Road Cycling - non H20 drinks while riding

I hear people talking of things like excelerade. Any drinks which you people swear by? I'm used to drinking water only... maybe juice. Personally, in a race I know before I start how well I'm going to do b/c it's all in my head, and not in my water bottle.

It depends on the length of the race, If It's more than 2 hours, food, or an energy drink will make a difference, but If it's a 35 min Criterium I think its a waste of time.

We had a 20 minute mountain bike race down here in the spring, There was a guy fumbling with some Carb Gel at the 10 minute mark, silly.

H.E.E.D. from hammernutrion for rides less than 3 hours. Perpeteum for rides longer than 3 hours.

Buddy B

I hear people talking of things like excelerade. Any drinks which you people swear by? I'm used to drinking water only... maybe juice. Personally, in a race I know before I start how well I'm going to do b/c it's all in my head, and not in my water bottle.

Nothing but Gatorade. I take two bottles when I start and enough extra powder to refill each one twice. On hot, humid days I usually go through one bottle every 40 minutes. If I only drink water, I do not have the stamina I require to finish longish rides, 30+ miles.

If the effort is less than an hour, water is all you need. After that, you need to replenish electrolytes, and a little sugar won't hurt either, so hit one of the sports drinks, any one will do in a pinch, but some can cause stomach upset, so you should try some out BEFORE an important event.

Look into a product called eLoad. Read all the info about how all the minerals and electrolytes aid in performance and recovery.

Water only dilutes what is in the body and speeds weak muscles and fatigue.

Being a pharmacist and working with dieticians I looked over this drink with a couple of RD's and determined that this is about as good as it gets. Gatorade is fair at best but if you dig deep into the fundamentals the eLoad is where it's at.

Read up on it and decide for yourself. I've definetly have noticed a difference since I started using eload over Gatorade and Cytomax.

I hear people talking of things like excelerade. Any drinks which you people swear by? I'm used to drinking water only... maybe juice. Personally, in a race I know before I start how well I'm going to do b/c it's all in my head, and not in my water bottle.

You can read about sport drinks until your blue in the face and more confused than ever, the same will happen going to your LBS!! All I ever drank, even in my racing days, is Gatorade diluted 50% from the instructions. I use to live in Bakersfield CA as some of you know, my LBS there has a RAAM racer and I asked him which was the best-the bike boutique stuff that cost a mint to drink or cheap old Gatorade. Kerry said Gatorade!! I then asked him why does he sell all the other crap, and he said because biker know it alls come in bike shops asking for this or that because they read about somewhere or someone told them, so I (Kerry) gets them what they want because they didn't ask for my advice!!!

That being said, this last RAAM race Kerry Ryan of Action Sports won their class and what did they drink mostly? Gatorade!!! Still don't believe me? then go here: http://www.ultracycling.com/nutrition/what_raam_riders_eat.html

Now they did drink a lot of Ensure Plus because it's almost like drinking food; this is the same stuff a lot of dieters drink when they skip meals because it provides a lot of nutrients...something the RAAM riders needed. Also Kerry does a lot of racing including shorter desert races that go anywhere from 50 miles up to 150; and in the desert heat he and his fellow racers drink Gatorade. He does drink Cytomax but only for recovery, during the RAAM race he drank it when his turn was up.

Back in the mid 70's to mid 80's when I was racing we all drank Gatorade (diluted 50%) and for variety we would also drink V8 juice (also diluted 50%), some drank orange juice but my stomach could not handle that while riding, also we used a product called Emergen-C that has the same electrolyte stuff that Gatorade has but with added Vitamin C and B complex...not sure if the vitamins actually did any good because it was a fad drink, just like the bike boutique drinks are today.