Vegan Randonneurs

[Ryan Golbeck]

Hi all,

I was wondering if there are (m)any vegan randonneurs out there, and
if any of you have tips on eating on long Brevets? Especially longer,
smaller, unsupported Brevets, such as a 1000km with no ride
volunteers?

I did my first 1000km this season, and found it difficult foodwise.
Especially on the 2nd and 3rd day, when I'm even tired and hungry and
even less likely to be picky about what I'm going to put into my
mouth.

Thanks,
-ryan

[Greg Merritt]

Hi Ryan,

I'm not vegan -- I eat milk, milk products, bee's honey and chicken
eggs -- but I do not eat meat, poultry, fish, shellfish, snails,
animal broth, rennet, gelatin, or any other body bits or extracts.

Controls on our longer brevets here in northern California often
include 24-hour supermarkets, which make for a lot of food options,
including many basic foods like fruit and bread. You can pretty
easily hand-pick what you like, and you need to buy something anyway
to get your receipt for proof of passage.

Also, I don't typically choose full meals -- rather I'm snacking on
bread things or fruit or whatnot sort of constantly, so I'm never
looking to buy some sort of full platter of a meal that fits my diet.
A little of this and a little of that works well for me.

On the one 600k that I did (my longest brevet to date), we had drop
bags. I packed some peanut butter & jelly sandwiches in that, since I
love to eat them and they keep decently well.

I also use a fairly large trunk bag on a rack, and tend to overpack food.

How are you trying to source food during your brevets? Are groceries
/ supermarkets available? Do you have much cargo space on your rando
bike, or are you traveling with very little on the bike?

-Greg

[Charles Lathe]

Hey Ryan,

I'm not vegan, but I'm not a meat or poultry eater either. When I
rode brevets in the Pacific Northwest, I found lots of convenience
stores with bean burritos, jo-joes, etc; and many controls in small
towns are open so you can have your card signed at the grocery store.
Here in the Southeast, open controls are rare with most of the
controls are at convenience stores where most everything comes from a
food factory and has meat in it.

I feel bad for you vegans because your dietary rules are very
strict. I try to cope by carrying way too much food on the bike so
that I can try to get by with only supplements along the way, I wish
our routes could have more open controls so we could stop at the
grocery store, and I sometimes adopt an attitude of tolerance. If I
can't find what I want, I'll grab something with as little meat in it
as I can find. There is meat in a can of pork and beans, but not
nearly as much as in a can of beans and weenies or on a turkey
sandwhich. Peanut butter crackers, cold vegetable soup out of the
can, and nuts all taste pretty good on a hot spring or summer brevet
around here.

With the trouble I have, I don't see how a vegan could survive around
here on brevets past 300K unless you train your system to survive on
corn syrup foods. There's lots of corn syrup out there, but I can't
tolerate sweets when it's hot.

I hope there are lots or replies to your post, because I'd also like
to hear how others survive on the road in a country where factory
grown meat is cheap because it's subsidized.

Good luck, Chuck Lathe
Franklinville, NC

[papa...@comcast.net]

I have seen people carrying some home made's.  I heat a can of black been soup and add 1 cup of instant rice.  I think Jon Mueller mentioned that once and I stole his recipe.  I make burritos and they last. Subways make veggie sandwiches and burger king has veggie burger. Some convenience shops have fruit or jo jo's. Also with high calorie drink (perpetuem) I think you can patch food together.  Here in the Northwest we have non meat alternatives at our overnights (600k)  as cooks are sensitive to the diversity of riders.  Some places aren't as thoughtful.  The times I've been in France, I've noticed the lack of meat free items as well as people looking at me like I'm from outer space when I say 'je suis vegetarian, no viendre, sil vous plais" (did I say that right?). 

J 

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[Keith (ne' trekman1420)]

One of my favorite rando bloggers and new RUSA board member Cecil Anne
is Vegan and often discusses the issue on her site:
http://formerlyfloyd.blogspot.com/

(Vegetarian but not vegan) "Surly" Keith

[g...@goggc.com]

Hi, Ryan -- I'm not even a vegetarian, but I have an allergy to wheat,
cane sugar and eggs. At a 7-11, that leaves potato chips.

So I make these bars. They are tasty and packed with calories:

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup each of raisins, almonds, sesame, sunflower, cashews, or
whatever
1.5 cup of natural peanut butter
1 cup of honey
'1 tsp vanilla

Microwave peanut butter, honey and vanilla for a minute. Pour into the
dry ingredients and mix.
Press onto a lightly greased baking pan and bake at 350 for 15
minutes. Let cool and cut into bars.

On Nov 28, 2:46 pm, Ryan Golbeck <gow...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Greg Merritt]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 6:41 PM, g...@goggc.com <g...@goggc.com> wrote:

> 1/2 cup each of raisins, almonds, sesame, sunflower, cashews, or
> whatever

Do you mean 1/2 * 5, for 2.5 cups total of nutty/raisin ingredients?

Thanks!

-Greg

[Ingle, Bruce]

I'm not vegan, but gorp (traditionally good old raisins and peanuts, but
more more generally dried fruit and nuts) works pretty well for me --
it's readily available, calorie- and nutrient-dense food (dried fruit
~70 Cal/oz, nuts ~170 Cal/oz). For some snacking variety, I'll put the
bags of nuts and fruit in opposite pockets and have handfuls of one or
the other at a time.

If you figure an ounce per ungloved and generous handful, a couple
handfuls of dried fruit and a handful of nuts per hour should net you
the 300-350 Cal/hr you'd need on the road.

