Bottle exchange and bike fueling strategy

You can either roll through or stop at the bike aid stations. The porta potties will most likely be there too.

If your going to roll through, you toss your bottle right before the aid station. Usually there will be a trash zone just before and after. Ride through the aid station carefully, shout out what you need and someone will step out and hand you what you need. I have my sports drink on the frame and water in the aero bottle. So I'll ask for sports drink first, place it in the empty bottle cage, then I'll ask for a water, fill up the aero bottle and toss the water bottle into the trash zone.

At WTC races they might have gels and Powerbars available at the bike aid stations as well.

I just completed my first HIM, so that's my only experience with that sort of race.

I also did Perpetuem, and mixed about a 3 hour bottle. Worked fine.

Also carried a bottle of Amino Vital and a tank of water, so I blew off a number of the water stops.

Around 1/2 way I did take a bottle of Gatorade, which was in a flimsy bottle, not a regular bike bottle. guzzled most of it and tossed... I hit one more aid station but filled my water tank.

both rolling though...

I also carried a gel bottle, and some spare gels in my bento.

I've done Patriot..two bike aid stations.

I've seen them mix the Heed and they mix is light calorie wise so if you are counting on that for calories I'd be cautious to estimate calories it will provide

First is after a short moderately steep hill so you will be going slower than second aid station...you throw bottles away at start of aid station or sometimes there is another throw place at end of aid station. As I recall from last year this aid station was shorter so you need to know what you want and ask early.

Second  aid station is about 1 mile before the park/transition in a nice open area...my old tri team manned that aid station last year and were great at hand offs. Here is you can have a lot more speed.

I find pointing and yelling to who you want to hand off with is most effective. I am able to probably go 15 mph pretty easily and do hand offs. If you have kids or wife or friend you could practice over the next week a few times...really isn't that hard. Key is to watch out for other cyclists as they can dart in and out a bit..ideally you hold your line so others and aid station workers know where you will traveling.

The aid stations on the run are very short with one table only as it is a smaller race. Not all run aid stations have the same nutrition most last year had only one flavor gel and not sure each had gels. In bigger races I take something from first couple people drink and such and take something towards end of aid station....at Patriot aid station was maybe 8 feet long so that didn't work. I was towards the back as I'm 6:40 HIM finisher and started in last wave so being farther forward may make aid stations different as most of the aid stations folks were standing or sitting at aid station and at some it was really self serve but they'd tell you what was where and what they had.

Hope this helps...

I just did the KS HIM. I was able to get my bottles from the volunteers at about 18mph. I had never done it before. What I did was actually point out to the volunteer that I wanted my "stuff" from and grabbed it from them. I had a 22oz aero bottle up front that was filled wth water and a downtube cage with gatorade. the replacement bottle they gave was a convienient store type bottle and it fit in the cage just fine. The issue with that is trying to locate a water bottle that I could throw away as the first aid station wasn't until mile 14. As for gels/bars, the volunteers I saw had both. The one time I took a bar, just cause I wanted something in my stomach, the volunteer had a bar in one hand, a gel in the other. He had his arms held up in the air with his body turned, so his bar was "on top" of his gel. I pointed high indicating I wanted a bar, he pulled down the gel and gave me the bar. This was done at about 20mph while still in aero.

Kevin