Staying well fuelled is key on any bike ride to maintain performance. endur8 wants to help you keep on top of your nutrition while riding by calculating and telling you what and when to eat.
The app, currently only available on iOS, requires users to input a profile for it to calculate personalised, specific and tailored nutrition plans for specified routes.
endur8 claims to use research-based recommendations to calculate intake requirements for its proprietary formula, though we are not aware precisely which studies this is based on.
The app is intended to be used for both training and events. For the former, you will need to plan your route in advance to allow the app to calculate your nutritional needs. For the latter endur8 will have pre-programmed routes for all major races or will add them as required.
From what we understand, the app can only calculate your nutritional requirements in advance, rather than dynamically as you progress along your route, though endur8 does seem to be working on this feature.
The nutritional guidance also appears to be based only on carbohydrate intake, neglecting fat and protein requirements.
As you reach your nutrition 'checkpoints' the app provides a visual, audio or vibration alert through a smartphone as a reminder to eat something. The company will also be adding Apple Watch compatibility shortly and an Android version is also due to be ready soon.
The basic Every Athlete plan is free, offering access to the app and basic fuelling information for training. The fully featured Nutrition Planner plan provides more detailed and in-depth analysis and recommendations based on personal athlete profiles and costs £8.49 or £24.99 for a quarterly or yearly subscription respectively.
While we’re not sure we would want to use this app all the time, and have yet another device tracking our every move, this is definitely an interesting concept for helping to understand nutritional needs, rather than just eating based on gut feeling.
Correct nutrition is key to performance, though you will have to take the endur8 recommendations at face value given that you’re unlikely to be able to look under the hood of the proprietary formula used.
For more information visit the endur8 website here.