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Is it just water or anything else?
Water works just fine.
Water is generally considered a good thing to drink
Unless you are pushing the bounds of human performance or have some underlying condition, yes, water.
Maybe drop a hi5 zero table in one bottle of you really think you need it.
I find I prefer a bit of taste, so a high 5 or SIS tab are ideal. Bit of cordial if we don't have any tabs handy.
Coffee or bourbon. Failing that good ol’ H20
Stella.
bourbon
Surely they'd just be a mushy mess after a few minutes in your camelbak? They're not even great dunking biscuits.
As above, water is ace, but I tend to have a High 5 Zero in one or both bottles in hotter weather. One tab per 750ml bottle, citrus flavour.
On longer rides I tend to take a few 0.5% wheat beers. Fed up of the artificial sis rubbish which tastes awful.
Also squash and a spoonful of salt plus a bannana or two for the potassium. Tend to down a pint of water and a spoonful of marmite before heading out. Oh plus a couple of expresso's.
Sub 20 miles just good old water.... Mainly via a pub so can fuel up on a pint of guiness cold.
But I am absolutely no althete so this advice may be useless 🙂 I find I need quite a bit of salt otherwise I cramp up and slow down.
I'll be getting those Hi5 Zero tabs on the SDW soon. Is sweet like a boiled haggis so going the electrolytes help a little.
Like a little bit of flavour in the water too.
If you sweat a lot then maybe consider ramping up the High 5 / Nuun tabs or similar. No harm dropping some Torq (or whatever) in there too.
I normally take water but if its going to be hot I'll make up a bottle with a high 5 type tablet.
😛 I've heard that Rich Energy is meant to be good if you can get a tin of the stuff 😛
I use half a High5 zero tab or equivalent in 500ml bottles, any more and it’s tastes to strong for me. Water is fine, but I like a little flavour.
short ride - water
long ride - water, plus a pint of beer at the half way point
hydration tabs are better than drinking plain water when its hot as it helps balance your electrolytes - drinking too much water can be bad in high temperatures due to a condition called hyponatremia
dovebiker
Member
hydration tabs are better than drinking plain water when its hot as it helps balance your electrolytes – drinking too much water can be bad in high temperatures due to a condition called hyponatremia
I was riding the sdw last year in the 30+deg heatwave we had and was resorting to begging water from private houses etc on the way. Just couldn't seem to drink enough. Felt utterly s***. Kept crashing (more than usual) and basically felt ill.
Made basic navigation errors as well, that cost me time, elevation and miles. I managed to double back on myself on the trail and only realised after recognising a carpark I passed earlier. I was gutted as I'd gone miles. Still not sure how I did that...
I normally do a bottle of regular water and a bottle with electrolyte tabs or a hi5 mixture. I sweat... A lot. 37 miles on the gravel bike on Friday saw me get through 3 bottles worth.
If I'm on the mtb then it's a 3l bladder, normally half to full, water only or else the bladder gets all gunky inside.
The blood of my enemies.
Failing that water and a beer after.
I like Robinsons apple n' black.
Also squash and a spoonful of salt plus a bannana or two for the potassium. Tend to down a pint of water and a spoonfu
Worst. Smoothie. Ever.
Just water here.
Stella
Meh special brew!
Ant anyway what made you Steve Peat all of a sudden!?
😜
Water!
I find the amounts some of you drink interesting and rather scary. Recently I was trekking on mallorca - high 20s/ low 30s but full in the sun. 8-10 hours trekking, sweating hard the whole time. around 3l of water in that time. Not thirsty nor dehydrated at all. Even on another trip to crete in mid 30s climbing all day in the sun 3l was just about enough
I was riding the sdw last year in the 30+deg heatwave we had and was resorting to begging water from private houses etc on the way. Just couldn’t seem to drink enough. Felt utterly s***. Kept crashing (more than usual) and basically felt ill.
Made basic navigation errors as well, that cost me time, elevation and miles.…
Were you peeing a lot? sounds like hyponatremia from too much water or maybe heatstroke?
I wonder if some of it is dry mouth from mouth breathing making yu think you are thirsty?
I know everyone is differnt but I can ride in a scottish summer on 500 ml every couple of hours withoout gettng dry at all - indeed often peeing a fair amount of very dilute urine.
Rose's Lime Cordial mixed with plain coconut water.
