How Far can you go on a cappuccino?
The most common spin ever undertaken on the roads of South Tipperary and North County Waterford is a lap of Ballymac. The 100k route gets it’s name from the small village of Ballymacarbry, that signifies the point of no return when starting in Carrick on Suir and going through Clonmel then on to Dungarvan before returning to Carrick once again.
Tony Ryan always had the group aiming to complete the loop in 3 hours. Rory Wiley once did three laps in a row. Sean Kelly named it as his favourite training route. Sam Bennett made a name for himself as a 15 year old on this route. Martin Early is credited with suggesting that you should be able to do Ballymac on a cup of tea and a slice of toast. He may have just said that you should be able to do a 60 mile spin, but everyone from around here knew that he was speaking about Ballymac.
In a World where carbo loading and the need to bring 5 energy bars, 12 gels, 4 litres of isotonic liquid and a packet of Jelly babies is required to take on a 3 hour cycle is now commonplace (a slight exaggeration, but bot much) Martin Early’s words of wisdom look out of place, but are they really?
Recently, I watched the Netflix documentary Game Changers, and also another called The Paleo Way. Documentary might be a loose term as a true documentary should present the facts of both sides of a debate and let you choose which you agree with. Most of these seem more like adverts for their chosen way of life.
It did get me thinking however, and I decided to try a little experiment myself last Friday. Much of my mid week training is done in the early mornings at 6am with The Dawn Raiders. The most I ever have is a glass of water beforehand, and I never feel hungry or under powered. These spins tend to be short with a good climb, so the effort level is high but the time on the bike is low.
For weekend spins however, especially 9am Sunday training group rides I would always have a bowl of porridge, 2 slices of toast and a mug of coffee. The fear being that if I didn’t, I would get the dreaded hunger knock. But would I really? That was what I was going to find out.
So, last Friday I set off from home at 10.30am having just consumed a glass of water and a cappuccino a few hours beforehand. Heading down the 20km Suir blueway from Clonmel to Carrick I was rolling along as normal. The Autumn colours were spectacular and the wind was on my back. Life was good.
In Carrick, I crossed the bridge and then in Tinhalla took a right and headed over to Portlaw via the Carrick Balcony route. The day before I had benign Portlaw dripping off the clothing order for The Portlaw Village Wheelers and when Kenny Reade told me about mountain biking up to the Windmills above the Village my interest was piqued. So that was my chosen destination as I rolled along up Chapel hill before turning right into the wood.
My most recent bike is a Giant Revolt Advanced Force 0, a long name for a bike but it is a bike that can do many things. On the flat I can roll along at 30 – 32kph but then I can also turn into a wood and do a bit of off road. I climbed as high as I could to get near the windmills and eventually found myself at a Holy Year cross. The view up there was spectacular. As I looked over at Mahon Falls, across at Slievenamon and down to Waterford city I felt a slight pang of hunger, but nothing major.
Descending on a gravel bike is different to a mountain bike, something that I forgot until I clipped a loose rock and felt my back tyre got soft immediately. I stopped to see white sealant spraying everywhere. I had slashed they tyre. Sealant works brilliantly on thorns and small cuts but is not designed to counteract the razor sharp edge of a shale rock. I was about to fit a tube but decided to see if I could do something with the sealant first. I put the area of the tyre that was slashed down at the lowest point and held my finger over the hole for a minute or two. Then I started pumping gently and low and behold the sealant had stopped spraying out and had sealed the hole.
Off I set again. Back out of the wood and in through the gates of Curraghmore estate. This was where Sean Kelly honed his skills for the cobbles of Roubaix and was now where a gravel bike felt totally at home. I cycled through the length of the estate before coming back out on the road near Clonea Power.
The tyre was still holding up, and so was I without feeling any pangs of hunger. It was now almost 2.45pm and as I approached the village of Rathgormack I spotted a pink coat running down towards the shop from the school. I recognised my daughter Kate immediately and stopped to say hello. She asked if I would like part of her brownie that she was on the way to purchase but I declined and said that I would see her at home.
I was now in a zone where I felt like I could stay going all day long and did a loop into the heart of the mountain before crossing over towards the Jenny Heights where I turned into the woods once more. Climbing out off the saddle I could hear the hiss of sealant once more so stopped to give it a shot of air when along cam a a car, an unusual sight this deep into the wood. The car stopped and who was it only a friend who used to work with us in Worldwide Cycles, John Liston. We had a quick chat before both going on our way once more.
I came to a fork in the fire road and the route I would normally take had tree felling going on so I went to explore the other route which unfortunately came to a dead end. I knew that there would be another fire road at the other side of the trees so, as I hate to turn back, forged on ahead through the dense forest with my bike over my shoulder. This reminded me that I really needed to swop the speedplays over for a set of Spd’s.
It was now getting darker in the wood but I eventually stumbled out onto another fire road. Left or right? I went left and after a while came across an opening where I could see Slievenamon in the distance and had a general idea of where I now was.
A bit of slipping and sliding and single tracking finally deposited me back out onto the back road from Carrick to Clonmel where I happened to bump into a few of the Dawn Raiders. Conor, Packie and DJ were rolling along at 32kph against the wind on the back road to Clonmel and I felt fine which surprised me as it was now after 4pm and I still had not consumed any food and only drank half my bottle of water.
I arrived home nearing 5pm and did not eat anything before my dinner at 6.30pm and never felt overly hungry.
So what did I learn?
You can go a lot further than you think you can on a lot less that you would believe when your body starts burning fat instead of carbs.
Overview
- The night before I had 2 bowls of homemade vegetable soup and 4 slices of home-made wholemeal bread.
- I brought 2 gels, 2 bars and money with me, but didn’t use any.
- I finished my single 500ml bottle just as I arrived home.
- Most of the day I was just at a comfortable pace. If the pace was more intense the result could have been a lot different.
- The scales was 1.2kg lower at 6pm than it was at 10am and a week later it has remained .5kg lower.
- The morning after I was back out on the bike at 7am and felt fine.https://www.instagram.com/p/B5e9H0dFzdy/
These are all just my own observations and I am not advising anyone to go out and ride 100k with no food!
Barry
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