Whats your drink of choice for sustained energy? (Page 2)

I've used NUUN for a few seasons now and it's the only one that works for me. Most sports drinks tend to make me feel sick… I also just tried Skratch Labs (Allen Lim's company) and that works well as well.

Don't use liquid as your primary fuel though… it's more about reducing the depletion of electrolytes than adding fuel. Solid fuel and occasional gels is much better. For most people a 50mile bike ride won't require an overabundance of fuel though… you can carry about 1500 calories of carbs and another 100k calories of proteins.

I use Skratch Labs sports drink and gels.

Edited by jarvy01 2014-05-08 7:12 AM

Iced black coffee? Coconuts? Aside from those (stops for which can be part of a casual road ride here), liquid nutrition and I have never gotten along. I find the taste of sports drinks with sugar nauseatingly sweet, and they do a number on my stomach. It may have to do with the pretty extreme heat and humidity I train and race in most of the time, or just my body in general--really don't like sweet stuff. I don't drink soda or any flavored drinks either, just unsweetened fruit juice. I even dilute that, because it tastes too sweet. For training, I use a few of the less sweet flavors of Nuun and Hammer Endurolyte (mostly lemon), and get my calories from energy bars (sweet and salty Mojo bars and ProBar are my favorite; in Asia, a natural dried fruit and nut bar from Australia called Carmen's) and bananas. I've trained myself to choke down a few flavors of gu as it's more convenient in a race situation--I do some training rides and runs with these in the weeks before a race to get used to it.

I preach to live off the course. It's a bit harder for me because of my dietary needs. Lately I've been using vega sport performance in my bottle to start, then I switch to the calories in my homemade gel that I carry in 2 flasks shoved in my suit. I'll drink the vega sport until its gone, then switch to water.... Depending on how I feel, I carry NUUN tabs with me to put in the water. If its really hot I'm popping salt tabs. If I'm hungry I'm on the lookout for bananas. At special needs, I grab another bottle of vega sport performance.

I've found that overall Heed has been the best for me. I have problems with taking in food/electrolytes when it gets hot out. At a certain point most sports drinks won't even settle, but this will. I find the taste very mild, hardly noticeable, which helps. When I'm hot, the sweetness of the other drinks really bothers me.

Granted this is during runs more than biking though. While biking, I can eat and drink almost anything.

Just for reference, here are the other drinks I've tried:
-gatorade
-powerade
-eLoad
-Nuun

All have been fine on the bike, the others have been hit or miss while running.

Gatorade and PowerBar Perform for sport drinks, plus water and solid nutrition to complement my caloric needs for long workouts.

Also, I don't drink sports drinks if I am working out for less than 90 minutes.

Up until last month I was using Skratch Labs (Oranges and Raspberries) on my long runs and rides. Over the last month I have been using Perform since it is what is used at WTC events.

The taste of Perform takes a few rides to get used to, it is a little too salty for my tastes but does not give me any stomach problems. A few years ago I used to run and ride with Gatorade Endurance and had occasional stomach cramps, I almost dropped out of the Denver Marathon three years ago from stomach cramps caused by heavily concentrated Gatorade Endurance.