Cycling nutrition · Presented by Hummingbird Fuels
From your first group ride to racing Berkeley Hills, learn what to eat, when to eat, and how to keep your energy going.
Presented by
Hummingbird Fuels is a San Francisco small business making a high-carbohydrate sports and electrolyte drink mix. Each serving has 60 grams of carbohydrate and 170 mg of sodium, from five ingredients: cane sugar, citric acid, sodium citrate, sea salt and natural flavor. It's vegan and gluten-free, and fueled the 2026 Berkeley Omnium.
You can follow everything in this guide with ordinary food or any sports product. If you use Hummingbird Fuels, here's how it fits a plan.
Girona Orange · Arctic Berry · Basque Sidra · Maui Sunrise
Arctic Berry · Girona Orange
Product details from hummingbirdfuels.com, checked October 2026. Check the label for the current formula.
The short answer
Eat a familiar, carbohydrate-rich meal one to four hours before a long ride. On the bike, rides under an hour usually need nothing extra; for 1 to 2.5 hours aim for roughly 30-60 g of carbohydrate per hour, and beyond 2.5 hours roughly 60-90 g per hour if you've trained your gut for it. Drink to the conditions, add sodium on long or hot rides, and refuel with carbohydrate, protein and fluid afterward.
| Ride duration | Carbohydrate during the ride |
|---|---|
| Under 60 minutes | Usually nothing extra for an easy ride |
| 60-90 minutes | Consider some carbohydrate, depending on how hard you ride and what you ate |
| 1-2.5 hours | About 30-60 g per hour |
| Over 2.5 hours | About 60-90 g per hour, for trained riders who tolerate it |
Stage 1 of 5
Carbohydrate is the fuel your legs burn fastest when you push. Your body stores only so much of it, so a long or hard ride starts with a meal.
Start a long ride on an empty tank and you'll run low sooner. That's the heavy-legged, light-headed feeling riders call bonking.
A meal one to four hours before gives it time to settle. A small snack 30-60 minutes before works if you're short on time.
Familiar, easy-to-digest food built around carbohydrate: oatmeal, toast or a bagel with honey or jam, rice, a banana. Go easy on fat and fiber right before a hard effort.
Sports nutrition guidelines suggest roughly 1 to 4 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight, eaten one to four hours before a long or hard session. The bigger meals belong further from the start.
For a race or a hard ride over 90 minutes, eat more carbohydrate the day before as well. Rehearse your race breakfast before a hard training ride so you know how it sits.
Quick check
You have a 90-minute group ride at 8 a.m. What's a good plan?
Stage 2 of 5
On longer rides, eating keeps you going. The trick is to start early and eat a little at a time, before you feel empty.
Under an hour easy, usually nothing. From 1 to 2.5 hours, about 30-60 g of carbohydrate per hour. Beyond 2.5 hours, about 60-90 g per hour if your stomach is used to it.
Find "Total Carbohydrate" per serving. A banana is about 27 g, a small box of raisins about 34 g, and one serving of Hummingbird Fuels drink mix is 60 g.
Divide your hourly target into small amounts every 20-30 minutes. A 60 g/hour target is about 30 g every half hour.
Your stomach adapts to carbohydrate the way your legs adapt to riding. Practice on training rides, and build the amount up over several weeks.
These are general starting ranges, not requirements. What works depends on body size, intensity, and how much your gut has been trained.
Above about 60 g per hour, riders usually do better with a mix of carbohydrate types (glucose and fructose, as in cane sugar) than with one alone.
Stomach trouble usually comes from too much at once, very concentrated drinks or food you haven't tried. Spread it out, drink with it, and change one thing at a time.
Quick check
Your target is 60 g per hour on a three-hour ride. About how much is that in total?
Stage 3 of 5
Every rider sweats differently, so there's no one right amount to drink. The aim is to avoid losing too much, without overdoing it.
Losing a lot of fluid makes hard efforts feel harder and makes heat harder to handle.
Two riders on the same ride can lose very different amounts. Weigh yourself before and after a ride: each pound lost is roughly a pint of fluid.
For most rides under an hour, and for easy riding in cool weather, plain water to thirst is fine.
On long or hot rides, or if you're a salty sweater (white streaks on your kit), a drink with sodium helps replace what you lose.
Hot days raise sweat losses. Start hydrated, drink earlier, and plan where you'll refill.
Drinking far more than you sweat can dilute the sodium in your blood (hyponatremia), which can be dangerous. If you weigh more after a ride than before, you drank too much.
A common starting point is 0.4 to 0.8 liters per hour (roughly two-thirds to one and a quarter 22 oz bottles), adjusted for heat, intensity and your measured sweat rate.
Aim to finish without losing more than about 2% of your body weight, and never finish heavier than you started.
Quick check
You weigh more after a long ride than before. What does that tell you?
Stage 4 of 5
What you eat after a ride sets up the next one. The harder the ride and the sooner you ride again, the more it matters.
Refills what you burned. Most important when you ride again within a day.
