Conference noted::bicycle

    
    These "limits" sounds perfectly normal to me!  I would imagine that
    you could fix/postpone all of them by training harder/longer, and
    eating more/better. Carbohydrates seem to be the answer.
    
    Stew
    

    	While the shorter depletion sounds like glycogen depletion,
    the 6 hour type 'bonk' is often from depressed blood sugar levels.
    To test this, try a cone of soft ice cream (or whatever your favorite
    sugary sweet is) when you feel this 'bonk' comming on. 
        - Chris
    ps. Can you add some wisdom here Steve F.?
    

    
    The feeling after climbing a hill is your body going anerobic. 
    You can sustain maximum output for only 30 seconds or so.  
    So pace yourself alittle on the hills.  You're body is hurting for
    Oxygen.  Glycogen is you body's way of storing sugars.  
    
    You might want to pick up a biology or *good* fitness book that
    explains the ATP-ADP-Lactic Acid cycles.
    
    That 6 hour feeling may deal with your preparation.  Make sure your
    rested and carbo-ed up.  That is a long time, you are bound to get
    tired.
    
    Ice cream is loaded with fat.  There are lot better ways to boost
    your energy quickly.  At the end of the ride what the heck, but
    during the ride stick to carbos and water.
    

    JD
    

    I tend to agree with Chris.  Being a diabetic myself and doing blood
    sugar monitoring while I ride, I can see my blood sugar go down
    later in the ride.  I just returned from a trip in the Canadian
    Rockies and on the hardest day over Sunwapta pass my wife and did
    the following:
    
    o The night before we had a large pasta dinner, with plenty of
    protein also. 
    
    o Ate primarily carbo breakfast but also milk and peanut butter
      (I can digest anything and ride right after)
    
    o We both drank an carbo enery mix (energaid?) which provides 460
    cal per waterbottle. We each drank 1 bottle beginning about 1.5
    hours into the ride, right over the pass.  I don't know if we were
    so psyched to to the climb or if this eating pattern with the energaid
    really helped (I think it did).  
    
    o The next day, we followed a normal food pattern without energaid,
    the ride was much shorter and downhill, but we both had endurance
    problems.  My blood sugar went dangerously low.  
    
    Recommendations:
    
    Prepare for a long ride by eating well balanced meals.  Make sure
    you get plenty of vitamins in your food. Carbo up but take in proteins
    also, they'll stay with you.
    
    Begin feeding after 25 miles or so on a carbo mix of some sort.
    
    Another thing to try, if you start bonking after 6 hours, try
    drinking 1 or 2 cokes.  The caffeine may help.  We've done this
    approach during long rides in Vermont before the last major climb.
    
    Steve
    

    
    Protein does not "stay with you" in any form that you can use. Your
    body has a hard time digesting it, and it either disposes of it
    or stores it as fat( once it has all that it needs that is..).
    
    Muscle glycogen will be depleted before your blood sugar starts
    going down.  Maybe diabetics are effected differently but I don't
    think so....
    
    I'd have to agree with JD. Get yourself a "good" nutrition book!
    The Athletes Kitchen is pretty good.
    
    Ice cream is not energy food. It is fat food!  Ice cream is great
    for after,but during a long ride it'll just weigh you down.
    
    One thing that will pick up your blood sugar real quick is fruit
    juices like Orange juice!  It sure beats Ice cream.
    
    Stew
    

    	re. .5   I'm sorry, but the sugar in soft ice cream DOES work
    for me.  I'm not saying that everyone should try/use this, but if
    you are having this type of problem, you might try it.  As Steve
    says, it DOES work for some people.  Your way/what's best for you
    is not best for everyone. [I have a history of Adult onset diabetes
    in the family, so I'll have this to look forward to in the next
    15 to 20 years.  It may be that under stress, my body reacts somewhat
    like Steve's does now.]    "Different strokes for different folks..."
    	- Chris

    
    Chris,
    	I have no doubt that sugar does give you a boost, all I was saying
    was that possibly you could get it from a better source. Ice
    cream does contain alot of fat along with that sugar, which is NG.
    
    	I'm sugar that the sugar in ice cream is the same as the in
    OJ (for example), but the OJ has alot less fat.
    
    	Don't get me wrong. I LOVE ice cream! I also realize that its
    nutritional value is 0
    
    Stew

    Chris did say "soft ice cream" which I believe has a different
    fat/sugar ratio from "hard ice cream" which is made from cream
    which is very fatty.
    
    There are other factors though. Intensity of effort is very much
    related.  "Hard" ice cream followed by a very tough effort is likely
    to give me cramps or at least a stomach reaction (an hour at 20+,
    for example) whereas following it by evenb a hundred miles at
    15 mph won't be much of a problem.
    
    Another factor is that once in a while you see an article on
    "training your body to use fats instead of carbos"  You don't see
    them very often because fewer nutritionists understand the functions
    and fewer yet athletes can do it.  Besides it only seems to work
    for endurance athletes anyway and few scientists care about the
    lunatic fringes.
    
    ed

> Don't get me wrong. I LOVE ice cream! I also realize that its nutritional 
> value is 0.

	But without the banana ice cream, the ultimate meal (brownie
	sundae with banana ice cream) would be sadly lacking in two of 
	the four basic food groups!

	Milk and cheese group:
		Cream in ice cream and whipped cream.

	Grains and cereals group:
		Flour in the brownie.

	Meat, poultry and fish group:
		Eggs in the brownie (and possibly in the ice cream)

	Fruits and Vegetables group:
		Bananas in the ice cream.
		Cherry on top.

	Be sure to leave off the hot fudge which as we all know is just
	empty calories.

				-John A. Wasser

Ice cream, as many of you know, is a major part of my life.
No matter what they say, I eat gobs of the stuff.

I find that during a bike trip an ice cream soda or float is a 
great pick-me-up.  It's not too heavy and provides a good energy 
boost.

(The dairy bar at UofNH at NEAR made excellent soda's for only 1.25;
and their banana split, at only 2.25, rivaled Kimballs)

	~Mike (charter member of Ice Cream Anonomous)

    	An important part of the Halderman-Penseyrs (sp?) trans-con.
    tandem record was monotoring by physicians.  Some very surprising
    results [max. heartrate and normal heartrate falling each day, etc]
    were measured.  These should be summarized in Bicycling and a detailed
    article published in Bike Tech, according to someone who attended
    Halderman's workshop at NEAR.  So, it does look like someone is
    interested in the extreams of endurance.  - Chris

	Well I managed to stuff down about 4000 calories during yesterdays ride
and over a pound of spaghetti noodles (in addition to normal meals) the day
before and felt much better at the end of the ride than last time.  I guess I
was not eating enough before.  I have also tried eating Fig Newtons and
definitely like them for rides.  Anybody know how many calories are in a Fig
Newton? Thanks for the suggestions. 

Ed 

    
    Fig Newtons are one of those items that they don't list the calories
    on!  They contain Dates which are loaded with carbos AND loaded
    with calories!
    
    Stew
    

I remember reading somewhere that Fig Newtons have 63 calories each. 
I believe it was in an article in the Gobe last week.

Anne

    
    Even better than OJ: take a look at the numbers on Chiquita's
    Banana-Orange drink.  You'd think they'd adveritise it as a
    good drink for athletes.