Frankgt2

So, yes, I googled it but I wasnt convinced with the results so Iam looking for an answer into ''cycling'', I hope you know what I mean. I read that Gatorade has electrolytes and carbs that I need but other persons says that it is good to use both when exercising. So my question is, do I use both or just gatorade?

SemperFi87

I like to fill one bottle up with each when I am doing a ride in the heat. I do water down the gatorade some, I find it to be way too sweet to actually consume when I am exercising, it will upset my stomach on it's own. For longer rides, a lot of the endurance mixes like cytomax are pretty good.

prathmann

Agreed. Full strength Gatorade seems too concentrated after awhile on a long ride. It can also be handy to have some plain water along for other reasons - like rinsing hands after changing a tire or other maintenance or for wetting down a bandana or headband on a hot day.

eshvanu

I'll qualify this by saying 2 1/2 hours is my maximum ride to date. Those who ride longer, farther, faster might do things differentlly.

If I drink while riding or exercising, I drink water.

Gatorade (or something similar) I save for AFTER the ride, and it does appear to aid in a quicker recovery for me. I limit myself to one 8 oz glass per day.

robdac

I drink Nuun for rides under 2 hours. It's has all the electrolytes of Gatorade without the carbs/sugar. I don't feel like I need any calories until I get beyond 2 hours. Without the electrolytes, however, I get depleted in the summer heat. Nuun comes in a tube of tablets that you just drop into your water bottle and add water. I has a little fizz kind of like alka seltzer but tastes better.

kwrides

Gatorade is too sweet and sticky and gets to my stomach pretty fast, not to mention making my hands all sticky. I use Heed Unflavored (which has a very light citrus flavor) and it doesn't get sweet on me.

I feel that using Heed takes me farther before I start cramping, dehydrating, etc., without making me sick to my stomach.

And no, they don't pay me or give me discounts or anything...

Frankgt2

What about the electrolyte pills? Temp here is always 90F plus, if that matters...

ericm979

Some people need them on long hot rides, other don't. I need them for most rides over 4-5 hours, sooner (and more) if it's over 100 degrees. I prefer to seperate my eletrolytes and carbohydrates so I can adjust each as needed- calorie requirements don't go up with higher temps.

I don't like Gatorade. It's too sweet and HFCS doesn't sit that well with me. I prefer HEED. But that's a personal thing. Try more than one drink.

Michaelfern

Honestly, I would call this competition a bit unfair to water. Water only serves the purpose of quenching your thirst whereas Gatorade is loaded with electrolytes like sodium that's of help especially post a sweaty workout.

12strings

I like the G2 (much less sugar) Gatorade, but often just mix my own water, salt, sugar. Tastes surprisingly like Gatorade...

BloomBikeShop

Look at this thread getting resurrected!

Anyway, you can use either or a combination, it's about finding what methods of hydration and fueling work best for you.

redlude97

you can also just buy gatorade powder powder and mix at whatever concentration you like. On sale it is about the same price as sugar.

etw

I generally stick with plain water unless I am on a long ride of multiple hours and especially if it is hot. I use Scratch when I feel I need something other than water. I don't think that it is needed as a general rule.

I don't care for Gatorade, but IF I am at a cycling event and they have it I might dilute it to a very light concentration.

Stick69

According to the book Extreme Alpinism by Mark Twight, most sports drinks need to be diluted by half in order to pass out of your stomach. If you dilute it in the bottle or chase it with water you get the benefit right away. If you drink it at full strength your body has to dilute the sports drink by osmosis which will pass water into your stomach which takes time.

redlude97

Thats not true. Isotonic and slightly hypotonic solutions are best for gastric emptying and absorption in the intestines. Gatorade is isotonic or barely hypertonic as formulated

canklecat

DripDrop packets or NUUN tablets. DripDrop is more concentrated and cost effective and the little single serving Mylar packets stash anywhere and are waterproof.

I dilute both in a full 24 oz bottle. Both work great, little flavor, not icky sweet like Gatorade or Powerade. Only problem is my sweat has a lot more white residue later.

Just tried HEED this week. Awful stuff. Doesn't dissolve readily. The lemon-lime tastes like weak vanilla-orange sherbet. Didn't help prevent muscle cramps as well as DripDrop or NUUN. Only got a single serving pack so only wasted two bucks.

The second bottle has plain water in case I want to splash myself.

79pmooney

If its hot and I had to do a hard ride with that choice (Gatoraid or water), that news would, for me, feel like a sentence. I have a hard time getting Gatoraid down in large enough quantities to stay both hydrated and in good shape with electrolytes. Yes, it is better than nothing.

Now Vitalylte (the old Gookingaid aka E.R.G is a different story completely. On hot days I down water bottles mixed with 2 scoops of that in water, 1/3 of the WB per gulp. It stays down and feels good immediately.

