Gravel Riding In Yorkshire – Maddy Nutt & Amira Mellor | OTE Performance Nutrition

Join Ribble Collective riders Amira Mellor and Maddy Nutt on a gravel adventure in Yorkshire!

In this video, they embark on a stunning gravel ride from the OTE Sports HQ in Leeds to Malham in North Yorkshire, sharing the beauty of the journey and their insights along the way.

But that’s not all – stay tuned as they dive into a comprehensive review of their 2023 race season. From thrilling tales of races like The Traka and Migration Gravel in Kenya, to invaluable fuelling advice and expert tips on gravel adventure bike setups, this video is a must-watch for any cycling enthusiast.

Get ready for a blend of scenic exploration, race highlights, and practical wisdom that will fuel your passion for the gravel riding lifestyle. #RibbleCollective #GravelAdventure #RaceSeasonReview #CyclingTips

If you want to fuel like Maddy & Amira head to www.otesports.co.uk.
You can read more advice about nutrition for gravel riding here https://www.otesports.co.uk/guides/top-nutrition-tips-for-gravel-riding/

Don’t forget to check out Maddy’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@maddynutt

Everything right I’m Madina and I’m marel and we’re currently in leads at OT and we’re going on a bike ping trip what else do you know what else do I know I know approximately the distance each day I think we’re doing about 65 70k today and tomorrow yeah I think

That’s fair but that’s all I know I think we’re going north we are we’re going north and we’re going to the auction Dales well done yeah we’re stopping for lunch at Skipton I know I know that because I’m thinking in my head I’ve got 2 hours to get to lunch

And Skip yeah so um m is right we’re going to Malin Malin Cod which is kind of North North York sales um I’m staying in a you fossil tonight so we’re going up the canal for like 50k to Skipton get some lunch and then a little bit more in

The canal and then we kind of hop off the canal near Aon right up to Malon and can go look at my PO probably never seen no didn’t think i’ ever been to M no not famous is it yeah tasty excited tomorrow we’ll go up Mal code which is a very

Steep hill and back up and around kind of back over more like towards East and then down towards like Balon ABY Oley and then yeah back to lead so we’re starting finishing at OT leads I don’t think I want a gel I want a gel you need a gel I need a

Gel I need I like the banana take what post yeah not TR this how many hours four one one two three four and then one for good look one for morale where’s what do we get for morale or you know what we get for morale RP white choc the

Box it’s going to carry the Box pick the 16 box of anytime B amir’s not rid her bite that much recently too because I need one every 20 minutes one every 20 minutes we’ve gone for bars rather than well amir’s got one gel in there but for something that’s more like bike

Adventury I would be eating more like real food but like bars yeah the anytime bars are really good for this cuz it’s kind of a mix between real food and kind of like a nutritional products as well um yeah I’ve G for any time protein for after the duo because these are just

Really tasty yeah these are really good and then I went for the new Cheo cuz kind of like sweets so that will be my morale beast on today’s ride got to do your pre Adventure dance so that you’re warmed up mentally prepared what kind of dance would do warm the hips

Up so just got the route on the wooo and I think we’re ready to go I think So imagine This a bit mad Me so Amir what was the highlight of your year um I think the racing highlight was probably tracker I think CU we did so much prep for it like we went out we focused on it we like really kind of tried to nail every part of it even though we’ve never done anything

Like that before I think we really kind of focused on it um even though we found it incredibly difficult in the actual moment but I think I was mentally prepared as much as I could have done without doing something like that yeah um I think trip highlight was probably

Going to Iceland that was just such a unique location and we just kind of really made the most of that trip and we went on holiday afterwards yeah we went on we went on a camp that’s the bit I’m talking referring to when I say about

Iceland we went on a nice camper van holiday afterwards we saw whales yeah I think like the one of the good things about gravel racing you get to see the different places I think in that race we kind of really made the most of that which is probably my favorite trip of

The year I’d agree actually I think that’s my favorite trip and then favorite race is probably migration gravel race in Kenya that was incredible you didn’t do but like honestly the best thing that I’ve probably ever done in my life it was also the hard like one of

