Originally Posted by
StephenH
On longer riders (randonneuring), I've tried putting Perpetuum in my water bottles, and that seems to work okay.
"Energy" drink is ambiguous. Generally, you need calories in a form you can use. You don't need a bunch of caffeine or exotic ingredients.
I quite often buy chocolate milk when I stop at controls, also.
There are two kinda of Energy drinks, there are sports drinks, of which the most common is Gatorade, Powerade and a bunch of similar ones.
There are "cheap high" drinks, like Red Bull, which are often, water, sugar, caffeine, chemical flavouring and colouring agents.
For a cycling clyde, you want to use the first as little as possible, avoid the second. If you are looking at something like a sugar free Gatorade, go to the grocery store, pick up a couple of packets of Crystal Lite or sugar free Kool-aid and use that, for the flavouring, mix it with water then mix that 1+1 for your bottle, you don't need the rest.