I always slip an SiS GO Hydro tab in my bottle as plain water is a bit dull. Post-ride it's always milk. I love a pint of semi-skimmed.
Homemade isotonic drink for me. Did an experiment at uni years ago where we compared it to brand ones using mass spectrometry. The following was very similar in composition:
100mls squash (not double strength or high juice)
400mls water
1/8 reason salt.
Just scale up as appropriate.
I’m a big fan of the Decathalon carbohydrate / isotonic powder in a water bottle. Usually take a 700ml bottle on the bike and plain water in a bladder for big rises.
The isotonic carb drink is good for staying hydrated and topping up the energy levels.
I'm one of those who suffers from thigh and calf cramps on long road rides...say after around 80 miles. A road ride I did a couple of weeks ago was 90 miles with a fair bit of climbing and cramp hit on the last climb of the day about 15 miles from home...managed to nurse my way through it but had run out of water by then. Worried about this as I had an even longer and more challenging ride planned for the following week, I did some googling on cramp and coincidentally a thread popped up on here about cramp and one of the strong themes was hydration. So taking advice from here I hydrated well the day before, had a good drink of water with electrolyte tab before the ride over breakfast, filled my bottles with water and electrolyte tabs and ensured I took on water regularly, a few times an hour, just a sip or so. Managed that through the whole ride, filling the bottles up when required and not a sniff of cramp on that next ride. So I deduced the cramp I had the week before was probably due to lack of hydration in the latter stages of the ride so for me I think I've found my little routine going forward. If you're going to have water you may as well pop in an electrolyte tab. It's not going to do any harm, adds a bit of flavour to the water. Why not?
According to british cycling, between 500-1000ml an hour is about right to replace the fluid lost by sweat:
Most riders will find that they will typically lose 500-1000 ml per hour. Especially if you’re at the upper end of this range, it might not be practical or necessary to try and replace it all but you should aim for a minimum of 75%.
On my 2hr 45min ride, in average 26 degrees, I used up 3 700ml bottles which considering I'm a heavy sweater (I reckon I could squeeze out 50ml of sweat from my helmet pads alone after just a 5-10 minute climb) I'd say this was probably on the low side for me.
Interesting thread this.
I think I need to do a bit of a rethink on how I hydrate and how much. Hmmm....
Depends on the ride. 2 hours locally is take a 650nl bottle of water to keep me going and I’d have made sure I was hydrated well before going. Much longer and I’ll tske the same bottle with a hi5 zero tab in it and a hydration pack with 2 litres of water in it. I don’t always finish all the water in the pack but it’s there if I need it and I drink so I don’t ever feel too thirsty.
On Friday just gone we did Tawr Du and MBR Laps at Coed Y Brenin - ignoring the Diet Coke I had at lunch between the 2 laps - I had 2 x 650ml bottles of electrolyte drink and most of a 2 litre pack of water.
Saturday we did an uplift day at Antur - had 1x bottle of electrolyte and about half the 2 litres of water (plus coke st lunch).
Sunday we did Snowdon - I finished a bottle of electrolyte and most of the 2 litres of water in the pack.
I’m not sure if this is too much / about right / not enough - but I always try to make sure I don’t go thirsty.
I also fuelled with gels and clif bars to keep going on the two days with lots of climbing.
What you need depends on your diet as well, if there is enough salt and minerals in your diet water is fine. For some people water isn’t ideal as it passes through rapidly, mild juices or sports drinks with or without carbs usually work for them.
Water unless those marketing boys have done their jobs well and made me succumb to an electrolyte tab.
Try cutting down on salt intake first if you think a electrolyte (salt) tab is necessary
I started a thread "rest and recovery" referring to a BBC podcast about this - here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07fcfds , it's 50mins long. The interviewee stated that in general you were better off drinking to thirst than Xml per hour, much of the "research" coming from drinks industry sponsorship. If you eat a typical western diet then there's no need for adding electrolytes (fancy marketing term for salts) to your water. If you want to add something for taste then fair enough.
The interviewee had looked at as many marathons as she could and couldn't find a single death due to dehydration but found five deaths from hyponatremia.