The hardest things I’ve ever done the 4 days stage race and it was honestly just yeah that was hard gravel’s hard gravel is really hard I mean the big challenge for that was like actually just eating enough over the four days and in the evenings like

Because you had to fuel for like every other day I remember you text me and was like everyone’s got stomach problems it’s just like something we’re all having to deal with I went to the toilet six times before one of the stages it was so bad but it was also

Like the choice of food like in the mornings like one day the only carbs was like there was bread and there was potato so I just put potato in bread made of sandwich and put a bit ketchup on it that was bad that’s a that’s a good low

Point what’s the weirdest thing we’ve eaten oh we had a lot of rice before tracker didn’t we weirdest thing yeah or like the most when you ate Pringles cuz I I just never saw MADD as a human that ate Pringles I was like just craving salt

Towards the end of the tracker and yeah I was Louis passed me this hand for Pringles and I just was like they were like crumbling I don’t even know if I swallowed them to be honest I just like the salt in my mouth what’s the strangest thing that’s happened to us

This year um I feel like this is the strangest thing for both of us what when you nearly peed at the end of Jacker and she was kned on the floor in the SP position so the end of the dra I was throwing up like I was throwing up it

Was literally about to come up and it was about to come out the other end and I turned you and I looked you dead in the eye and I went I am going to sh myself and a miror just went I I’m not that level of friends like I

Can’t this is this is p the level of friendship and then he pass me to my sister was like I can’t cope with her and I was like well Louis can’t do it but I didn’t Sho myself oh she’s so big that was the strangest thing I think

It was weird because I was pretty broken crossing the line you were hallucinating yeah I was not in a good State and we thought Maddie was fine oh I was ready to round up to 400 you were just really excited that You’ finished and then next thing she’s squatting on the floor bomit

And then it was just all good downhill from there so then you got in the car home and I had to ride home yeah I had to get in the car I literally couldn’t ride a kilometer no it was Bad you have to guess what we saw you’ve got five guesses of what we saw on the leads to Liverpool Canal on the water not in the water not in the water on the water option one is a man on a hoverboard just like zooming along option two a man on a

Elliptical water bike option three an otter option four is a wild tortoise on the canal option five is some paddle waters on the canal what do you think we saw found a turtle on the leads to Liverpool Canal there he is he just stretching his

Neck it was like I think it was lost cuz it was like looking around bit confused I’ve not drunk anything the whole ride that’s really bad how nauy that is So we just arrived at the 45k Mark in Skipton and we’re just going to a clubh housee for some lunch it’s good is what race do you think that You’ kind of nailed your nutrition on um I actually think at tracker I did quite well like I ate everything we basically ate everything

Ran out of food we ran out of food and we had a vast selection um we actually got like little alerts on computers every 45 minutes every 45 minutes it would beep at me to eat which was actually really useful in the end um but

Yeah I think we did so much practice for that race that I kind of knew what my body was going to be able to take on at that kind of point where you don’t want to eat I kind of knew what I could kind of force myself to eat and feel the

Benefits from um so I think I actually did that quite well for that race I ate lots of J bars lots of super gels um not that many flap Jacks but I ate bries Pringles chocolate craps chocolate craps Jammy crap Jammy wraps Jammy wraps jamy wrap I ate a Jammy wrap

Early on and then I threw that up um what did we I made some Oreo rice cakes and they refused to eat them and I tried to eat one and then them around slightly raw and I just gone started going up this hill and Louis had given

Me it and I unwrapped it and started eating it and I was like this is awful this was quite early on when I was still like aware of what I was tasting so I didn’t eat that you did a good effort I’m not making Oreo rice cakes

Ever again I’d probably say say the best nutrition strategy I’ve kind of nailed was the grav series final um I like decided to set an alarm every 40 minutes rather than 45 even more regular yeah and I didn’t have a hydration vest I decided not to cuz I really wanted to

Save my back over like a really rough terrain and I did manage to have like one gel every 40 minutes I actually only had super gels the entire race but it worked it was only 8 hours which is to be fair quite a long time to only didn’t

Eat any solid I didn’t eat anything solid only super gels but I didn’t throw them up I’ll take your WIS yet take whoa thank you I feel water under Tire yeah the water not mud I’d say that this gravel was probably most similar to that in