The main drawback is needing to wait for a smooth, straight stretch of
flat or slightly uphill low-traffic road to eat it on the bike, or it
gets spilled everywhere. :) Finding palatable dried fruit without
extra sugar or preservatives can also be a challenge.

Larabars are a more convenient but more expensive form. They're
generally harder to find, but getting easier as they're becoming more
mainstream; a lot of supermarkets have them.

- Bruce

[Lynne Fitz]

The thermos on the bike - I've got a promo metal thermos bottle with a
water bottle-type cap, that keeps my favorite riding hot drink
(Gatorade-Tea) hot for HOURS. Then I go into a grocery, put more hot
water in it, and pull out my next batch of hot beverage mix.
Although, as we had leftover mulled cider this week, that's what I
took on my last ride. Yummy.

http://www.bicyclecoffeesystems.com/ (but turn the sound off on your
computer if at work. It makes noises :-) )

Cecil (who is my bestest riding buddy) tells me that dark chocolate is
good. She also carries some sort of tofu creation, Clif Shot Blocks,
bananas, peanut butter sandwiches, boiled potatoes, and the expected
bars, nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. Plus she bakes an outstanding
zucchini bread, and zucchini-pumpkin bread. And cookies. Can't
forget the cookies.

On Nov 29, 8:12 am, Jan Heine <hein...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> I am not a vegan, but during brevets, I eat a
> vegan diet simply because overloading my stomach
> with hard-to-digest foods makes it hard to pedal.
> So no burritos for me - I tried that during my
> first long-distance race, Cannonball, many years
> ago. I had to slow down for over an hour until
> the burrito had left my stomach. I should add
> that my stomach is a bit delicate, and others
> might have better results.
>
> Today, I rely on energy bars, Ensure Plus meal
> replacements (not something I'd ever consider off
> the bike, but it passes easily even on hot days)
> and soup. Vegetable soup was the "secret" of
> 1950s randonneurs. During the long nights of PBP
> (which was held in September then, not in
> August), they carried thermos with soup on their
> bikes. In our book "The Competition Bicycle," you
> can see the two types of bottle cages on the
> tandem that set the fastest time in PBP 1956: one
> for standard water bottles, the other an older
> design with a spring-loaded clamp that could
> accept thermos of varying diameters. And the old
> Rebour drawings of the bikes in the interview
> with Roger Baumann, who was fastest single-bike
> rider that year show the thermos. (The interview
> was published in Bicycle Quarterly Vol. 1, No. 2.)
>
> PBP was great food-wise, as each controle served
> vegetable soup, white rice and noodles in
> separate bowls. I combined them to perfect
> consistency, and was refueled, rehydrated and got
> some electrolytes. And it was warm!
>
> I have tried delis at U.S. grocery stores, and
> sometimes, you can get similar items. I have not
> yet figured out how to carry a thermos on my
> bike, but I am working on it. Especially for
> those late-season rides in the mountains, it
> would be useful.
>
> The fastest riders in PBP 1966 relied on "gateaux
> de riz" - small rice balls with a variety of
> secret ingredients. They did have a support team,
> who fed them at controls (see the first-hand
> report of Maurice Macaudière in Bicycle Quarterly
> a few years back), but you could come up with
> something similar and carry it along.
>
> I used to make special chocolate chip cookies
> that were easier to eat than energy bars, and you
> can adjust the ingredients as you see fit (more
> protein, more fat, etc.). The recipe used to be
> online somewhere... but today, I don't have time
> to prepare my rides that well. It's hard enough
> to find time to ride!
>
> Jan Heine
> Editor
> Bicycle Quarterly
> 2116 Western Ave.
> Seattle WA 98121http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com

[Todd Stephens]

Depending on the severity of your allergy, you need to watch those
oats. Some companies - like Bob's Red Mill - do a good job of keeping
the oats away from wheat but most large scale companies (Quaker, etc.)
process oats on the same equipment that wheat is processed on. For
some this can cause a reaction. Otherwise, it sounds like a good
recipe to me.

[Donald Perley]

I took a look. Bob's Red Mill has dozens of oat products, but only a
couple are listed as gluten free. With other gluten free grains and
mixes it looks like a good resource for the severely sensitive, but
look for the big GF on the bag, not just the brand.

[Greg Merritt]

Made a half batch of these last night, using dried cherries instead of
dried grapes.

It was very easy and they taste quite good. I'll be making them again.

Thanks for the recipe!

-Greg

[Bill Gobie]

These bars have been great. I've been tweaking the recipe since it
was posted. One third to half a recipe powers me through a 200k. The
bars freeze well (best to keep them inedible when you're not riding).
The latest version got good reviews during last week's 200k.

2 cups rolled oats
1.5 cups natural peanut butter
1 cup raw honey
3/4 cup chopped pecans, almonds, and cashews
1/2 cup chocolate chips or chopped baking chocolate
1/2 stick butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Microwave the peanut butter, honey, and butter for one minute. Add
the salt and vanilla and mix. Mix in the oats and chopped nuts. Add
the chocolate last -- if the chocolate melts microwave for less time
next time.

Spread on a baking pan, greased or lined with parchment paper or a
silicone baking mat. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until lightly
browned (careful -- burns easily). Let cool and cut into bite-sized
pieces.

The ingredients reflect my personal preferences. I like unsweetened
baking chocolate to offset the honey. I might reduce the fat (butter
and chocolate) come warm weather.

I'm not a fan of oats stuck between my teeth, so I run the oats and
nuts through a meat grinder to make an oat flour nut butter paste.
The oats are hard to grind by themselves (my weak Kitchen-Aid mixer
attachment stops), so I grind the oats and nuts together. Grinding
the nuts expels enough oil to lubricate the oats.

Bill Gobie