I haven't studied why I have trouble with one and do so well on the other. That Vitalyte works very well for me is all I need to know. (And it has since I raced New England in the '70s, riding many hot, humid and hard days. Works just as well at 60+ yo on 100F+ and dry Oregon weather like we have right now. (I don't work as well but I cannot fault Vitalyte for that! I stopped being a 20-something racer a long time ago.)

Ben

redlude97

That is interesting since they are both about 40 calories/scoop of sucrose/dextrose/fructose combo and similar enough sodium/potassium levels

Drew Eckhardt 

Water is fine, has no calories, and can be replenished in more places than sports drinks.

Clif bars have plenty of electrolytes if you're riding long enough you need to eat.

Electrolytes are also available separately in pill form (SaltStick)

79pmooney

No, Vitalyte contains glucose and fructose in that order. The creator Bill (?) Gookin was adamant that sucrose had no place in the formula. My personal observation is that sucrose only has a place in a bike drink if I am using it as a drug and I try to only use it when I can accept the consequences. My experience is also that sucrose and fructose are, for m e, very different. I see no "drug effect" from fructose.

I regularly fill my waterbottles with Vitayte when going on organized rides and often bring more of the powder in a ziploc bag. Two drinks I specifically stay away from is that Gatorade and Heed. The little fizzy electrolyte tablets seen on a lot of rides around here (Oregon) are good.

Ben

TGT1

joking aside
I do carry one bottle with 500ml of it, but most of the time it comes home half or completely full for anything under 60 miles, but we have a dry heat here (cept for the last couple of days.)

DrIsotope

Gatorade is great. I ride a lot of miles, it's as hot as an inferno here in the summer (and sometimes the spring and fall too) and apparently sweat a whole bunch-- I've taken in ten 25oz bottles during 70 miles (peaking at 107º that afternoon,) which is over 15lbs of water, and got home weighing 7lbs less than when I left. The idea I had sweat out 22lbs terrifies me. If a solid third of that intake had not been Gatorade, or something else with electrolytes, my balance would have been so blown out I probably would have passed out before I got home.

I see no need to mess with the low-cal, powder-this and mix that. Gatorade is in every convenience store and gas station, comes in a zillion flavors, it's cheap, and it works. I, like others find the "traditional" flavors like Lemon-Lime, Orange, Fruit Punch, etc to be too strong tasting-- but the new ones with ridiculous names like Arctic Blitz and Glacier Freeze go down a lot easier and work every bit as well.

Plain water works just fine, right up until he day it doesn't. Plus, I'm not really worrying about the "extra" 80 calories or so in each water bottle. I'm working out +45kJ per mile. I can manage.

Stick69

Based on your compelling argument I dug out the book and compared the recommended CHO percentage to the Gatorade label. The Gatorade CHO percentage is in the middle of the recommended range. I have no idea where I got the idea to cut Gatorade.

Climb on.

redlude97

Thats rubbish. Sucrose is 1 part glucose and one part fructose weakly bound and almost immediately cleaved upon entering the intestines.

Myosmith

+1

Way too much BS about which simple carbohydrate does this or that. Truth is that all are rapidly broken down into their simplest forms. Even the amylase in your saliva does a good job of breaking carbohydrate bonds. Some bonds are so weak they dissociate in warm water. In any case, by the time it reaches your small intestine to be absorbed, all simple carbs are well broken down.

Maltodextrin is a perfect example of myth vs. fact. Maltodextrin is nothing but short chains of glucose (3 to 17 molecules) held together by extremely fragile glycosidic bonds. While technically a polysaccharide (complex carbohydrate) it has a glycemic index and load nearly identical to glucose and dextrose. The bonds break so easily that most of it breaks down into simple sugars during processing, before it is even ingested. Companies looking to keep sugar off their food labels love the stuff. Because of a quirk in the US labeling laws, you only have to list ingredients as they are added to the product. Any chemical changes during processing, cooking, baking are not reflected on the label. You can add maltodextrin, which doesn't have to be listed as a sugar, and then with a little heat and moisture, viola, you have a sugar-laden end product with a healthy looking label. Any performance benefits of maltodextrin over glucose, dextrose or sucrose are a complete myth as maltodextrin breaks down immediately (hence its high glycemic index) and is absorbed as glucose. The good news is that it is no worse than any other sugar and is cheap and very shelf stable. It's not bad, it just isn't anything special, no matter what the sports nutrition marketers tell you.

High fructose corn syrup is another example. There are actually many variations of HFCS with varying amounts of fructose. Many sources tout the virtue of "natural" sweeteners such as agave, honey and maple syrup over the "artificial" HFCS. Actually agave has as high a fructose to sucrose ratio as even the most fructose-laden HFCS and honey and maple syrup fall into the same range as some commonly used HFCS concentrations.

All of the commonly used simple carbohydrates are actually a blend of multiple mono- and di-saccharides. Even your table sugar is not purse sucrose but rather a combination of sucrose, glucose/dextrose, and fructose. The problems with simple carbohydrates isn't the form they come in, it is that we consume way too much of them and often in foods that have little or no nutritional merit other than providing calories and a rapid peak in blood sugar.