Scotland probably but it was maybe a bit rougher there were some sections in Scotland that maybe this rough but gravel is different all over the world like Mexico it was like a desert with um cactuses and I had problems with thoughts and cactuses um Kenya was like

Super rough but like really um wash boardy Iceland was like pretty much like this but like black rock that was pretty hard that was hard on your upper body as well wasn’t it yeah Iceland also had like huge like washboard sections where your arms were just going like

Which we were kind of doing a bit here as well yeah Spanish gravel pretty smooth on the whole Spanish is like the technical aspect as you’re going so quick yeah and then I feel like on this you’re not going that quick but it’s just quite Technical and then this is

Kind of M slightly Mountain biky this is Mountain biky Finnish and Swedish gravel is what I refer to as Princess gravel and that’s just super fast and basically like a road I don’t think you get that in your no so we’ve now arrived in malam and

We’re just on our way to the yha you possible for tonight um we’ve done 70k not that much climbing which is a little bit worrying because that means it’s all tomorrow um but it’s been a nice day really nice weather so made the most of

It we did a lot of canal which I think is actually harder work than maybe we do it justice it’s flat but it’s like sitting on a turbo trainer you constantly are pedling my go for it yeah so we’ve survived at night in the hostel here what we you doing today um

So today we’re going for our malam Cove um kind of backround down toward lead I think there’s a lot more Offroad today so it could be quite a challenging route but think we’ve got it less Canal less Canal more gravel more rocks more rocks sorry I’ve been told that the gravel

Here is rocks not gravel this is our bike Adventure setup um as you can see we’ve obviously got our lugage on um so try and carry as little as possible but obviously you kind of need fresh kit for the next day um some extra jackets a coat shoes um

And clothes for the evening lots of snacks I’ve got a top Che bag for with snacks here and then I’ve got all my kind of saddle bag equipment in here plus plus a few extras cuz when you’re kind of remoting the mirors you kind of

Need a little bit of extra stuff just to kind of get you down to somewhere if in case your bike breaks yeah we don’t race on a setup like this so for racing typically I actually I still keep the top Cheo bag on if it’s quite a long gravel race cuz

It’s decently arrow and like I need to have a certain amount of snacks and I can fit quite a lot in there but yeah I wouldn’t race with like a handlebar bag or a sadb B might stop it for like a camel back to get a little bit of extra

Liquid on and then you can also kind of carry your spars in that as well but this is definitely not the most selfy setup when racing this is more like Adventure multi-day poing I have to say the weight on the back of the bike it makes it a harder doubt doesn’t it

Yeah like I think you’d be surprised how more tired your legs get from just that little bit of extra weight and then when you get out the saddle the back of your bike swings a lot but it’s good fun it’s kind of fun to carry your own gear when

You bike um quite simplistically as well rather than like the traditional big piers and this is way better for off-road as well um you can still kind of ride them Rocky to sent and get the most stop [Applause] It [Applause] he work he works no it used to be one yeah in the middle of nowhere aren’t you how are you finding North yor CH it’s a little bit Rocky I think the gravel’s a little a little bit different up north it hits a bit different doesn’t it yeah you kind

Of go from like wet grass to Big Rocks no progression to steep descent it’s fun though yeah you know what it’s pretty like the surroundings are and you’re like constantly having to think so that you don’t crash does it nice cuz you kind of do feel like you’re in the

Middle of nowhere yeah there’s like literally just us on the mo and the sheep and the sheep and sometimes the OD farmer I did most of the route planning on commute kind of use a bit of a combination of stra heat mats and commute um it can be quite hard finding

Off-road especially because sometimes the heat M kind of shows foot paths or I’ve done many routes where I’ve gone on past that are literally just not rideable um so you do have to do you do have to spend quite a lot of time on it but it’s definitely beneficial in the

End um commute is a really good app cuz the off-road slightly better you kind of get um the Traverse lines you can see if they’re really close it’s far like it’s too steep to ride and that’s kind of one thing that I’ve kind of learned in the

Last couple of years kind of find a bit more Offroad So when did you start riding air um so I rid in for many a year forever for well I did try half fun and then kind of fell in love with more The Adventurous side of riding rather than kind of going to swimm pool every morning so started

