How To Fuel The Dirty Reiver?

In the weeks leading up to the event it’s a good idea to start practising eating and drinking whilst on the bike, even more so eating and drinking whilst off road on your gravel bike. It’s harder than you think it might be.

Thinking about your bike bag or pocket set up before the day is worth the investment of time. Ask yourself:

Can I carry enough?

Can I easily access it whilst riding?

Will it stand up to the bumpy terrain that DR will throw at you?

One tip is to quickly rotate the food you’re going to eat with int the next hour from ‘harder to access bag’ to ‘easier to access pockets’ when you stop.

Now is the time to trial different types of fuel and work out what’s going to be the most functional but fulfilling for you to carry with you. After all you don’t want any barriers to fuelling on the day.

Energy bars, energy gels, small sandwiches, bits of cake? We’d highly suggest a mixture of lots of different things to keep in varied. Don’t forget you have an exclusive OTE discount code as an entrant to Dirty Reiver, so if you want to practise with what’s going to be in the feeds then that is also a smart thing to do to.

Lets briefly cover the day before and morning of the event, as this is key time to make those final nutritional decision that will set you up for the day ahead.

For many, the day before will be a travel day and may a brief spin to wake the legs up. So be prepared with some snacks and drinks for the road. See the day before as the final chance to top up those carbohydrates stores. You don’t need to eat in excess, but certainly keeping to your regular meal patter and adding in a few extra high carb snacks is important. We’d also suggest making your final meal on the Friday a high carbohydrate meal. Aim for 50% of your plate to be either pasta, rice, potatoes or whatever your carb of choice is.

Breakfast, don’t skip it! We know it’ll be an early start but it’s not everyday and honestly you’ll thank us come km 20 when you’re not starting to feel hunger set in and you can power on to the first feed. If you struggle to eat so early, that’s understandable. You can try to overcome this though by sipping on either energy drink or oat-loaded smoothies in the morning. Sometimes drinks are just much easier to stomach than food, but they can still deliver the energy you need.

Now it’s time to calculate your event day intake!

We appreciate fuelling whilst off road isn’t the easiest. Any of the following sound familiar?

-Do you forget to eat?

– Struggle to eat because of the terrain?

– Lose your appetite?

– Can’t carry enough fluid?

We’ll we’ve pulled together all our gravel experience to try help you tackle the  above issues, just head to our ‘Top Nutrition For Gravel Riding’ article for all our advice.