The challenge of staying hydrated while cycling is to keep ahead of it and I’ve often heard, “drink before you are thirsty”, which is so true.  Also, if you drinking enough you will be making bathroom stops during the day.  If you are not, you may be running the risk of dehydration.  Only once did I run the risk of dehydration on a long, very hot ride.  I thought when I took off that I had two bottles of water and found out somehow I only had one.  Thank goodness it was a SAG supported ride and water came to my rescue.

The hard part of staying hydrated is forcing yourself to drink.   So, making drinking easy, accessible and enjoyable is a key factor.   Having water bottles within easy reach during your ride, or using water bladder system is the most popular.

For my recumbent the bottle holders are on the back of the seat and really impossible to reach during a ride, so I designed my own bottle holder system under the seat of my recumbent using special clip on bottle holders.

Water bottle position under seat of recumbent bike and on rear of seat

A general rule is to drink about one bottle of water per hour, but on really hot days I recommend doubling that.  Adding something to the water, not only adds much needed carbs, but the flavor helps me down more.


Disposable pill pouches
are about perfect size for the amount needed to flavor my bigger bike bottles. Small snack size ziplock bags work well also.  I usually bring a few flavors to add some variety, too.

Gatorade size options and my individual serving packages

I’m not really sure how much this is per serving, doing it myself like this, but to give you an example of store prices, the small container above sells for about $4.50 at my local grocery.  The medium one I bought for about $8.50 at Walmart (about three flavors available) and the large one I bought for around the same price at Sams Warehouse (only one flavor).

This should not be your only source of carbs, though, on a ride.  I also recommend fruit or power bars of some kind.

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