1989Pre 

The quote you are referring to was posted by B. Carfree, not me. (Somehow, I neglected to include the "quote brackets at the beginning of the quote, so it looked like my comment).

OldTryGuy

OOPS, so sorry. Didn't read everything.

Photodoug

Never touch the stuff. IMHO, sports drinks are just flavored sugar water with a little sodium and potassium thrown in.

I do a 60-90 minute ride fasted with a cup of coffee to get me started. Plenty of water during the ride. Post-ride is 8 oz of low fat chocolate milk then a breakfast of a banana and low fat yougert. Electrolyte replacement is from food sources. Two pounds a week weight loss tells me I'm doing something right.

Rides over about 90 minutes is a completely different situation.

Cyclist0084

+1

"Oh, try the orange flavor," the nurse at the doctor's office told me. "It tastes just like orange Gatorade." Yeah....no!! Tasted more like what I imagine orange flavored motor oil would taste like.

KD5NRH

https://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Sugar-F...ews/B008JELLCA

My evil side wants to dissolve sugar free gummy bears in Golytely to the consistency of Jello shots, then smuggle a bunch of them onto the table next time my trashy neighbors are having a late weeknight party.

DrIsotope

By the time I got to the top of my 6,000ft climb this morning, my hands were getting a little shaky. A lovely gentleman working at the Mt. Baldy Ski Lift gave me an Orange Gatorade, and placebo or otherwise, I could feel that sugar going into my system. So good.

Viva la Gatorade, y'all.

canklecat

I brewed up my own drink for a long, hot ride Sunday. Half and half caffeinated and herbal teas, minced fresh ginger, honey. No extra salt, etc. Tasty, invigorating, but a wee bit too sweet for my taste. I may add a teaspoon of yeast next time.

big john

A friend of mine used to ride more than 20K miles per year and was an absolute beast on the bike. One time we went to a cafe and he ordered 2 pitchers of beer with our lunch. He didn't get a lot of help with the beer so he drank a pitcher and a half by himself. He got pretty silly but once on the ride back he took it up to about 28 mph for several miles and just wore us out.

Papa Tom

Now that this thread has gotten officially silly, anyway, I recall that the first time I took an extended overnight ride, my buddy and I filled our water bottles (two each) with beer for the first round on the way home. At first, it was fun, then not so much. When we realized we couldn't get the putrid taste of hot beer out of our bottles, we threw them away and rode the rest of the distance buying and guzzling expensive bottled water wherever we could find it.

This is probably why I don't drink anymore.

Plotone

If my doctor advised me to drink Gatorade, I'd find a new doctor.

Gatorade Ingredients

Papa Tom

'Looks like most of the ingredients are added solely to hide what crap the rest of the ingredients are.

revchuck 

The ingredients on that link don't match up with the ingredients on my container of Gatorade...not even close.

Plotone

Perhaps the ingredients vary by flavor? What are the ingredients shown on your container?

I have become partial to Skratch Labs mix. That, or most of the time just plain water.

revchuck 

Pardon the lousy phone picture...

wished

I can't really speak the ingredients in G'ade but I know it's loaded with sugar. The Feds made us take all the soda machines out of the schools so the students would only have "healthy" options, which they think includes G'ade. Some of our high school kids will drink several bottles a day, tons of useless calories, and America wonders why teens are getting fatter and fatter. Also makes a sticky mess if they ever spill any, draws bees to the bottles in the trash, and fills up the trash stream since the local recyclers will not take G'ade bottles for some reason. I really encouraged my students to drink water, from the water fountains that were all over the school.

I guess on a long sweaty ride then the drinks do some good, but I just personally can't stand the stuff . . . tastes like flat orange soda. I'll stick to water and use candy bars for my sugar load. Each to their own I guess?

icyclist 

If I wanted to gain weight, I'd definitely consider Gatorade as a quick way to accomplish that. ;-)

jppe

Wow..........lots of fervent Gatorade bashers on here. Maybe I'm in the minority but it works really well for me. I've tried lots of other fluids but for whatever reason Gatorade works as well and maybe better for me than most other fluids I've tried. I do need some electrolyte replacement as I'm typically riding 4+ hours in the humid south. I also swap the flavors around to keep the taste from getting tiring. Powdered form can be mixed to your taste. Also supplement with just plain water.

