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Cycling Food

Our bike shop carries a full selection of cycling food, including gels, powders, blocks, bars, or tablets. Plus, we carry all the top names like Clifbar, First Endurance, GU, Hammer Nutrition, Honey Stinger, Nuun, Saltstick, Skratch, Sportlegs, and more. We’re well versed in nutritional products for cyclists to address cramping, hydration, replenishing of electrolytes and vital minerals, as well as recovery. We even use the products that we sell. So rest assured we can help you find just what you need! Our pricing is always competitive. Plus we even offer discounts for bulk purchases!

Cycling Nutrition Tips

Let's start with the fact that hydration drives everything else. If you're dehydrated, your body won't absorb any nutrients effectively. And the more dehydrated you become, the less effective your body functions. 

Apart from hydration, cycling food containing carbohydrates drives high-intensity activities like cycling. Without them, your performance drops. Although fat fuels low- to-moderate workout cycling sessions, you need carbohydrates for higher intensity cycling.

Standard cycling nutrition guidelines recommend 30-60 grams of carbohydrate consumption per hour of aerobic exercise. If you use a power meter during your ride, you should target your carbohydrate intake to replenish 20 to 30 percent of the kilojoules of output you're doing per hour.

For example, a medium-sized, reasonably fit cyclist riding steadily will burn 500 kilojoules per hour. As a result, that cyclist should count on incorporating 25 to 37 grams of carbohydrates from cycling food per hour during rides longer than 90 minutes.

Got a Question About Optimal Cycling Nutrition?

Fueling Shorter Bike Rides

For workouts and rides lasting sixty minutes or less, you can get by with little in the way of cycling nutrition -- a bottle of water and no extra fuel should do the trick. But, of course, that assumes you've fueled your body adequately in advance. 

Cycling nutrition for a short ride can be as simple as a bottle of drink mix or a water bottle and a couple of gels. Otherwise, you can get enough energy from fueling before or after, but there are benefits to fueling on the bike.

Even for short rides, fueling goes a long way. First, proper cycling nutrition preserves your workout's quality, especially if it's intense. In addition, fueling reduces the margin of error for rides significantly in the following days by ensuring your glycogen stores remain full.

Finally, it helps to consider shorter rides and workouts as training sessions for longer ones. Fueling short rides builds solid nutritional habits that carry over into multi-hour events.

Our bike carries a huge selection of cycling food and drink. Stop by our Mt. Kisco cycling shop and stock up to keep your energy levels piqued.

Electrolytes Prevent Bonking

You get electrolytes from the cycling food you eat or what you drink. They're important to ensure proper function of cells and organs. Electrolyte levels change with the amount of water in your body. If something upsets that balance, you may have too little water (dehydration) or too much water (overhydration). 

While exercising, your body sweats electrolytes. You need to replace them to maintain the balance in your system. When you are too low on electrolytes, you “bonk”. Bonking can present itself as feeling “fuzzy” in the brain or lead to muscle weakening and cramping.  Long term imbalances can be very serious. 

To prevent these issues, we suggest drinking electrolyte replacements any time you ride. There are many options from different manufacturers and we can help you navigate the choices. 

Cyclists also need to take advantage of cycling food options while riding to replace calories being burned. An average 180 pound rider can burn up to 650 calories/hour of riding.  Keeping up with caloric needs is very important. In addition to regular food like fruit, nuts or cookies, we suggest adding dedicated cycling food products like energy bars, gels or gummies.

Cycling Food at Our Bike Shop

We have cycle nutrition products of all kinds so you can find just the right food to meet your nutritional requirements. And we cover all the top brands like Clifbar, First Endurance, GU, Hammer Nutrition, Honey Stinger, Nuun, Saltstick, Skratch, Sportlegs, and more. Stop by our cycling shop to see the full line. We'll also help you select the right cycling food for your riding style.