Foods NOT To Eat On the Bike

Last week I wrote about The Ultimate Cycling Snack. I experimented with a few of these foods while on a big ride last weekend. I was most interested to try the Boiled potatoes which according to pro-team Garmin Chipotle's nutrition tips, are supposed to be a cyclists wonderfood.

Let me tell you the problem I found with these "natural" foods. Foods like the potato crumbled very easily and pieces got lodged in my throat while breathing heavily. The other food I tried (from Garmin Chipotle again) was rice cakes. These were made from sushi rice, scrambled egg, and a bit of ham all mashed together into nice little cakes. Again, chewing these while trying to breath at 45km/hr was not an easy task. I happened to share these with my mates and we all ended up coughing up a lung trying to get these things down our throats.

Both of these snacks were excellent while riding slowly or taking a break but not in a hard riding situation. The thing I learned from this experiment is the best things to eat while on the bike are easily chewed foods that don't flake or break apart. Stick to gels, powerbars or a ziplock bag of creamed rice (particularly good) when riding hard.

Okay, enough with the stupid experiments.