Sun Valley’s flagship gravel + MTB race week — Harriman singletrack, Dollarhide TT and the new Baked Potato and Fully Loaded routes.
Build Your Personalized Race Fueling Plan — $19General, evidence-based guidance. Numbers should always be personalized to sweat rate, body mass, fitness and weather.
Starting ranges: Tater Tot 30–60 g/hr, French Fry 60–90 g/hr, Baked Potato and Fully Loaded 70–100+ g/hr for trained athletes. QSR riders add immediate post-stage carbohydrate restoration on top of race fueling. Higher intakes require gut training and should be tested in representative training sessions — do not introduce an aggressive target for the first time on race day.
Dry mountain air, altitude, sun and long climbs elevate fluid losses relative to a low-altitude ride at the same air temperature. Build a fluid range around expected conditions, sweat rate, support access and what you can carry — there is no single universal target.
Personalize based on measured or estimated sweat sodium, heat, products used and drinking rate. Long, dry exposure with wide support gaps makes cumulative sodium easy to under-plan.
Use only if practiced. Common approach for a 7–12 hour Baked Potato day: 100–200 mg pre-start, a mid-race dose, and a smaller dose in the last two hours. Total dose and timing should be based on body mass and prior tolerance.
Plan every expected stop on paper before race day: bottles in, bottles out, calories to grab, layers, sunscreen refresh, caffeine. Confirm what is actually provided in the final 2026 Rider Guide — do not assume 2025 logistics.
1–4 g/kg carbohydrate 2–4 hours before the start from familiar low-fiber, low-fat foods. Add 30–50 g CHO 15–30 minutes before the gun via a gel and sports drink. Rehearse the menu on long training rides.
Fuel by the clock. Set a 15-minute alarm on your head unit from the rollout. Front-load calories before Corral Creek Summit and every sustained climb; sip on descents where the surface allows.
Carry 30–50% more calories than you plan to use. Weather, wind, altitude or a mechanical can add 60+ minutes to your day — running out of fuel late is one of the top predictors of a bad finish or DNF.
If you enter more than one stage (Harriman Wed, Dollarhide Thu, Saturday route): fluids, sodium, carbohydrate and protein within 60 minutes of finishing, then a full meal 1–3 hours later. Protect sleep and equipment inspection between stages — cumulative underfueling shows up on Saturday, not Wednesday.
Grams and millilitres per hour for each phase of the race. Personalize to your sweat rate, body mass and conditions.
Baked Potato (104 mi / 6,902 ft) — targets for a 7–11 hour finish
0–10 mi·0:00–0:45
Caffeine: 100–200 mg 20 min pre-start
Focus: Start eating within 15 minutes. Lock in a 15-minute intake alarm. Do NOT chase early moves — you will need the matches on Corral Creek.
10–30 mi·0:45–2:15
Focus: Bank calories before the sustained climb. Test how the gut is tolerating altitude and dry air — pull back 10 g/hr if bloated.
30–50 mi·2:15–4:15
Focus: Fixed HR / RPE ceiling. Force calories even at reduced appetite. Do not skip a scheduled feed just because chewing feels hard.
50–70 mi·4:15–5:30
Caffeine: 100 mg at the high point (mid-race dose)
Focus: Layer up if cold. Take one gel BEFORE dropping in. Keep sipping — descents feel like recovery but glycogen is still burning.
70–95 mi·5:30–7:45
Focus: Reset every 15 minutes. Confirm your 30–50% emergency reserve is still intact. This is where under-fueled riders quietly break.
95–104 mi·7:45–end
Caffeine: 50–100 mg only if under total daily cap (≤6 mg/kg)
Focus: Save one gel for the final 30 minutes. Ride to power / HR, not to feel. Finish, don't fade.
Fully Loaded (118.3 mi / 7,779 ft) adds the Copper Basin extension after Phase 6. Continue Phase 5 targets — 70–90 g/hr carbs, 17–27 fl oz/hr fluids, sodium tuned to conditions — and take one final caffeine dose only if under the total daily cap (≤6 mg/kg body mass). Recompute hourly targets against the personalized plan in the FuelQ Pro app if you use it.
Every aid station along the Rebecca’s Private Idaho course, with crew access, drop-bag rules and the fueling action to execute at each stop.
Kit pickup 7:45–8:45 AM, Harriman stage rollout 9:00 AM. Pre-load bottles and layers for a singletrack/doubletrack morning in the Boulder Mountains.
Wednesday awards + Brats & Bevies, 5:00–6:00 PM. Refuel, hydrate and rehearse Thursday morning logistics.
Kit pickup 7:30–8:30 AM, Dollarhide rollout 9:00 AM from Washington Street. 50 mi ride containing a 4.5 mi hill-climb TT starting at mile 20 (30-second start intervals).
Optional extended finish for Thursday’s Dollarhide stage. Confirm shuttle / logistics in the final Rider Guide.
6:00–8:30 PM, next to the Limelight (new 2026 location). Rehydrate and eat a real recovery meal.
Fri: Be Good shakeout 8:30–10:00 AM, Vendor Expo 11:00 AM–4:00 PM, Potato Olympics 11:30 AM–1:00 PM, Rider Meeting 3:15 PM. Sat check-in 6:30–8:00 AM; Fully Loaded 7:00 / Baked Potato 7:30 / French Fry 8:00 / Tater Tot 8:30 AM; festival 10 AM–5 PM; awards 3:30 PM.
Final 2026 on-course rest-stop locations, services, drop-bag rules and cutoffs are published in the final Rider Guide. Do not reuse 2025 logistics.
The rollout out of Ketchum feels controllable and everyone accelerates hard. Repeated over-threshold efforts in the first hour burn glycogen you cannot replace and set up a rough Corral Creek climb.
Long remote sectors leave hours between reliable water. A single bottle empties in 60 minutes — plan for what you carry, not what you hope to find.
Riders from low elevations often under-plan the first two hours, sleep and hydration. Cap early intensity and monitor perceived effort against HR, not average speed.
Cool mornings and warm afternoons trap riders into leaving layers behind or overheating on climbs. A packable gilet or arm warmers is a small weight penalty and a large safety benefit.
Long time-on-course and altitude amplify GI risk. Race only what you have trained with — nutrition, tires, pressure, saddle, shorts.
The extended descent off Corral Creek feels like recovery. Riders who stop fueling here bonk in the late return — keep sipping and take one gel before the last climb.
The day is longer than moving time. Riders who spend 15–20 minutes at each rest stop leak an hour of daylight and margin — write a target for each stop before race day.
The current 2026 Rider Guide explicitly warns that much of the content below its opening section is outdated 2025 information. Do not plan support, cutoffs or start times off last year — confirm from the final 2026 Rider Guide.
Get a practical planning document with the course breakdown, aid-station strategy, fueling and hydration worksheets, race-morning timeline, equipment checklist, crew notes, and space for your own plan.
Free calculators, checklists and articles to help you personalize your Rebecca’s Private Idaho plan.
Every athlete is different. FTP, finish time, body weight, sweat rate, weather, nutrition preferences and race goals all change what you should eat and drink.
FuelQ Pro builds a personalized race fueling strategy tuned to your ride — carbohydrate, hydration, sodium, caffeine and recovery, mapped to the course.
A Race Fueling Plan gives you a personalized strategy for this event. The free checklist helps you prepare the basics first: race-week setup, 48-hour prep, race morning, hydration, sodium, caffeine, aid stations, and backup calories.
