The stats on the day: 69 miles with over 4100 feet of climbing over McClure Pass at 8700+ feet elevation. We traveled from Hotchkiss to Carbondale. Calories burned: 4500.
Replacing the 4500 calories burned would normally require a stop at Olive Garden where you might need an order of cheese sticks to top it off. So you might ask, “Tony, how do consume enough food to complete such an outing?”
Easy answer: you don’t. You can’t. One, you don’t have the time to eat that kind of volume of food. Two, even if you could binge 4500 calories, you can’t digest it. Under athletic stress your digestive system slows way down. It can handle stuff ready to go into the bloodstream, but it’s not going to do much with fettuccine Alfredo.
The solution to this problem is science. Admittedly, there are as many theories on how to deal with the calorie problem as there are bike manufacturers. You’ll see people packing hamburgers in their jerseys. You’ll find people that swear by peanut butter-filled pretzels. But expensive chemicals mixed with water is what works for me. For Ride the Rockies I traveled with about 15 pounds of various energy and electrolyte supplements.