I’ve been watching the videos from Alacrity Endurance and am curious….What are the most cost effective ways to fuel for endurance?
A few of the videos give reviews of some products and the cost to fuel a 3 hours ride is $10 or more. Honestly, it opened my eyes a bit to what I’m spending to fuel long bike and long runs.
I aim for 80-100 grams of carbs and 1000+ mg of sodium per hour. Being that I’m a bigger guy I could probably up those numbers, but I usually feel pretty decent after these sessions.
Also, I’m willing to put taste aside to learn what others are doing.
Are you training about training or racing? For a three hour bike I’ll take a banana that I probably won’t eat and for a long run I may take a few gels if I’m getting close to 2 and hours and beyond otherwise it’s water… If I am going over three hours on the bike a couple of bananas and I like oat based more natural energy bars for training and a gatorade or something semi nutritious I can find at a shop if I decide to stop. I only use gels for the size convenience and leading into my races 70.3 or IM, I will start practicing my race nutrition.
Buy bull maltodextrin and whatever electrolyte powder you want. Mix together and you’ll have a year of calories for like $20. And you control how many calories you want per bottle.
This is one of the reasons I switched to Dr. H’s guidelines: water, sugar, and table salt. Now $0.10 is probably enough for a 3 hour ride
This. I buy lemon lime sugar mix and mix it with white table sugar 70:30 mix. Add some sodium citrate for salt. Cheap and tastes good. If I want to spice things up I add a crushed caffeine tablet. Depending on ride length I will make the mixture more or less strong. It’s currently summer time where I am so often I will start the ride with a strong rocket fuel and just top off the bottle each drink stop with some water or energy drink. Experiment a little and shoot for a grams target per hour. If you’re using sugar it’s a cheap experiment- give it a try.
I use Crystal Light to flavor water and put in a tbs or so of sugar in a bottle. If I was going to ride for more than an hour and half or so, I use generic “cereal bars” too. No idea what it costs, but not much.
One thing to keep in mind is release/uptake speed. maltodextrin can be purchased 6-19. 19 is the fastest to get into your system. I mix 2 scoops (1/2 cup) of Maltodextrin with 1 scoop (1/4 cup) of fructose powder. 1 salt stick salt cap and I’m good to go. The Malto is not sweet.
I do that in two regular bike bottles and bring 1 straight water in another bottle for 75 mile training ride.
I like to start adding in the water to the last bottle to water it down so I’m basically into straight water the last 20 miles. By the time the bike is over I have pretty much burnt all the fuel. And my stomach is ok.
If your going to run off the bike there is a little more thought (add something solid) during the last 20 miles of the bike.
On the bike I usually have malto and some table sugar in the bottles (+ a little juice concentrate for taste). Btw surprisingly many people don’t realize/believe that maltodextrin is exactly the same stuff that’s in most gels… Just for fraction of price…
On the bike I usually have malto and some table sugar in the bottles (+ a little juice concentrate for taste). Btw surprisingly many people don’t realize/believe that maltodextrin is exactly the same stuff that’s in most gels… Just for fraction of price…
Candy is also fairly cost effective.
Are these people not reading the ingredient list of their gels?
On the bike I usually have malto and some table sugar in the bottles (+ a little juice concentrate for taste). Btw surprisingly many people don’t realize/believe that maltodextrin is exactly the same stuff that’s in most gels… Just for fraction of price…
Candy is also fairly cost effective.
Are these people not reading the ingredient list of their gels?
.
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It is my experience that the general public are clueless about most things.They just follow along doing what everyone else does.
On the bike I usually have malto and some table sugar in the bottles (+ a little juice concentrate for taste). Btw surprisingly many people don’t realize/believe that maltodextrin is exactly the same stuff that’s in most gels… Just for fraction of price…
Candy is also fairly cost effective.
Are these people not reading the ingredient list of their gels?
.
,
It is my experience that the general public are clueless about most things.They just follow along doing what everyone else does.
And so happy to pump endless amounts of sugar through their body???
What you wrote, plus oatmeal before and a few boiled eggs and toast after and if the workout is long enough gatorade powder with a teaspoon of salt per bottle. Maybe some granola bars and if the ride gets long enough stop for a subway 6 inch sub with salami and hot peppers and mustard and mayo and a giant coke…just make sure your buddies ease up on pace for the next 30 minutes and after that, they will be drafting your ass when the subway rocket fuel of carbs + fat + salt + coke digest!!!
On race day I just use whatever is on course, but I am doing sprint to half, so you don’t need that much
I have been using various home brew methods with good success since the pandemic began. And it’s way cheaper…but how about some actual minimum cost numbers. I looked back at my last purchase of bulk maltodextran and fructose from amazon: $14 and $19 per kg. Mixed 1:1 and consumed 100g per hour this is $1/hour. I bought table sugar from Safeway 2 nights ago: $5.29 /4lbs. 29¢/hour. (When did those fuckers make a 5lbs bag only 4lbs) I haven’t purchased salt in a while but Safeway’s online pickup says I can get 48oz for $5.29. So add another 0.4-0.8¢ per hour to suit your sodium needs. On the other hand, another member of my household won’t eat the home brew. The last Amazon 24 pack of Gu was $35: 100g per hour is therefore $5.80.
I never calculated but sounds about right! I would buy a big bag of malto and usually mixed it with first endurance EFS to get my electrolytes and flavor. I’d get one container of each and it would last at least a season of racing. But I also wouldn’t use it in training much. For training I’d bring pbj or pop tarts. Still a lot cheaper and much tastier than gels!
I aim for 80-100 grams of carbs and 1000+ mg of sodium per hour.
Gatorade mix is 150mg sodium, 22g of carbs per 12oz. serving… $9 for 63 servings. x4 servings per hour will get you the carbs you want, at $0.57/hr, but you’ll need to add salt.
Are your carb and sodium #s normal? I’ve never consumed more than 1/3 that much while riding. There’s some depletion and weight loss, but I don’t bonk or anything @5hrs.