And I love a small dose of Coke somewhere along the ride as well.

I tried Skratch but that really tasted like the colonoscopy drink to me-as close to throwing up while riding as I can ever recall. Just can't drink it. Maybe I'm hooked on the sugars but it hasn't slowed me down too much......Riding more than ever. Weight is about as low as it's been and right where it needs to be. Maybe Gatorade doesn't work for everyone but that doesn't mean it doesn't work for nobody.

revchuck 

FWIW, it has fewer calories than the same amount of regular soda. I see people drinking it as an alternative to soda, and thinking about all the unneeded electrolytes they're consuming makes my skin crawl. A "health" drink it ain't. I restrict it to hard, sweaty rides/races where I need what it has.

Carbonfiberboy 

Sugar is good for you when you ride. If you ride hard, it's absolutely necessary.

This is the real ingredients list and all of it is just fine. That said, I prefer to separate my electrolyte intake from my hydration by using Endurolytes. Gatorade only has two electrolytes. Endurolytes has five.

Biker395 

Yea, that's what I was thinking.

I used to think that water alone was enough for long difficult rides. It's not. When I'm doing a 6 hour ride in warm weather and a lot of climbing (for me at least):

• Electrolyte replacement is mandatory.
  
• Calories in almost any form are a good thing ... that includes sugars. Why worry about that when you're burning 500-700 calories an hour?
  
• Enhancing a drink to make it tastier (and hence, yourself more apt to drink it) is a good thing.

For me, Gatorade and the like is like 87 octane gas ... OK, but I run better on other energy drinks. And if it's really hot, Endurolytes or something like them are mandatory.

I get that your average American consumes too many calories, much of those in the form of sugary drinks. But we ain't average Americans.

DrIsotope

This is my favorite post in what has become a meandering debacle of a thread-- because it mirrors my thoughts almost exactly. The post is however far too well thought out and rational for BF. Needs more flawed logic and hints of conspiracy.

rm -rf

What about minerals other than sodium and potassium?

I see some of these list calcium and magnesium (and vitamins, which sounds like marketing to me.) Is calcium and magnesium replacement needed during a ride? I don't know.

Potassium
Bananas are recommended as an exercise food, because they are high in potassium. (google says 400 mg potassium, 1 mg sodium). But most of these mixes have way more sodium than potassium. And the ratios are quite different between brands.
So how much potassium?

~~~~~~~~

Home made drink mix
I agree with Biker395, too. I want flavor, calories, and sodium on long rides.
I can't stand the taste of gatorade. I've been making my own mix for years, mixed together and stored in a small plastic container:

2.5 cups sugar
0.5 tbsp salt ( 0.5 tbsp is 1.5 teaspoons)
0.5 tbsp "lite salt", which contains, in 1/4 tsp: 290 mg sodium and 350 mg potassium
4 packs of kool aid "natural lemon"

Two level tablespoons of the mix per bottle (20 servings per recipe):
100 calories
260 mg sodium (or 175 mg if 1 teaspoon of each, instead of 1.5 teaspoons)
105 mg potassium (or 70 mg if 1 teaspoon of each)

For a 22 ounce bottle, this tastes fairly diluted, not like a soft drink or a lemonade.


Compared to products mentioned in this thread:

Gatorade (for 12 ounces!)
80 calories
160 mg sodium
45 mg potassium

Skratch Labs (mix makes 16 ounces)
80 calories
360 mg sodium
40 mg potassium

tailwindnutrition.com (size varies... "2-3 scoops" per bottle, depending.)
100 calories
303 mg sodium
88 mg potassium

nuun tablet (per bottle)
10 calories
360 mg sodium
100 mg potassium
25 mg magnesium
13 mg calcium

FXjohn

just keep grapes in a handlebar bag and eat a few every 20 minutes. no nasty water bottles either

beechnutC23

I wouldn't give much credence to a website that says that salt is "potassium chloride". Salt is sodium chloride. When I read that, the credibility of that site took a major hit in my mind. Potassium chloride is a salt, but not what we commonly refer to as "salt" (aka table salt). Based on the actual ingredient list, the potassium in gatorade is not as the chloride salt but as a phosphate.

That site therefore is junk science.

Plotone

Perhaps I should have researched more before posting that link; even so the dye in the product is enough reason to not drink it, in my opinion.

To each his own.