The carbs-per-hour conversation in cycling has been completely rewritten in the last five years. The old 30-60g per hour 'rule' came from sports drink studies in the 90s with relatively crude protocols. Dr David Dunne, Professor Asker Jeukendrup, and the World Tour fuelling work Dan Lorang has discussed on the podcast all converge on dramatically higher numbers for trained cyclists — and amateurs are following.
The current evidence-based ranges are: 30-60g per hour for rides 90 minutes to 2 hours, 60-90g per hour for endurance rides 2-4 hours, and 90-120g per hour for hard efforts or rides longer than 4 hours. The upper end of those ranges requires 'gut training' — the body's ability to absorb carbs at high rates is itself trainable, and most amateurs cap out at 60-70g per hour because they've never trained the gut to do more.
The mix matters as much as the total. Glucose-only carbs cap absorption at around 60g per hour because the SGLT1 transporter saturates. Adding fructose (using a different transporter, GLUT5) lifts the ceiling significantly — a 1:0.8 glucose-to-fructose ratio is the current World Tour standard. That's why modern sports nutrition products often blend maltodextrin with fructose, and why 100g+ per hour fuelling is now realistic for trained amateurs.
Practical advice: gut-train. Start at 60g per hour and add 10g per week on long rides until you hit your target. Use a mix of drink, gel, and real food (rice cakes, Pop-Tarts, fig rolls all work). The Roadman Fuelling Calculator gives exact numbers for your bodyweight and ride duration. The mistake to avoid is going from 30g to 120g in one session — your gut will revolt and you'll write off the strategy entirely.