What to eat the night before a long ride

The night before a long ride is not the moment to invent anything. The useful answer to "what should I eat?" is: a bigger portion than usual of a carbohydrate-based meal you have eaten many times, with less fat, less fibre and less alcohol than a normal Saturday evening, finished early enough that you sleep. Everything below is detail on top of that sentence.

What the meal is for

Your muscles store carbohydrate as glycogen, and the amount stored when you roll out sets how long you can ride hard before the tank runs low. Burke's review of carbohydrate guidelines puts the daily intake for a rider doing one to three hours of training at 6 to 10 g of carbohydrate per kilo of body weight, and for a hard four-hour-plus day at 8 to 12 g per kilo. For a 70 kg rider, the bottom of that range is 420 g a day, which is a lot more than most people eat by accident. The evening meal is where the largest single chunk of it usually lands.

The reason it works overnight is that glycogen storage takes hours, not minutes. Bussau's group showed that trained cyclists could nearly double their muscle glycogen in 24 hours on 10 g of carbohydrate per kilo with very little training, which is where the "one day of loading is enough" advice comes from. A single evening plate does not achieve that on its own, but it is the biggest lever you have left the night before. Our post on carb loading covers the full two-day protocol for a race; this post is about the ordinary long Sunday.

How much, in plates

A workable aim for the evening meal is 2 to 3 g of carbohydrate per kilo, so roughly 150 to 200 g for a 70 kg rider, with the rest of the day making up the remainder. That is our translation of the daily targets into one meal, not a study finding, so treat it as a rule of thumb. In food, 150 g of carbohydrate looks like:

• Pasta. About 200 g dry weight with a tomato-based sauce. Cream and cheese sauces add fat, which slows digestion and sits heavily for some people.
• Rice. Around 180 g dry white rice with a simple stir-fry, light on oil.
• Potatoes. Roughly 700 g of boiled or baked potato, which is a lot of potato; most people find rice or pasta easier to get down at that quantity.
• Bread-based. A large pizza with a thin base and simple toppings is a legitimate option and one many riders use. Pick the margherita, not the one with three meats.

Add a moderate protein portion (chicken, fish, eggs, tofu, lentils if you tolerate them) and a small amount of vegetables. The position stand is clear that protein needs are met across the day, not in one sitting, so this is not the meal to load it.

What to leave out

The gut is the most common reason a long ride goes badly in the first two hours, and the evening meal is often the cause. De Oliveira's review of gastrointestinal complaints in exercise lists fibre, fat, protein and concentrated fructose as the dietary factors most associated with symptoms; Jeukendrup's gut-training review recommends trimming fibre and fat from meals in the day before a key event for exactly this reason.

• High-fibre versions of normal food. Wholemeal pasta, brown rice, large salads, bran cereal, big portions of beans. Fine on Tuesday; not the night before a five-hour ride.
• Very fatty or fried food. It empties from the stomach slowly and can still be around at 7 a.m.
• Spice you are not used to. This is a familiarity question, not a rule. If curry is your normal, have curry.
• Anything new. New restaurant, new recipe, new supplement. Novelty is the risk factor, whatever the food.
• Alcohol beyond a small glass. Barnes's review found alcohol impairs recovery, sleep quality and the glycogen storage you are relying on when it displaces carbohydrate at the meal. One glass with dinner is unlikely to matter; three is. See cycling and alcohol for the fuller picture.

Timing and sleep

Finish the main meal three or more hours before bed. This is partly digestion and partly sleep. Halson's review of sleep in athletes notes that large, late meals and alcohol both reduce sleep quality, and sleep is the recovery tool the long ride will draw on most. If you are hungry again before bed, a small carbohydrate snack (toast with jam, a bowl of cereal, a banana) is fine and adds to the glycogen total rather than working against you.

Drink normally with the meal. A glass or two of water and a salted meal is enough; there is no benefit in forcing fluid the night before, and the cost is getting up at 3 a.m. Hydration is a morning-of and on-the-bike job.

Three evening menus that work

These are ours, and the portions are for a 70 kg rider aiming at roughly 150 to 200 g of carbohydrate in the meal. Scale to your weight.

1. Pasta night. 200 g dry pasta, tomato and basil sauce, a small grated-cheese topping, a chicken breast or a tin of tuna. Bread on the side if still hungry. Dessert: rice pudding or a couple of scoops of sorbet.
2. Rice bowl. 180 g dry jasmine rice, teriyaki salmon or tofu, a few steamed vegetables, soy sauce. Dessert: a banana and honey.
3. Thin-crust pizza and a side. One large margherita, a small green salad without a heavy dressing, a glass of juice. This is the easiest option to get wrong by ordering the loaded version, so order plain.

The morning still matters

A good evening meal does not replace breakfast. Liver glycogen, which keeps blood glucose steady, drops overnight, and the position stand recommends 1 to 4 g of carbohydrate per kilo in the one to four hours before prolonged exercise. Our post on eating before a morning ride covers the options for early starts. And the evening meal does not replace fuelling on the bike either: the 60 to 90 g an hour target for long rides stands regardless of what you ate the night before.

If the ride is a planned session from the Moveee calendar, the duration is already on the card. The evening before, that is the number to look at: a three-hour endurance ride needs a decent dinner; a five-hour hilly one needs the full effort described here, and probably the carb-loading approach the day before as well. The worst outcome is not eating too much pasta. It is discovering at kilometre 60 that the last three days were normal eating for a rider who was about to ride an abnormal distance.