There's a limit to how much water your gut can absorb, go beyond that and you will just pee more. If you add commercial salt mixes then it just becomes expensive pee.
dovebiker
hydration tabs are better than drinking plain water when its hot as it helps balance your electrolytes – drinking too much water can be bad in high temperatures due to a condition called hyponatremia
absolutely...my understanding is that hyponatremia is caused by drinking too much water AND not replacing lost salt - basically your thirst will tell you how much to drink but if you stick to a drinking a set amount and not replacing lost salt this water can further reduce the salt content in your blood to a potentially fatally low level so for me when I'm sweating a lot I use hydrolyte tablets in my drink bottle and carry a couple of spares...moved to Aus a few years ago (the cooler part in winter) and 30deg rides are pretty normal and for me the biggest issue is gauging how much am sweating especially if there is a strong breeze and its not at all humid....as to heat exhaustion sweating is part of the cooling process but I'm very careful if getting towards body heat to take things really relaxed personally I try to avoid riding if the forecast is above 35degC
2nd time in a couple of weeks suggested checking out cyclingtips and I'm no relation...this podcast covers the science of sweat and guess the cynics could say the guy has his product to promote but there is some interesting stuff especially that how much salt you lose is a big variable between people and how salt loss directly drives thirst hence some people don't need to drink as much as others - starts about 25mins in and is probably 20mins or so section
[url] https://cyclingtips.com/2019/06/cyclingtips-podcast-the-things-you-can-learn-from-sweat/ [/url]
I will always tend to be slightly under rather than over watered at this time of year. I tend to make an 850ml bottle last two hours-ish, but supplement that with the odd can/pint along the way. I don't tend to feel all that thirsty unless I eke out a bottle for more than two hours. I'll also have a bottle's worth before I head out. Short (up to five hours) rides I'll have one bottle with an electrolyte tab in it to start off. Any longer than five and I'll take another tab with me to stick in a bottle at the halfway point.
That's with a steady effort rather than trying to Stravaaa everything. If I'm going flat out I'll need significantly more than that.
Naturally I'll down a couple of pints at the end.
Dihydrogen Monoxide works very well if you can get hold of some.
I usually add a scoop of this to my water bottle:
Water, ice (that has melted before I start drinking from the Camelbak) and salt and sugar in a 1:6 ratio, but at a much lower concentration than if I was making a rehydration mix.
There’s a limit to how much water your gut can absorb, go beyond that and you will just pee more
If it doesn't get in through your gut, you're going to have trouble pissing it
@scaredypants - doh! I meant the whole system not just the gut, wasn't clear in how I wrote it.
Yak's wee
Am I missing something? I have always been under the impression that drinking salt water was generally considered a bad idea?
depends on the amount of salt. Lots of different things get mixed up in peoples ideas about rehydration. Isotonic solutions ie 0.9% salt get absorbed more easily and in some circumstances you need salt to replace losses. Sea water is hypertonic ie more salty than blood - so drinking that causes you to pee more than you drink
@trailwagger - the concentrations of salt being talked about here are well below the salinity of sea water.
Short ride - water
Long ride, long walk, out for the day - Robinson's Barley Water and perhaps water too.
Don’t forget the limit to how much water you can get into your system in any period of time is the pylorus. Decent hyrdration before the ride is the best start you can give yourself.
I always get hot and sweat a lot, so I often drink stuff with electrolytes in it. Not usually at full strength though.
Just couldn’t seem to drink enough.
I find this seems to happen if I have sweated a lot; drinking something with electrolytes seems to help. It may or may not be significant that energy drinks that taste unpleasantly salty when I've not been exercising are the most delicious and satisfying thing I know after a long hot workout. If I don't have something salty I just drink and drink and pee and pee and am never satisfied.
I use carbs in my energy drink instead of food, because I don't like to stop and eat, and it's easier than carrying and eating food on the fly. I know TJ hates this idea, but what does he know? 😉
Oh and electrolytes for drinks aren't just salt. Potassium, magnesium and calcium salts as well as sodium.
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[url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/druidh2000/48284313411/ ]P1050880[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/22384952@N02/ ]Colin Cadden[/url] - [url= https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dariogf.flickr2BBcode ]Flickr2BBcode[/url]
And because TJ will inevitably quote science, here's a one of many abstracts supporting the supplementation of electrolytes in long and/or repeated endurance efforts:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9232555
It restates that electrolyte and water loss varies a lot by indivudual and also acclimatisation. So basically, do what works for you. IMO/E if you aren't satisfied by just water and still feel thirsty then you need some electrolytes. Could be salted peanuts, crisps, pizza, or a sport specific product, see what works 🙂
the concentrations of salt being talked about here are well below the salinity of sea water.
