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Drinking Enough

07.31.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

One of my continuing problems on the bike is drinking enough liquids to keep me fueled during the ride. In early July, I complained about running out of gas out in the country. The problem, I figured, was a lack of high mileage rides. A few days later, a biking friend of mine suggested something else.

“It sounded to me like you weren’t drinking enough,” he said.

My wife nodded in agreement. But then, she’s always after me to do a better job of staying hydrated and fed on longer rides. I thought about what had happened that day, and concluded that my friend was probably right.

I used to have dual water bottle cages attached to my seat. But I got rid of them last year, because I didn’t like the way they scrunched my seat bag. That left me with one bottle cage on my down tube. I usually carry a 16-oz. bottle, and always felt it was enough. But that’s on rides close to home, where I can always get a refill.

On that early July ride, we had no facilities for refills. No one’s house, no convenience stores, not even a spigot on private property we could sneak water from. I was babying my 16 ounces over a 41-mile ride. That won’t do it.

So, I decided to reform. On a solo ride two weeks later, I decided I would use prompts to remind me to take a drink. Instead of setting my trip computer to distance, I kept it set to elapsed time. Every 10 minutes, I tried to take a drink. Those 10 minutes became a ballpark figure I could work around — sometimes I drank after only eight, more often I drank after around 12. I planned on stopping at a convenience store at the 22-mile point in this 38-mile ride. I bought a bottle of Gatorade G2 there, and downed half of it while resting. I added ice to the water bottle and mixed the rest of the Gatorade with the water. A Clif bar went down nicely during the rest stop, too. I finished the ride relatively fresh.

Emboldened by my new system, I was ready to apply it to a longer ride yesterday (Saturday). The ride was going to be 44 miles. It was a route I had never ridden, but there would be support. The ride leader indicated that a convenience store was about 20 miles into the ride, but we would have to go off course a little bit to reach it.

This time, I didn’t go by time to determine when to drink — I went by miles. I determined to drink every three miles. It worked, too, mostly. I never missed by more than a mile. I had gotten out the seat-mounted water bottle cage at put it on the previous day. I half-filled two 16-oz. bottles the night before and put them in the freezer. That morning, I topped them off with water, so my water supply was relatively cold.

My bike with the seat-mounted water bottle cages. (Pic is from the first time I carried them, over a year ago.)

At the convenience store, I bought my usual bottle of Gatorade G2, and I could stash it in the down tube cage, since that wasn’t taken up by water bottles this time. At a rest stop at a picturesque country church, I trashed the empty G2 bottle and topped off my water. I had been munching on a Luna Bar for a while, and that helped, too. Even though the ride turned out to be 48 miles instead of 44, and finished with a series of challenging hills, I felt good at the end.

Then came today. I was leading a B ride with the club. It was a 30-mile round trip on a route featuring rolling hills. Again, two iced water bottles. Again, I tried to drink every three miles. But today was different. Because of the hills, I had trouble finding a good spot to drink. Flying down hill, I wanted to keep both hands on the bars. Going uphill, I needed both hands to help me pull up the slope. At the 15-mile turnaround, I realized I had drunk only twice. I downed the rest of my first water bottle.

At a convenience store two-thirds of the way through the ride, I got some ice and filled the one bottle I’d drunk from. The break helped, and I drank a lot from the other bottle. I was pleased to note that I finished strong.

“Eat before you’re hungry, drink before you’re thirsty.” We’ve all heard that jillions of times. But it bears repeating.  I have a pretty good idea of just hat I have to do to stay adequately fueled. From here on out, it’s just a matter of making sure I do it.

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Categories // food Tags // food, water

How to Drink From a Water Bottle

06.06.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 10 Comments

Boy, today’s ride was uncomfortably humid. Not terribly hot, just humid. The kind of day where you start sweating when you open the door and step outside. The kind of day where your cycling gloves are soaked through before you’ve ridden five miles. And when the group takes a short break, you can take the gloves off and wring them out — and they drip moisture all over the road. Ditto your sweat band.

