I’ve been using liquid nutrition almost exclusively on the bike for over 4 years, but have recently gotten to the point where the sweetness of it is totally repulsive after just a couple of hours; particularly if it is warm out. Just this year, I’ve tried personalized Infiinit (with flavor dialed down), Tailwind, and Skratch. Are there any “unflavored” options that don’t have that sickly sweet aftertaste? I’ve tried (flavored) UCAN several times over the years, but not a big fan as I can’t seem to get it to mix sufficiently.
Perhaps related, perhaps not, but I often have stomach issues (bloating) off of the bike.
I’ve had success mixing my own nutrition. Maltodextrin is basically tasteless. I mix it with fructose which in my opinion is not sweet at all too. I add some artificial flavour and some electrolytes depending on duration/weather/etc.
For me 50g/h maltodextrin + 18g/h fructose for longer races and training days. With just the maltodextrin you can achieve good osmolality at 200ml of water which is not much. Optionally you could also add xantam gum to achieve a similar texture to gels.
maurten’s has a very very mild sweetness to it.
I use F2C Glyco-Durance which comes in an unflavored raw version. I usually mix some flavored with a bunch of the raw when making super bottles, it works great and you can control how sweet it is. All-around awesome product that should help with any bloating too.
You’ve tried Tailwind… did you notice they do a “Naked Unflavoured” variety?
Cheers, Rich
Is the sweetness from the flavor though?
Usually they put a acidic flavor to cut the sweet and salty.
I found GU espresso love was less sweet or acidic… if you can get hold of the powder. Its less sweet because they make it with rice so theres more complex carbs
If you mix one bottle stronger than the other, you can rinse your mouth out after drinking. This gets rid of the after taste but is also good for your teeth… Warm day, dry saliva, syrupy acidic sugar drinks…
Love this. I use Gatorade as my base flavor and just add sucrose and sodium citrate for about 80% of the total carbs and sodium.
Sucrose beats the osmolarity of malto+fructose, but is probably sweeter overall. I find if I keep flavor mild, (low Gatorade concentration), that I can tolerate very high sweetness from sucrose just fine. If Gatorade concentration is too high though it becomes completely unpalatable.