Decided to go with supplements
 

I have been riding with water and real food for a while, this has worked out okay, but my miles have increased dramatically lately and my pockets just aren't big enough for all of the real food I was carrying.
So, I decided to try nutritional supplements and my team gets discounts with Hammer and Accel. All I want the supplement to do is provide energy and hydration during the ride. I might try a recovery supplement, but only if this doesn't get outragiously expensive. Does anybody have experience with the following products? Are there flavors you recommend?

Accel Gels
Accelerade
Hammer Gel
Hammer sustained energy
Hammer Recoverite

For hammer gels avoid orange like the plague. I have tried rasberry, apple-cinnamon, and vanilla and all of those are good, but you may find them too sweet, in which case mix them with unflavored hammer gel.

Don't like the coffee or capucino or whatever it is hammer gel as it has caffeine
Raspberry, apple and orange are ok with me.

Accelerade orange is nice

I don't use gels, but the Accelerade, Perpetuem and Sustained Energy seem to work. I typically use Cytomax for rides under ~60 miles, and Pert or SE for longer ones. Flavors... sorry you're gonna have to figure that one for yourself.

I like most of Hammer's Gel flavors except for Espresso, but then again, I'm not much of a coffee fan. I like all of the HEED flavors. Maybe this is why I like their stuff so much...because it tastes good :-) Either way, I use the Perpetuum Orange Creamsicle flavor for longer rides. Highly recommend their products.

P.S. You can get a discount via most of the member's on this boards referral codes.

Personally, I couldn't stand Hammer's espresso gel (too much like hershey's syrup), I really like the Raspberry, didn't care for the orange or tropical fruit, haven't tried any of the other flavors.

As far as taste goes, everyone's is different (yes, you may call me Capt. Obvious :roflmao2:) . Hammer has a gel sampler pack with one of each flavor, you might want to get that so you can make your own decision.

I have tried Recoverite, certainly no complaints other than price, but now I just drink a yogurt smoothy and have a good meal right after a ride, a lot of people swear by chocolate milk (which I can't stand).

Yea, get the sampler. I like HEED but only the unflavored version. It's hard to find in stores so I just order from Hammer. Hammer gel is good too. I like the rasberry (flavored with actual fruit instead of chemicals!) and the espresso is good as well, late into a long ride/race when the caffeine is a good boost. Orange sounds nasty but that's why they make different flavors.

I don't like the flavor of Sustained Energy or Perpeteum much, and Perpeteum goes bad in the heat. Recoverite works really well but it's expensive.

Accellerade has some really foul tasting flavors that they use for for the stuff they give out for centuries. Based on that I haven't wanted to buy any of their product.