The best emergency snacks to keep you cycling

It’s a nightmare scenario, but one that most cyclists have been through at one time or another. You’re out for a ride but you’ve hit the wall and don’t have the energy to go much further. There are no snacks or drinks to be found in your pack and you’re not sure how you’re going to get home.

But wait, there’s a beacon on the horizon that might just save your skin: the petrol station. So, what are you going to choose when you get in there?

With all that selection of sandwiches, crisps, chocolates, and drinks at your disposal, what are the right items to buy for the best fuel injection to get you back on the road heading in the direction of home? Conor Dunne spoke to Andy Blow from Precision Fuel & Hydration to find out.

Andy explains that there are basically three things you need when exercising: carbs for energy, fluids and salts for hydration. These are all available in varying amounts in the food you’ll find in the petrol station but it's important to recognise what your body actually needs most at that particular time.

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What's the best emergency food for a quick energy hit?

© GCN

There are lots of different options for food at petrol stations but which are best in an emergency?

You don't necessarily need to eat for this. Instead, a drink like Coca Cola will provide carbohydrates in the form of sugars, a bit of a caffeine and some fluids to top up your levels. It gets absorbed really quickly into your system but the fizz can make you feel bloated and gassy. Andy suggests that rather than drinking a full standard 500ml bottle of Coke, you should try and dilute it with half quantity of water to create more of a typical style sports drink. This ensures you're getting the carbs and extra fluids with less of the gassy side effects.

Sweets are a good option as a substitute for energy gels. They're something that you can consume in small portions for a pretty instant energy hit. If you've still got a way to go before home, they're something that you can have a few of every hour and they're easy to store in your back pocket.

You'll often find pre-packed sandwiches in petrol stations and these typically contain high levels of salt as well as carbohydrates in the bread. They're a decent option and contain roughly the same amount of energy as two energy gels and a hydration tablet. Try and pair a sandwich with a bottle of water and that should leave you feeling good to go.

You may find yourself craving a packet of crisps to replace your salt loss but they actually have a relatively low sodium content per serving size. Something like salted pretzels are a better options as they have salt crystals on the outside and pack a bit more salt than crisps.

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Chocolate bars are likely to give you a similar amount of energy in carbohydrate terms to that found in an energy gel. However, as they have a high fat content, if you consume more than one it's likely to leave you feeling quite sickly as it takes time to digest properly. So try and stick to one as a morale booster and avoid packing any for the rest of your ride as they'll just get squashed and melt!

Opting for banana is the healthier alternative and it comes with the bonus of its own waterproof packaging. Again avoid eating more than one as the fibrous, bulky nature of the fruit can make them difficult to digest. It's a good idea to mix up a chocolate bar or banana with a few sweets to get you back on the right path.

What drink should I choose to rehydrate quickly?

You can't really beat water for rehydration. It's the best option, especially if paired with some of that salty food we mentioned earlier. Avoid diet soft drinks for the simple reason that they don’t have any sugar in so you're getting no real benefits and just the disadvantage of excess fizz. Specific sports hydration drinks that you find in petrol stations are an obvious choice and will give you similar results to the watered down Coke Andy suggested.

Equally, and perhaps more surprisingly, milkshakes are a decent alternative that aren’t so far removed from the Coke in terms of electrolytes and sugars. They do offer a different flavour and feeling to the other sugary snacks you might be consuming, which is why Conor tends to favour these when he finds himself in this sort of situation.

What foods and drinks should you avoid?

© EF Education-EasyPost

Lachlan Morton stops for supplies on one of his ultra-endurance adventures

When you’re in survival mode nothing's really off limits if you fancy it and feel it's going to get you back on the right track. However, there are some items that you should avoid if possible like those little portions of snackable cheese. These mainly contain fats and protein that all slow down your digestion and don't really do anything beneficial for you.

Avoid anything labelled as diet or low calorie for the obvious reason that these deliver less calories and energy. That's not what we're looking for in these circumstances.

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You might be tempted to reach for the salted nuts, thinking that they will help get your salt levels up, but they actually don't have that much sodium in them, less than crisps in fact. So you'd have to eat an awful lot of them to get the benefit and probably don't want to be riding on a belly full of nuts.

It's important to remember these are only solutions for when you find yourself in a spot of bother without enough food or drink to carry on. The best way to prevent this and have a more successful ride is to plan ahead and carry the correct portion controlled doses of fluids, carbohydrates and salts for the distance you think you're going to be covering.

Let us know what your go to snacks are in an emergency and for more information on how to get more out of every ride head over to our How To section on the GCN website.

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