First brevet and fueling

[George Shaheen]

Hello! I completed my first brevet (Lucas valley populaire) yesterday. Super fun and I’ve already signed up for another (Coleman valley).

I used some homemade gels yesterday that worked great, so I thought I’d share the recipe. You can find the calculator and recipe guide I built here: https://www.theinstant.cc/gel 

Hopefully a good resource if you’re trying to avoid commercially made gels.

What advice do you all have for the longer brevets? I feel like real food will be required…

Thanks!

George 

[Arvi S.]

Food is pretty personal, but I find that aiming for 60g carbs/ hour, with a mix of liquid and solid sources is a good target for me.

For liquid, I use a variety of things like Onanon (https://www.onanonmix.com -- local option by SFR rider Alex A), Scratch high carb, and Gatorade (bc easy to buy en route).

For solid, I go for complete trash like pop tarts, fig bars, chocolate bars, and gummy bears. Easy to carry and eat while rolling.

[Vijayshree Sundaram]

Love your complete trash comment…..I too search through pantry for all the junk my son buys and can’t finish🙂

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 6, 2026, at 3:35 PM, Arvi S. <ams...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Sourav Das]

On this topic there are as many opinions as there are randonneurs. But it largely depends on the style of riding. If you are going for time, you would have specific needs and a very scientific approach. Your preferences would also change with temperature conditions, elevation and availability of services.

A good way to figure all this out (and many other things) is to ride 200k's and 300k's. These are long rides but not ultra distance so you will finish even if things don't work out exactly as may have expected.

Sourav

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[Dave]

I found the following links helpful as I learned more about this topic.

https://chasingmailboxes.com/2015/06/16/eat-if-it-looks-good-not-so-fast-fueling-on-brevets/ (also the comments)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Velo/comments/1cq6fgd/drink_similar_to_skratch_super_high_carb/

Hummingbird Fuels and Gelumanti are commercial mixes from randonneurs.  No opinion on either one.

As others have said, nutrition is like saddles.  You need trial and error to find what works for you.  There are some general guidelines about how much carbs/fat/protein you need, but its your gut and energy level which will tell you whats best.

Some good options for real food are: fruit, dried fruit, baked goods, rice cakes, sometimes a messy PBH hits the spot (peanut butter honey)