Riding got into m biking and just kind of love the off-road kind of going off into the MS or yeah kind of that aspect of cycling and that’s what’s kind of always drawn me back to I want to ride a bik CU that got you into gravel then

Yeah I think gravel was just kind of something new that I wanted to explore like it was getting so popular and done cross fig years kind of didn’t really F the routine and the gravel was just something new I could try and I I think

I kind of got the opportunity to kind of just give it a go and kind of talk it and just yeah really fell in love with riding off road again and we get to go to co places yeah and like cross is good but like you just go to Belgium or

Holland and gravel’s kind of giving me that More Travel kind of aspect which is something else that really draws me to riding what about you so I started riding just over 5 years ago so I’ve not been doing it as long and I why did I getting sing Oh I just

Like I needed some purpose for my life yeah I bought a bike um just started riding like bit with my dad then made some riding friends and then just got really into it like I think I just love riding of I I feel like you dived in

Head first yeah I dived in like and then got really involved really quickly yeah um and I kind of got into gravel at same time I got into Road I’d say yeah like similar time like you’re one of the OG’s I’m like one of the OG’s got into gravel just because I was

Made to do a gravel race really enjoyed it I think it suits my power profile yeah which is why I’ve stayed in gravel yeah I agree and then similar to you about like the road scene I think I don’t really like fit in in the road scene very well just like personality

Wise I don’t even know how to H it I think the RAC SC is just quite clicky and you need a team and I think we’re both the type of riders that quite happy to do our own thing yeah and that’s something that grapple is really good at

It kind of got a lot of Freedom this is a Duo bar but we eat different things when we’re doing different things don’t we yeah so for something like this probably would stay off the gels and go for more Duo bars or the anytime Flapjacks maybe some choose yeah and just a little burst of energy

Um and some real food as well yeah definitely the longer I feel like the longer the day on the bike the more real food you need to mix in there CU it’s really important to just kind of mix it up cuz you will get sick of if you just

Eat gels or bars all the time but eating some like some of our favorites are like BOS chocolate crap chocolate CP oh like wraps fruit cakes yeah like hot I like hot cross buns even um like putting some butter in it like I always crave salt in the longer days and

Just getting that little bit of kind of a salty hair was kind of like satisfying it tastes really good so for like a 3-hour gravel race I would be thinking about OT like super carb drink mix or like the neutral carb mix with some electrolytes in there and

Then Super gels and I’d be taking probably between 60 to 80 g of carbs per hour more on the 80 g end if it’s a race of high intensity but yeah much more on like the easy to consume stuff than like getting a bar out and trying to eat that mid

Race yeah cuz for something for that length it’s going to be quite high intensity um so a super gel has 40 Gams of carbs in so You’ be kind of looking at 1 to two an hour um or like the chews are 20 G so you could maybe have one

Super gel and one chew an hour and that would kind of keep your levels topped up just need a bit of a bit of bar to get me going again the thing with the jeo bars is they’re just like they’re like Square bars so they’re quite they’re

Just like really nice just to eat five practical gravel tips go um ride over 40 mil tires um pack a dino plug for any extreme puncture that you just need to quickly get at pack a valve core tier because you never know when that might save you oh that’s a good one

Um bring layers because you never know when you’re going to get cold or hot and I feel like it’s more extreme than the road yeah it is you go slower and you also go fast yeah that’s a good point remember to have fun remember to have fun travel is fun smile we’re not

Like Road cyclists we smile when we Ride Hi I’m done oh done and M know it’s been really good we’ve been really luy with the weather makes such a difference and yeah I really enjoyed it and vared surfaces today which was good fun we’ve done like a really good variety over the two days yeah kind of

Covered most yeah SE which has been fun so how can people follow usir so um my Instagram is @ Miram if you want to kind of see what we’re getting up to and then M I’ve got Instagram too @ Maddy nutty and then I’ve got a YouTube channel

Which is I think that’s just under Maddy nut so yeah check that out if you want to see what we got up to in Iceland when we went on a camper van Excursion Around Iceland there was a bike race involved but more importantly our trip around Iceland that’s on my YouTube channel