Ok, so I've really gotten into Hammer Nutrition's products, I use Heed, Recoverite, Hammer Bars, Hammer Gels, and now Endurolytes.

Typically on rides under two hours I'd go out with a bottle of Heed and a Bottle of water and possibly one gel that I would take if I felt I was crashing or had an unsettled stomach. If it was hot I would do a double scoop in the Heed.

On rides over 3 hours I would use the advice I read on here and in the Hammer nutrition guides and eat between 200-250 calories per hour and typically use Cliff shot blocks for extra electrolytes after my first bottle of heed ran out) Lately I've been trying to use Endurolytes as sometimes I'm just not in the mood to drink Heed. My problem with them is they feel like I'm not really taking anything. What are your guys experience with them? Is 3 per hour a good place to start like it says on the box or is that just them trying to sell pills? (I'm 5'11 and 160 lbs)

As some of you know I had some health problems (had/have actually) and I'm just now getting back into riding over 3 hours. This weekend I'll be doing a pretty difficult So-Cal ride with some intense climbing and I expect to be out for about four hours. I planned on doing this for nutrition:
3 Endurolytes per hour
1 bottle of water per hour
230-260 calories per hour by ingesting 3 hammer bars and perpetum in one of the four bottles (which I have never tried but got a free sample)

Does this sound solid to you guys? I used to go out with far less than I needed and mostly went off cliff bars and probably took in way too few electrolytes trying to lose weight. These days I'm trying to fuel more intelligently so any help you experts have is appreciated.

Sounds perfect. The endurolytes *do* feel like you are taking nothing - but for me, they kick in about 45 minutes after I take them, i just start feeling great.

I usually do 1 bottle of heed and 1 of water, or 2 heed if it's a really long ride, then try to fill up the first one with plain water and switch to that for a while, saving the 2nd heed bottle for later. i use gu, (for me the hammer gels just don't seem to do it, i stay hungry/weak) and usually eat one gu or one granola bar or so an hour. for long rides, i'll often stop some time after about 70 miles and eat some kind of real food - a package of chips and a coke seem to work great. bananas are great too, but i usually am to lazy to carry them.

I'm fairly small, and it turns out about 200 cal/hour (avg over the ride) works - more and i get a tummy ache after the ride for hours.

I skip them. Its my only annoyance with Hammer Nutrition is instead of putting a good electrolyte profile in the heed & perpetuum they put it in a bottle of pills you also have to purchase. I have not had a problem with a combo of heed and gells/clff bloks for fast rides of up to 300 km.

I'd suggest pairing the electrolytes with your water intake not by time. Further, a bottle an hour for four hours at altitude? While personal needs vary greatly, I'd bet that's significantly underestimating your needs, even presuming a modest dehydration at finish.

In hot muggy weather, there's a lot of sweating and thus loss of electrolytes along with it. So pairing the Endurolytes with hydration should work.

Those minerals in the electrolytes are also found in green leafy vegetables. Not that you will be eating those on the way, but the days before the ride, try dumping some in your home made smoothie.

The bottles are 24oz and it's not so much at altitude it's only 7 miles of climbing starting at sea level, the climbing is between anywhere from 7%-20+% I hear. It's short but extremely challenging.

I like the electrolytes but I typically start to feel gross after I drink more than two bottles of any sports drink.

I understand the fatigue with sports drink. One thing I do is use the generic Propel mix and salt it a bit 1/8 teaspoon of Morton Lite Salt. You can hardly taste it, but it's a good hit of salt and potassium.

I use Endurolytes this way: I don't take them at any particular rate. I drink to thirst. I know about how much water I need to drink at a particular effort and temperature. About X many bottles/3 hours. Usually 2 is enough for me in the PNW. If I notice I'm not drinking as much as I should because I'm not thirsty, I take an Endurolyte. I keep them in one of those plastic coin purses up my shorts leg so I can get them out with one hand and my tongue. If I notice my stomach isn't emptying like it should, I take an Endurolyte. If I feel like I'm getting dehydrated, I take an Endurolyte because that means I haven't been as thirsty as I should have been.

So drink to thirst, and stimulate thirst with Endurolytes.

I think it's great that Hammer provides a method of decoupling liquids and electrolytes. Each person needs a different combination, and will also require different combinations in different conditions. I take an average of 1/hr.

I'm so into the hammer bars though, I liked cliff bars before but the sweetness would get to me after about 3, the hammer bars are like more powerful lara bars................

your plan sounds good. maybe too much eat and not enough drink. then again you can get calories from HEED?

i love Hammer. for me on a hard 3 or 4 hour ride i would go with two bottles of HEED and two of water. a Cliff Bar mid ride and some gel at the end if needed. post ride consist of Recoverite and some PB&J samiches. works for me, may not for you.

good luck with the ride. later.

