Fuelling for a Sportive: Nutrition Tips for Amateur Cyclists

There's a peculiar thing that happens at almost every sportive. Riders who have trained diligently for months — hill repeats, long Sunday rides, the lot — roll up to the start line having given no more than five minutes' thought to what they'll actually eat during the event. Then, somewhere around the 70km mark, they discover that legs don't run on enthusiasm. The engine is only as good as the fuel you put in it, and on a five or six hour ride, fuelling is not optional.

The good news is that fuelling for a sportive is not complicated. It requires a bit of planning, a bit of arithmetic, and the discipline to eat before you feel hungry. This guide covers what to eat in the days before, what to carry in your pockets, how much to take per hour, and how to use feed stations without wrecking your rhythm. Get these things right and you'll ride the final 30km passing people, rather than being passed.

Before the Event: Arrive With Full Glycogen Stores

Your body can store roughly 400–500g of carbohydrate as glycogen in your muscles and liver — enough for around 90 minutes to two hours of hard riding. A sportive will take most amateurs considerably longer than that, so the goal in the final 48 hours is simple: start with the tank full.

You don't need an old-fashioned carb-loading protocol with a depletion phase. Simply increase your carbohydrate intake to around 8–10g per kilogram of body weight per day for the last day or two, while easing back on training. For a 75kg rider that's 600–750g of carbs daily — porridge, rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, fruit juice. Keep fibre and fat moderate the night before so your stomach isn't churning at the start line.

On the morning itself, eat a familiar breakfast of 100–150g of carbohydrate about three hours before you roll out. Porridge with banana and honey, or toast with jam, works for most people. Nothing new on race day — this rule is old because it's correct.

Fuelling for a Sportive: The Hourly Numbers That Matter

Once you're riding, the target is 60–90g of carbohydrate per hour for events over three hours. Most amateurs under-eat dramatically — surveys of sportive riders regularly find average intakes below 40g per hour, which goes a long way to explaining the carnage at the roadside in the final quarter of any big event.

Start eating within the first 20–30 minutes, not when you feel hungry. Hunger lags well behind your actual glycogen state, and by the time you feel empty you're already 30–45 minutes from being able to fix it — carbohydrate takes time to digest and reach working muscles.

• Ride under 3 hours: 40–60g of carbs per hour is plenty.
• Ride of 3–5 hours: aim for 60–80g per hour.
• Ride over 5 hours: push towards 90g per hour, using a mix of glucose and fructose so your gut can absorb it all.

That last point matters. Glucose absorption maxes out at around 60g per hour through one intestinal transporter (SGLT1); fructose uses a separate transporter (GLUT5), which is why products blending the two let you absorb more total carbohydrate. If you're targeting the higher end, check your fuel contains both sugars.

Practically, 60–80g per hour means eating something every 20–30 minutes. Set a timer on your bike computer if you have to — when it beeps, you eat. It sounds robotic, but fuelling for a sportive works best when it's automatic, because decision-making deteriorates as you fatigue.

Hydration: The Other Half of the Equation

Aim for 500–750ml of fluid per hour, more in warm weather, and include 300–600mg of sodium per litre if you're a heavy or salty sweater (white streaks on your helmet straps are the giveaway). Even 2% dehydration — about 1.5kg of body weight for a 75kg rider — measurably reduces power output.

A sensible setup is two 750ml bottles: one with an electrolyte drink, one with plain water. Sip both regularly rather than gulping occasionally. If you prefer to keep your carbs in solid form and your bottles light, that's fine — just make sure the sodium comes from somewhere.

Feed Stations: Use Them, Don't Depend on Them

Feed stations are brilliant for topping up bottles and grabbing a banana, but building your entire strategy around them is a gamble. They may be further apart than advertised, out of your preferred food, or so busy that stopping costs you fifteen minutes. Carry your core fuel — enough to hit your hourly carb target for the full ride — in your jersey pockets, and treat whatever the feed stations offer as a bonus.

A useful rule of thumb for a six-hour sportive at 70g per hour: that's roughly 420g of carbohydrate on the bike. Count it out the night before, lay it on the kitchen table, and divide it between your pockets and top tube bag. If it looks like a lot, that's because it is — and it's what the ride actually costs.

What We Use at FTP Endurance Fuel

We built our range around exactly this problem: hitting 60–90g per hour without gagging on another sickly gel at hour five. Our pastilles are small, easy to chew even when breathing hard, and deliver carbohydrate in measured doses, so counting your hourly intake is straightforward rather than guesswork. Flavour fatigue is real on long rides, which is why many of our riders carry the Mixed Fruit Pastilles for variety through the day, with tart cherry as a change of pace in the final hours.

The 1kg bulk packs work out considerably cheaper per gram of carbohydrate than boxes of individually wrapped gels, and you can portion exactly what a given ride needs into a small bag — no half-used sachets rattling around your pockets. If you'd rather try before committing to a kilo, the Taster Pack is the sensible starting point.

A sportive should be a day you remember for the scenery and the descents, not for sitting in a village hall wrapped in a foil blanket. Eat early, eat often, hit your numbers, and practise the whole routine on training rides before the big day. If you want fuel that makes the arithmetic easy, have a look at our bundles — portion out what you need, stuff your pockets, and go enjoy the ride.