Feedzone Cooking

Back when I was racing I picked up a great book called Feedzone Portables. I made a lot of the recipes in the book, and worked them into my nutrition plan when training for my first 24 hour solo race. I ended up meeting one of the authors in the Skratch Labs tent at the 24 hours of Summer Solstice a few years ago. Is anyone else making their own food for riding and training? Feed Zone Portables | The Feed Zone

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Interesting thread, I was wondering about some of this as I was getting ready for a multi day stage race which was unfortunately cancelled. Sadly, my most of my rides these days are only 2-3hrs, so I usually just subside on my natural fat stores. I usually just carry a bag of figs or homemade energy balls for Emergency bonks. PB&J’s were my go to when I did 8 hours of gore.
I have been thinking about experimenting in the medium of the burrito as trailside food. Small tortilla with thin layer beans/rice and dash of hot sauce? Maybe melted cheese as a binder? Would avocado send it over the top or create too much mess? Cilantro?! I should carry a shot of espresso too. These are the thoughts that distract me when I suffer up a climb…

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Yes, I use their rice cake recipes quite frequently.

Beyond the recipes, I think the information given to the “why” some foods work and some dont would be beneficial to anyone in the Endurance world.

Great book for sure.

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Good book, nicely produced and lot of info.

I’m pretty sure @kaarin ate nothing but FZP sweet potato cakes during Nat Champs and Shenandoah 100 wins. Me, I find they taste pretty good but I’m still slow.

We haven’t experimented with too many other recipes from the book. What other recipes do people here like? Personally I find that savoury stuff is appealing if out on an all-day ramble.

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I tried out the recipe for the spiced beef and onion rice cakes-they didn’t last long enough to make it to a ride!!

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Damn, those do look good for general consumption…

Some of the stats in that book about how much fluid/mix some of the tour guys use in a stage is insane.

Off the top of my head I want to say it was something like 1.5L every hour for up to 6hrs.

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I used that book, and tips from the website to build my racing nutrition plan. I worked out how many calories, and how much water I would need for each lap of the 16km of course. Keeping a training journal really helped too.

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Missed this thread last year, may have died out before I got back into cycling last summer and back on here. Going to pick up that Feedzone portables book with my next Amazon order (also going to grab Friel’s bible which I’m hoping I can make use of without a power meter).

Made some skratch labs rice cakes recently but found them a bit soft and crumbly, would be concerned about them falling apart while trying to eat them on the fly (on road or gravel, won’t even try to eat a granola bar while mtbing, at Mcintosh anyway lol not many places I can take my hands off the bars while moving for very long lol). Has anyone found a way to make them more solid or found any other recipes for snacks that hold up to being stuffed into your jersey pocket, roughly dug out and unwrapped? Store bought granola bars are one of the few things I’ve found I can rely on to not be cracked or crushed once unwrapped. At one of the spring races Van der Poel sprinted with something hanging out of his mouth that was certainly more solid than how my rice cakes came out.

Also didn’t know Kaarin was a former national champ!

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I had the same issues ams just assumed eating gross, unmanageable food was part of the game.
Lately I am on the snickers program and honestly find it just as productive.

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I just fell onto the Clif Builders bars as they are lactose free. I find them to be pretty solid, I’ll bite a piece off and pop it back into my pocket without it falling apart.

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I didn’t find the rice cakes gross made the skratch recipe for the one with Oreo bits in it that was pretty good, just find a lot of food gets crushed or broken in my pockets either from mtbing or from trying to dig it out of my pockets while riding road or gravel.


Top tube bags are killer for holding snacks for long rides. I can easily get a large fries from McD’s in this one.

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#nutritiongoals

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Lol was just listening to one of the Trainer Road podcasts and they were suggesting Mcdonalds hamburgers

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Fries powered me through a long, hot, and humid Ontario gravel tour a few years ago. They balanced out the beers we had at the breweries along the way.

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Cold pizza saved my life at 4am in a 24 hour event.

I pitted beside Jason English in one event (by chance, he was ridiculously fast not like me…). It looked like his wife was feeding him a steady diet of vegemite sandwiches with the crusts cut off. But I could have been hallucinating.

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Back in the old days (late 80s?), I wouldn’t have finished a Wentworth XC race, held on the ski hill side of the valley, if it hadn’t been for the 1/3 pack of three year old Certs in my hip pack. At least, that’s what I told myself.

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I had a buddy show up in my pit during a 24 hour solo race. He sent my pit guy home then switched all the food I had trained with for the food he thought I should be eating. Which was marshmallow cookies and assorted other crap. By 3 AM I was sick and out of gas. I decided to take a couple of laps out and recover, but buddy had drank all my post race beers and passed out in my tent. I no longer tell him when I’m racing.

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