JoWiGo

Hey everybody, Im from a small town with no real access to a bike shop or gym. I am planning on doing the Bell Ride for Heart tomorow (75k) and I would like to know... do you suggest Gatorade or Powerade (the two energy drinks availible here).

I am going to have a camel pack full of water as well, but i wanted an energy drink to replace my 'ites and 'iums when biking.

TheKillerPenguin

Powerade is so much cheaper but is still pretty tasty...but, it seems like all that's in it is sugar, even moreso than Gatorade. Out of the two, Gatorade will probably help you more.

cydewaze

Isn't powerade "lightly carbonated"? I ain't drinking anything carbonated during exercize, sorry.

TheKillerPenguin

no, no carbonation.

dodgy

Beer!

chris_pnoy

Gatorade... You should be good w/ a ton of that stuff...

Don't eat salty food before that...

RegularGuy

Gatorade....the original and still the best. Formulated to mimic the mineral content of the sweat that it replaces. Good old lemon-lime for me.

Powerade...too dang sweet!

TheKillerPenguin

C'mon, Powerade White (I think it's called Glacier? or Iceberg?) is the best tasting stuff ever! Better than anything gatorade has ever put out! Try it sometime if you see it. I have no doubt that it's little more than sugar water, but it's damn tasty sugar water.

ChAnMaN

i like the gatorade water stuff, propel fitness water. Tastes just as good as regular gatorade only way less suger....so you can drink it when you not exercising and not have to worry about it.

cydewaze

Ahh, I must be thinking of something else then.

wannaride

You need an "Other" category. I use Accelerade and prefer to it either of your two choices.

SSP

Gatorade has insufficent sodium and potassium for long, hot, or hilly rides...that's one reason they released the Gatorade "Endurance" formula recently. For regular weekday rides, Gatorade is fine. But, for longer weekend rides, I need more electrolytes to avoid cramping problems.

Fortunately, you can beef up the electrolytes in Gatorade easily. Just add a dash of salt for sodium, and a dash of No Salt (or "salt substitute") for potassium, to each water bottle.

Crunkologist

If you look, gatorade has: sucrose, and dextrose (at least in the powdered stuff) as its main ingredients. What does powerade have? High fructose corn syrup.

Fructose is not a good exercise-support carb. It is preferentially uptaken by your liver, not your muscles.

Therefore gatorade wins.

Someone check and see that this information is not outdated.

lilHinault

I was one of the first folks to try Powerade, before it was put on the market. We were the beta testers I guess. It came in Red and Green. I always thought they should carbonate it a bit and call it Powerbelch but no one ever listens to me......

orguasch

dodgy,
dude that's a good one.

Trekke

I agree. The white is great. However very hard to find except at a 7/11 type store in the small bottles. I have never seen it in the big jugs or powder in the local supermarket.

Both Gatorade and Powerade and mostly sugar water. Since you obviously have Internet access I would get online and try some other drinks such as Cytomax or Hammer Gel products which have a high carb count but low sugar. You get the good carbs and not much of the sugar spikes associated with pure sugar drinks. Just my opinion. You may not have time to do that for this event which in that case either PA or GA will work fine. When I use either of those I dilute in 50/50 water to cut the sweet taste down a bit.

Crunkologist

Which sugar matters... Powerade sucks.

Gatorade has Sucrose (fructose + glucose), and dextrose (which IS glucose). Glucose is a better sugar for exercise than fructose.

Powerade has Fructose.

Therefore Gatorade wins.

Boogs

If this is true, then these would appear to be two very different animals. Very interesting, Herr Crunk...

Crunkologist

Powerade is about the same as Coca Cola. Surprise, its branded by Coca Cola.

Santaria

Crunk is right on the money. Powerade has High Fructose Corn fatness in it; Gatorade does not.

Of course, I am interested in other options besides gatorade, as were mentioned. Time to go searching the web

Crunkologist

Anything containing alot of dextrose or maltodextrin as its main carb is preferable to anything else. These are glucose, your preferred exercise energy source.

After that its just a question of how concentrated the sugar is, and how much KCl, HCl it has.

Thats all there is to energy drinks.

cydewaze

Jess and I just tried Powerade today (found it at a country store during our ride) in some "Jagged Ice" flavor. It wasn't bad at all.

Then again, it was 90 degrees out, humid as hell, and the Powerade was ice cold. Anti-freeze probably would have tasted good at that point.

allgoo19

If you are planning to keep your teeth for a long time, you may want to avoid sports drinks.

https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...ds/4329729.stm

Here's another.
https://www.newstarget.com/006110.html

It says sports drinks are erosive to teeth 30 times more than water. I have seen another article saying 10 times more erosive than soda pop.

Santaria

But is there an alternative to sports drinks? Other than mixing your own salt+water, etc? One that isn't dangerous to your chompers?

Trekke

Brush your teeth after a ride. You should anyway.