How Much Water Do You Need To Take On A Mountain Bike Ride?

How much water do you need to drink on a bike ride? What's the best way to carry it? As always, it depends, but I'm going to dive into this subject so that you feel more confident picking the right one for you in the future. One website said, I need 150% of the fluids I've lost through sweat, but how do I measure that? Most people say I need 500 to 750 mils per hour on a bike ride, but how can it be a flat rate for everyone regardless of the effort that they're putting in? One formula says I need 0.14 to 0.27 mils of fluid per minute per kilogram of body weight. For me at 59 kilos, that's 496 to 955 milliliters, but for Rich at 82 kilos, he will be consuming between 688 mils and 1.3 liters per hour. If an adult male needs three liters per day and a woman needs 2.2 liters, should I be adjusting that amount for my gender? How do we really know what's right for us? Now, as annoying as it is to say this, it does depend. Bottom line is everyone is different. Now, each human is going to need two to three liters of water per day just to survive. When you're exercising, you will be sweating and you will be using water in order to produce energy for your bike ride. You're going to need to consume more than that on a daily basis when you go for a bike ride. Now, there are variables that come into play, your age and your gender, perhaps the temperatures that you are riding in, or perhaps the effort that you are putting in may make you consume more or less, and you will have to adjust for that. There's no magic formula, I would say. This is something that you will get used to over time. I think 500 milliliters per hour is a good base level, so that's a very small water bottle. You'll need to adjust that according to you. This is something you will learn over time. If you're going out for a bike ride and you're finishing with a completely empty bottle, chances are you're not taking out enough water. If you're coming home and regardless of the amount you've drunk, your wee is of a very dark color, maybe like this lucasade here, chances are you're not consuming enough. That's a sign of dehydration. You might want to up your levels. Now, before I get into the ins and outs of how to carry your water, if you would like to support this channel, which provides you free content on a regular basis, then head over to our GMBN shop. We are selling Camelbak Podium water bottles with the GMBN branding for £11.99, so check that out. Now, there's two main ways that you can carry water when mountain biking, and that is a bottle which can fit on your bike or even in a pocket in your backpack, or there are hydration systems that come with what we call bladders that carry the water inside your backpack. The benefits of water bottles is they're very visual. Even if you go for a dark color like this, often they'll have a clear strip so you can see the water level. That means if you're trying to stick to, say, 500 mils per hour, then you will visually see how much you've drunk. I really like this method for cross-country, particularly marathon racing, because it means I can take two water bottles, for example, and one can be plain water, and one can have energy powder or electrolyte powder in them to increase my energy levels. Having plain water as well means that I can have a little break from that if it starts to get too much. Hip packs are a great intermediate between water bottles and full-on backpacks. They're great for enduro riding, I would say, because what it does is it keeps the weight central around your hips rather than around your shoulders, which, when you're descending, tends to make you feel a little bit more stable. Also, it's great to just have a smaller option for storage and water, particularly if your bike has a particular shock placement that doesn't allow for water bottles, or at least doesn't have much space for bigger water bottles. The big backpack with hydration that comes inside. Now, this is the adventurer's choice, because if you're out all day and you don't have any access to water, you might want to take as much as three liters with you. That will go nice and neatly into the backpack, and you've also got storage space for coats, towels, sandwiches, whatever else you need. Also, if you're out in the middle of nowhere, it wouldn't go amiss to take some kind of filtration device, because this will allow you to take water from rivers and lakes in order to drink it, and this will filter out any nasties. Of course, you can get medium-sized bags that are between these sizes. Of course, you don't always have to fill up these bladders to the full potential if you want to save a bit of weight and maybe stop at a cafe and top up along the way. My particular medium-sized bag is women-specific as well, which is great for anyone with narrower shoulders or particular assets that you have to work around with straps. You can also get hip packs that have bottle carriers as well. If you're a big fan of taking water bottles and you prefer to drink from water bottles, you could always carry a bottle in your pack and swap over that empty bottle when it comes time. A quick word on nutrition and hydration with electrolytes. I'm not going to overcomplicate the matter here, but the general rule of thumb is if you're sweating, you're probably losing electrolytes, usually in sodium or potassium. That's why sweat tends to taste a bit salty. You do need to replace those to function normally. Often, drinking plain water, your body won't absorb it. It'll just pass through if there's no electrolytes in it. If you're out on a really big ride, then it's probably a good idea to take nutrition and something with electrolytes. Now, you can go down the option of buying something. For example, this is carbohydrates through multidextrin and it has electrolytes in it, so you can just add this to your water. However, they are naturally occurring products, so you can get them in mixed nuts and seeds. Dried apricots is a really good source of magnesium. You might even find them in just some natural energy bars. Experiment and see what works for you. Now, if you find yourself in a store, desperate, feeling hungry, and feeling a little dehydrated, you can look out for some store-bought energy drinks. Common ones are Leucosade and Gatorade, for example. They're almost always in any store. What I will say is a lot of them do contain a lot of sugar. This might be needed on your bike ride, but it will leave you feeling a little bit up and down during a ride. Do try and look out for ones that actually do have electrolytes in them, perhaps sodium, potassium, magnesium, for example, and multidextrin like this one does, although it does have a lot of sugar in it. Whereas if you look at something like Leucosade, there's no electrolytes in it, and it's very syrup and sugar high, which isn't ideal. My advice to you is go and buy yourself something more natural instead. There we have a few methods to carry in your water on a mountain bike ride. Now, I know I haven't given you a magic formula to calculate how much water you need, but that 500 ml per hour is a good baseline. Work out how long your bike ride is going to be and whether or not you're going to be stopping off at a cafe or a water fountain along the way. You'll have a general idea of how much you'll need to use during a bike ride. Then it's picking a method that works for you. You know you best. Anyway, if you're a regular mountain biker that always favors one or the other, let me know down in the comments below and help out our future GMBN community with their decisions.