I found myself reaching for my water bottle more than usual today. That’s a good thing, because I tend to drink too little when I’m on the road. But both of my slightly-larger-than-normal water bottles were almost drained when I finished the 33 miles — about all I felt like doing. I had plenty of trouble keeping the group in sight today.

I also noticed the way other riders took their water. It seems there’s not just one way to drink from a bottle, but three distinctly different ways. I couldn’t get shots of all the different ways as we were riding, but when the ride was over I had young Alexander, who rode with us today (and who left me well behind), demonstrate.

The first way is pretty normal. You grab your bottle, and drink from it like you drink from a glass. Or a beer bottle.  Most people seem to use this method.

The way most of us drink.

But there’s a variation I often see, usually from riders with many years of experience. Saw a lot of pros in the Philly International Championship on TV today drink that way, too. They reach down for their bottle, but instead of keeping their thumb at the top, they turn their hand over so the thumb points down. That brings the water bottle to the mouth already pointing down.

The upside down method.

But there’s a third way, that I’ve seen associated with European racing teams. You hold the bottle normally, but then turn it so your hand is on top of the bottle.

Hand on top. You don't see this very often.

I once read about a team of French cyclists using the hand on top method, and figured what the hey, I’ll give it a try. It seemed that the water flowed more freely. Of course, that could be just my imagination.  But I use this way from time to time, if I think about it while on a ride.

Personally, I’ve never liked the upside down method, but in my experience, cyclists who use it won’t drink any other way.

Ultimately, the important thing is to get the water in the mouth. So I suppose whatever works for you is the way to go.

Do you have a preferred method of drinking during rides? And if so, what’s good about it?

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Categories // food, Technique Tags // hydration, water

Low Water Crossings

06.01.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

During spring, rains bring high water in rivers and creeks. Sometimes, these streams rise above the level of roads and make a wet spot in the bridge area. Because the water is so shallow in these spots, however, it’s tempting for cyclists to ride across them.

My advice? Don’t.

I was on a ride with some acquaintances southwest of Dripping Springs, Texas. I’ve mentioned this area a time or two before. The rural roads are usually devoid of motorized traffic, and they’re hilly enough (and rough enough in places) to be interesting. A number of small creeks run through the area, and after the spring rains, the water runs across the road for weeks. In Texas, we call them “low water crossings,” because the water is quite shallow — maybe just enough to wet the surface, and usually less than a half-inch deep.

Anyhow, one of the cyclists who rides these roads more frequently than the rest of us told us about one spot in particular that was still covered with water. She warned us that we might want to walk our bikes across that bridge. Since it came just before we turn to go up a challenging hill, the temptation was to keep up our momentum and ride through it.

The lead rider shot across the bridge, splashing through the water. I thought I might do the same thing, but stopped just short of the wet part. There was algae on the concrete, and that makes the difference between a wet road surface and a slippery road surface. I dismounted and walked my bike across several feet of wetness.

As I was crossing, the third rider in line decided he would ride across. He got even with me, and I saw his wheel slide out from under him. His momentum carried him across the water, but he went down hard on the dry pavement.

After the crash. The rider, in the green jersey, is okay.

He wasn’t badly hurt, but did have some nasty road rash. “I just rode across that Friday [two days before],” he exclaimed.

We got an early introduction to low water crossings. My wife encountered one on her first organized ride, three years ago. She couldn’t clip out of her pedal fast enough, and went down on her side when her front tire hit the water. We’ve been leery of them ever since.

Even very shallow water, if it’s moving, can knock your tires out of line and cause you to go down. Couple that with algae in the water, and the road surface become as slick as ice. Walk across the wet spots. If you’re concerned about losing time, you can pedal faster on the dry parts.

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Categories // Safety Tags // water

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