Helps your muscles repair. About 15-25 g in a meal or snack after a hard ride is plenty for most riders.
Drink to replace what you lost, with some salty food or an electrolyte drink after a sweaty ride.
After an easy hour, your next normal meal is enough. After a long or hard ride, eat within an hour or two.
When you have less than about eight hours before the next hard session, guidelines suggest roughly 1.0 to 1.2 g of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight per hour for the first four hours after.
To rehydrate fully after a big sweat loss, drink about 1.25 to 1.5 liters for each kilogram of weight lost, spread out, with sodium.
Quick check
You raced hard this morning and ride again tomorrow. When should you eat?
Stage 5 of 5
The Berkeley Hills Road Race is raced on an 18.76-mile loop with 759 feet of climbing per lap, over the Three Bears. Fields race different distances, from 16 to 90 miles, so your plan depends on your field and how long you expect to be out there.
Pick the drink and food you'll race with and use them on your last few long rides. Pack extra sachets, bars or food the night before.
Eat your tested breakfast two to four hours before your staging time. The longer fields stage first, from 8:00 a.m.; check your field's time.
It's hard to eat on Mama Bear or Papa Bear. Eat and drink on the flatter roads and descents between them, and save the climbs for breathing.
Start with full bottles. There's been no running water on the course, so plan your bottles for the distance and the heat.
The feed zone is near the bottom of Papa Bear. Personal feeding is allowed there, and it has had neutral water and bottle handouts while supplies last. Follow the officials' instructions on the day.
Estimate your time from your field's distance and your speed on similar hilly rides, then plan with the calculator below. A short race needs less than a long one.
Lay out bottles, sachets and food. Mix bottles in the morning.
Your tested carbohydrate breakfast, and a bottle to sip.
Start eating and drinking while the pace is calmer, between the climbs.
Keep fueling on the flats and descents; take bottles at the feed zone near Papa Bear.
In the longer fields, plan to take in carbohydrate from early in the race, when the pace is calmer, and keep going on each lap. Late in a long race, it's too late to catch up.
If a teammate or friend is handing up bottles at the feed zone, agree in advance on which bottle and what's in it. Mix drink sachets in advance so the handoff is the only job.
Your race plan should be a copy of a training ride, not an experiment. Rehearse it on a long ride with hard efforts.
Quick check
Where's the best place to eat during the Berkeley Hills Road Race?
Ride fueling planner
Set your ride and get a starting carbohydrate target, a fueling timeline, drinking guidance and a list of what to carry. Change the target within the range and build your own pocket.
Your ride: 1h 30m, moderate
For rides of 1.5 to 2.5 hours, about 30-60 g per hour is the general guide.
A starting point: 0.5-0.7 L per hour (about 0.8-1.1 22 oz bottles), about 0.8-1 L for this ride. Adjust to your own sweat rate.
General guidance for healthy adults, not individual advice. If you have a medical condition, diabetes or a history of stomach trouble on the bike, talk to a doctor or sports dietitian.
Your plan is about 45 g. Change the counts to build your own mix. Ordinary food works as well as sports products.
Carrying 54 g of 45 g. You're covered. Food only? That's about 2 bananas, or mix in whatever you like to eat.
Learn from everyone else
By the time you feel empty, you're behind. Start eating in the first 30 minutes of a long ride.
A new gel, drink or breakfast is a gamble. Race with what you've practiced.
Big amounts sit badly. Small, regular amounts are easier on your stomach.
Over a few hours in the heat, you lose sodium as well as water.
More isn't always better. Finishing heavier than you started is a warning sign.
Save something for the last hour. A lot of bonks happen on the way back.
Cycling nutrition
It depends on how long and how hard you ride. Rides under an hour usually need nothing extra. For 1 to 2.5 hours, about 30-60 g of carbohydrate per hour is the general guide; beyond 2.5 hours, about 60-90 g per hour for trained riders who tolerate it. Start lower and build up in training.
For a long or hard ride, a familiar, carbohydrate-rich meal one to four hours before, like oatmeal, toast with honey or a bagel and a banana. For a short, easy ride, your normal meals are fine.
Carbohydrate in small, regular amounts, starting early: a sports drink, gels, bananas, raisins, rice cakes or sandwiches. Choose what you've tried before and spread it out every 20-30 minutes.
There's no single amount. A common starting point is 0.4 to 0.8 liters per hour, more in heat. Weigh yourself before and after rides to learn your own sweat rate, and don't drink so much that you gain weight.
For short rides, plain water is usually enough. On long or hot rides, or if you sweat a lot of salt, a drink with sodium helps replace what you lose.
Eat a tested breakfast two to four hours before your staging time, start with full bottles, eat on the flatter roads between the Three Bears climbs, and use the feed zone near the bottom of Papa Bear for bottles. Fields race 16 to 90 miles, so plan for your field's distance.
This guide is general education for healthy adults, not medical or individual nutrition advice. Junior racers and their parents should plan fueling with a coach or a doctor who knows the rider.