Well my buddy flaked on doing the ride so I'm going to try and do a much faster paced ride instead and just spread it out to four hours. We'll see how it goes, the ride is so fast I can't really stop to eat during it though so I'll have to do the perpetum first.

You normally stop to eat? If you ever want to do road races you need to practice eating while riding hard.... and not just on the trainer, mid pack.

That's not what I meant, I don't literally stop but I'm not exactly a pro at opening a hammer bar and eating it at 25-30 mph in a pack of 50. The group only stays together for about 1.5 hrs so after that i can eat more casually.

Try a bottle with 400 cal. Perpetuem and a bottle of plain water. That'll get you through the fast period. Then switch to bars and HEED, plain water or whatever.

400 calories for an hour?! No way man, there's no way I need that much usually when I do that ride with the out and back it comes to two hours and I do it on 1 bottle of heed 1 bottle of water and maybe a few. If I'm endurolytes feeling week i MIGHT pop a gel, but usually not. I can't stand drinking my calories so I'm doing perpetum in the first hour to get me through the hard part of the ride.

He means you make one strong bottle and one light bottle (water). You switch back and forth between the two bottles for the first 2 hours. 200kcal/hour is not excessive.


I know a few who use this for one bottle then just take water bottles from feed zones. 1200Cal in one bottle, but it's maltodextrin so it's not crazy sweet.

I prefer eating my calories, like i said I'm not a fan of drinking calories. I think it's a mental thing I don't really feel full.

Fussy aren't you.

I don't want to be opening hammer bars while riding in the middle of a pack riding near race speeds and I don't personally enjoy having flavor in my water so that makes me fussy?

Yes, it does.

If it's just the packaging that is bothering you open the bars before hand and stick them in your jersey pockets unwrapped. Another option popular among local riders is eating licorice, as it's non messy and wrapper free.

Road cycling is about dealing with unpleasantness, just wait until you get snack-attacked.*

*If you are a marked rider guys watch for when you are eating to catch you off guard, or with a full mouth.

Really?! ZOMG thanks, I had NEVER realized that. Jeez I knew something was wrong when I rode my last century in a recliner chair while drinking a maitai.

I use a bento bag mounted to my top bar for long rides. I pre open a bag of cliff bloks and put it in with a couple gells. Helps with being able to eat throughout the ride without trying to get stuff out of jersey pockets.

Never try lots of new things on long rides. It's just a bad idea.

Try the perpetuem first. It's an acquired taste - I think it tastes like slightly rancid pancake batter. The plain is awful, and the orange is just barely tolerable to me. You do not want to try it the first time on a long ride.

Water needs vary based on weather and how hard you are working.

Electrolyte replacement is a controversial subject. Hammer's theory is that a) you need a whole bunch of different electrolytes during exercise and b) you shouldn't get too much salt.

I think they're nuts. You do use electrolytes, but for most of them, you have enough supply to last days. Salt is the exception, but hammer's idea that you shouldn't get too much salt (hard to do if you get enough water) means that you can't take enough of them to get enough salt without getting too much of the others electrolytes.

If you hang out on the ultra-distance forums (cycling or running), you'll see that many of the competitors just use salt tablets. I've used Succeed E-tabs (I think...) on my long hot rides, but that's for 6+ hours in the heat of summer. I'm a salty sweater and these have helped me a lot, but 4 hours is't that long. Another alternative is beef jerky, which is easy to find, has about a gram of salt per serving.

You are right, sodium (salt) is by far the limiting reagent when it comes to electrolyte needs. HN vastly overvalues the other electrolytes. During races I often use HEED with Powergel, as Powergel is the most sodium laden gel I have found (200mg). The research is clear, sodium is king.

Well I tried the combo today, it was GREAT. I finished stronger and rode harder throughout, I really like perpetum. I really worked myself out today so I had some recoverite when i got home. I gotta say when the ride was over, before I had the recoverite i felt a little sick to my stomach. I think it might have been the repetitive hammer bars. I'm considering giving it a shot with perpetum over the solid food even though it would make things more complicated in my oppinion. Also Hammer Bars are very expensive and I'm becoming less and less of a fan of cliff bars and lara bars.

This ride really made me realize i was under eating and under doing it big time with electrolytes in the past. I really liked the feeling that I had lost a lot of weight after a ride but a ride like this shut me down or 2 days, now that I'm using recoverite after long hard rides and eating more I feel like I have alot more energy.