments would be appreciated.

45-30 mins before start had a H5 zero caffeine tab in 500ml of water, gives time for the caffeine to kick in and a poo.

On the bike I had a 750ml water bottle, containing 6x H5 Iso gels mixed in and topped up with water.

I also had a Profile Design aero HC bottle (750ml ish) between the tri bars, filled with water - but with a bendy straw, bite valve and a magnet on the straw to keep it from leaking and getting in the way.

Xlab stealth top tube bag – containing 2 Nakd bars (Lidl’s version of) cut into chunks and 1 H5 iso gel with caffeine.

Had 1/6th of the gel mix bottle ASAP after getting on the bike. Then at 20 mins had 1 bar, 40 & 60 mins another portion of gel mix, 1:20 2nd bar, 1:40 & 2hr gel mix, 2:20 caffeine gel to top the caffeine up before the run. Planned to have the last portion of gel mix at 2:40 but I unexpectedly finished the bike at 2:32ish. Drank water throughout as I needed, but didn’t quite finish it – it wasn’t a particularly warm day.

On the run I had 5 more iso gels waiting in transition, picked them up and stuffed them in my tri top back pockets. 1 more caffeine gel in a little pouch on my number belt, along with some paracetamol – I think of this as my in case of emergency bag.

Had the first gel after 10 mins into the run, then at every 20 mins after that. When things started to get a bit tougher in the 2nd hour I decided to use the caffeine gel at 1:10. I also made an effort to swill that gel and the one at 1:30 around my mouth to try and get some placebo effect from the taste of the sugar. Took a cup of water from every aid station for a mouthful or 2 and then poured the rest over me.

It worked well for me anyway. I might look to try energy drink powders in future for the bike, I’m assuming this would be cheaper than gels? But can you get as many grams of carbs that way? I was aiming for around 60g per hour.

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Hi :wave:t3:

How do you stop the BTS bottles from launching out?
I’m going to put some skateboard griptape on the inside of the cages - but what are those thick elastic bands people use? Where do they come from?

Cheers :ok_hand:t4::+1:t3:

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Do you want to use the BTS bottle (as in drink/replace?). My BTS is for spares only and I use the X-Lab Gorilla cage. No way that bottle is coming out but I wouldn’t want to try and use it on the go, as it takes too much effort.

I think X-Lab do a version that takes less effort, Chimp IIRC.

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To replace - mainly for long rides so I don’t have to stop at a garage.
I can only carry 1.3l with my current set up.

@jorgan gets his out on the move and I don’t recall him having the special X-Lab cages…

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I have Bontrager XXX bottle cages on my MTB that I swap over on the Tritone BTS mount. I picked them up in the sale for 18.99 each not cheap but then grip like something else and there is no way the bottle gets ejected whilst getting battered on the trails.

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@Poet are we still talking about my bottles?!

Correct, I use a thick rubber band attached around the top of the cage using a ‘larks head’ knot; the band goes around the bottle nozzle. I’ve also seen people use elastic shock cord. I got the bands from a pool I used to swim at, just forgot to give them back a few times :wink:

I use the Profile cage, and also a bit of self-fusing silicone plumbers tape around the cage ‘arms’ to help grip.

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Cheers folks!

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As Jorgan does some tape on the cage helps grip and also I use a big elastic band looped round the bottle. Staples is a good place for large bands.

Also the angle of the cage makes a difference I have found. If they are completely upright they tend to go flying more easily than if they are angled away from the riders back.

I am sure the gorilla cages are great, but fifty notes for a bottle cage. No thanks.

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Got mine a couple of years ago on offer for £30 (which is still dear) just looked, you are right £49!

Carry on:+1:

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I use the Spesh rib cages and have never had a bottle launch, even on the Southern loop of the Outlaw! I use the bottles on the go whilst staying ‘aero’ with one arm on its pad (definitely could be more aero). There were parts on the Southern loop of the half where I really had to sit up to drink as the road surface was awful and there were bottles everywhere on a couple of parts of the course.

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How dare you question the quality of the Outlaw road surfaces!

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