Presumably then, they are also well below the amount that makes you shite you entire insides out?
I wasn't going to argue with you moley 🙂
By objection to your way was you were complaining about not losing weight while consuming between half a kilo and a kilo of sugar a week! That and the effect on your insulin system
Belhaven best scotroues? ~surely you could find something better than that?
If you tend to drink too much, add something to the water to make it taste a bit yucky. If you tend to not drink enough, make it a bit more tasty and palatable.
Interesting Reading:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-dont-need-sports-drinks-to-stay-hydrated/
water and normal food. when you listen to the tdf day coverage all the racers who guest in the commentary box talk about the contents of the musette and what they take out, most of them say they eat the normal stuff like rice cakes etc and the gels are only sparingly used at the end of the day when it's too manic to do anything else. And we're not racers.
@joefm - that's the woman that is being interviewed on the BBC podcast I linked to earlier in the thread.
Non-scientific analysis on multi-day group long rides I've worked on in Kenya (super hot and dry) suggested that the more electrolytes you put into your water bottle, the more you sweated out. So it seemed to have a circular effect of people seeing their crusty kit at the end of the day and thinking "oh no, I must use more tabs tomorrow", upping their electrolyte consumption, getting even more white lines on their kit at the end of the next day, etc.
It's been a VERY long time since my Physiology degree, but I remember being told every one of your body's cells has a very good system of managing its own electrolyte balance, and adapting to pretty significant variations. As long as there's enough water, your body is pretty excellent at managing its own ion balance. As others have pointed out, you're more at risk of hyponatraemia - over-diluting your body - than dehydration, but the general rule of thumb is to look at your pee. It should be like champagne, rather than like lager. If it's dark and / or you're not peeing, drink more water.
This is a subject I have been thinking about a fair amount - partly at least because from my own experience the amounts some folk on here drink seems excessive to say the least.
What I would say is judge your hydration on the amount and colour of your pee as well as thirst and don't confuse a dry mouth from mouth breathing as thirst.
Perhaps use some electoytes but not every bottle - every 3rd one maybe?
Certainly for me all day ( 8-10hrs) exertion in high temps when sweating a lot 3l of water is plenty and I certainly have not needed extra electrolytes
From the article joefm linked to:
We do lose electrolytes through sweat, but even when you exercise continuously for many hours, you will simply correct any losses via your normal appetite and hunger mechanisms.
So you wait for your body to make you want salty food. So.. crisps, chips..?
This is a subject I have been thinking about a fair amount – partly at least because from my own experience the amounts some folk on here drink seems excessive to say the least.
The reason I posted the abstract I did was because it states that sweat composition and amount varies significantly between individuals.
And what you always forget TJ when banging on about drinking lots of 'sugar' (maltodextrin isn't sucrose) is that I lost the most weight ever when using lots of carb drink. Because it allows me to control how much I eat at other times, and it doesn't drive appetite. If I try and restrict carb drink intake whilst riding I find myself struggling much more to avoid starchy sweet food, and I lose less weight.
Find what works for you.
Also:
I take my dog running with me most of the time, and I’ve never measured the color of her pee or forced her to drink (as if I could). I make sure she has regular access to water, but she doesn’t always take it. At times, she won’t drink at all during a long run, and on those occasions, she always goes straight to her water dish when we get home and slurps until she’s satisfied. I’ve never had to give her an emergency IV for low fluid levels. If drinking to thirst is good enough for her, it’s probably good enough for me too.
That's not science, dude.
MOls - I ain't going to get into that debate with you again. Just to point out that you were also drinking full fat coke - 35g of sugar a can and that you did complain you were not losing weight. The coke and the maltodxtrin which is a mix of saccardies ie sugars) amounted to 4000+ calories a week
Of course everyone is different but it is clear that for some folk drinking a lot is not helping. getting down to why that is is trickier. I do suspect hyponatermia ie low electrolyte levels - but not from loss in sweat but from drinking too much. 3l of water is enough to kill. Thats what killed leah Betts
I drink to thirst.
Water, or v dilute orange squash for taste. Or a fancy electrolyte tab for thirst/placebo 🙂
Also a shandy at lunch works for me!