When I had Sam Impey on the podcast, I expected us to spend most of the conversation talking about 120 grams of carbohydrate an hour.

That is the number everyone knows now.

The pros are eating 100, sometimes 120 grams an hour. You see it in a headline, buy the biggest gels you can find and decide that is what Sunday should look like.

Then two hours into the ride your stomach is in bits.

Sam works with riders like Tom Pidcock and Filippo Ganna. He knows what the top end looks like. But the number he kept coming back to for amateurs was much less exciting.

60 grams an hour.

One gram a minute.

Not because 60 is some perfect number for every rider. It isn't. It is a sensible place to start, then you build from there as your gut gets used to taking in more.

That part matters. The pros did not wake up one morning able to absorb 120 grams an hour. Their guts have been trained alongside their legs.

Most of us try the final number without doing any of the work that came before it.

The other thing Sam said changed how I think about food on the bike.

Fuelling does not only stop you from bonking. It changes the cost of the session.

Two riders can do the same intervals at the same power and create a different amount of stress. One has carbohydrate coming in. The other is trying to get through it on fumes.

The watts might match. The bill afterwards does not.

This week

So rather than give you another list of what the professionals eat, try this on your next ride of 90 minutes or more.

Aim for 60 grams of carbohydrate an hour.

Break it into three. Take roughly 20 grams every 20 minutes, starting in the first 20 minutes rather than waiting until you feel hungry.

Check the labels before you leave. A gel is often around 20 to 25 grams. A bottle of drink mix might contain 30 to 40 grams depending on how you make it. The exact food matters less than knowing what you are actually carrying.

For a two-hour ride, you need 120 grams in total.

That could be gels, drink mix, bananas, bars or whatever your stomach already gets on with. Do not use the ride to test five new products at once. The point is to test the amount, not turn your gut into a chemistry experiment.

When you get home, write down two things:

1. How were your legs in the final 30 minutes?

2. How was your stomach?

Keep it simple. Better, same or worse for the legs. Fine, noticeable or bad for the gut.

If the energy was better and the stomach was fine, repeat it. That is your starting point.

If the stomach struggled, do not decide that carbs do not work for you. Go a little lower, use food you already tolerate and build back towards 60 over a few weeks.

And if you finish with half the food still in your pockets, that tells you something too. You did not have a nutrition problem. You had a reminder problem.

Set the timer for 20 minutes next time.

One ride. One gram a minute. Then see what actually happened.

P.S. The full conversation with Sam is here: https://roadmancycling.com/podcast/sam-impey-most-cyclists-fuel-wrong

P.P.S. Our first Girona training camps are this October. The road week is sold out. The gravel week, 16 to 21 October, still has a few spots left: https://roadmancycling.com/training-camps/girona-gravel

Anthony