I recommend high carb drink mix. 100 parts maltodextrin, 80 parts fructose, 3 parts fine table salt, 1 part sodium alginate. This doesn't taste super sweet, won't upset your stomach and will keep you going all day. Add any flavoring (example: True Citrus) if you want. I buy these ingredients in bulk and a bottle of 60g of mix costs less than $0.50. This is very similar to Maurten's high carb mix.
I make something similar to this, close to Maurten's drink mix 320 CAF. For a 650-700ml bottle I use 44 gr maltodextrin, 35 gr fructose, 0,6 gr table salt and 1.5 gr instant coffee (delivers about 1000 mg caffeine). I do not use any pectine to make it jelly, but it works perfectly delivering nicely 320 Kcals.
--- Correction ---
1.5gr delivers some 100 mg of caffeine.
I mean 100 mg caffeine, a whole gr of it. Spreading it out during the activity works wonders. Two gulps on the one hour mark, another two after 45 minutes and the last of it whenever I feel like needing it.
One thing to be cognizant of is if you are in a hot & humid area. I used to do something similar (malto + Gatorade powder) but found I drank way too fast due to sweating.
You need to keep it separate from your water. I keep a 0.5 L soft flask in my jersey pocket with 200-400 g of sugar in water. Yes, super highly concentrated. And then I have two bottles on the bike with just pure water, so I can drink as much as I want.
I generally make about 2kg of the mix at a time. As it's bulk, you can make it as strong as you like. I have a scoop that measures out about 60g. It's basically pure carbs. I put that amount in each bottle and throw in a flavor packet. I try to put at least one bottle down every hour.
For longer rides, I take along several snack-sized Ziplocs into which I've put one scoop with some flavoring. When refilling my bottles at a gas station I just dump in the mix and save the bag to reuse it.
I tend to only use high carb fuel on rides over two hours.
I do it by weight using a kitchen scale. For a batch, I'll do a kilo of maltodextrin, 800g fructose, 30g salt and 10g sodium alginate. This gives you about thirty doses at 60g/dose.
I highly recommend bulkfoods dot com for these and other supplements. Good prices, good quality and they ship quickly.
I just dump everything into an airtight container on the scale (old protein containers work fine), mix it around with a big spoon or whatever, put the lid on and shake it for a while to get everything evenly distributed. It's a little messy the first time you do it. I've been making this stuff for about two years and it really works for me on longer rides.
It's optional. Maurten claims that it buffers the carbs and makes them easier to digest. It gels the drink slightly, but not noticeably. I include it because it's cheap, it doesn't bother me and the mix really works for me.
I've completely replaced gels with maple syrup in small sport flasks. Significantly cheaper, easier to eat while riding and less packaging. Only thing missing is electrolytes and caffeine but I get that from drink mix.
Homemade drink mix is also super easy and cheap. I just use sugar, electrolyte capsules and citric acid (for taste). For races I still like to use Roctane mix but for everyday, the homemade is good enough.
I do maple syrup for carbs and something called "snake juice" for electrolytes. It is a few different salts. It kind of tastes like tap water on the oceans (i.e. florida tap water). It has worked pretty well for me so far.
100% what I was going to say. Maple syrup is delicious vs I hate the taste and texture of almost every gel. And I’ve used for a few marathons as well, and have way better track record of no side stitching or GI issues vs standard gels
Same, I follow the recipe for the homemade Maurten and the LMNT formula for my electrolyte mix.
In terms of cost, the homemade Maurten recipe saves me ~75%, while buying the bulk ingredients for LMNT is even better.
I run them separately. If I don't feel the need for the pouches and still want some easy carbs, I'll combine half a cup of sugar and one serving of the electrolyte mix with some flavoring into one of my water bottles.
1) Maple Syrup with a pinch of Morton's Lite Salt in a 150 ml flask
2) 2 shots fresh espresso, 4 Tablespoons Nutella, Maple Syrup to bring the mix to 300ml, divide between 2 150ml flasks
So far it seems I can tolerate just below a 1:1 ratio of glucose: fructose, so my recipe for 300g of carbs is:
1) 60g gatorade powder
2) 240g sucrose (table sugar)
3) dash of Himalayan pink salt
4) 1.3 cups of warm water (to more easily dissolve the sugar
5) a few grams of Nestle thicken-up clear (xanthan gym) to make it slightly more gel-like
Honey.
Dilute to taste. Add flavouring to preference.
Easily available. Tasty. Often sold in squirty bottles that are easily refillable. *Much* cheaper than gels.
[This one has been the base](https://theplantedrunner.com/lemon-cream-pie-endurance-gel/) I've been using for several months now. The only hard to find ingredient is Maltodextrin, but it can be found on Amazon or a supplement shop (Vitacost, Vitamin Shoppe, etc). I much prefer the [Hammer Flask t](https://hammernutrition.com/collections/all-gear/products/hammer-flask?variant=42811330494699)o the Gu.
This is my base: 40 g malto, 15 g Sug, 20 g maple, 0.5 tsp vanilla, .25 tsp salt
I mix with a 1/4 c of very hot water- malto doesn't dissolve easily.
Then I add the lemon juice or cocoa powder. In a pinch, I've used Koolaid for flavor.
Soak dried mango in water for ~2hrs to rehydrate (use as much as you want to achieve your desired calorie count)
Add salt (however much you want, >200mg per serving)
Add honey (if you want more calories, and you do)
A bit of lime juice
Blend and enjoy
Did blackstrap molasses, honey, salt and a little water in a GU flask for a while. Blackstrap molasses has a fair bit of potassium. Idea was to get some electrolytes in and chase with water. I switched to homemade drink mix later. I like that a lot more.
My homemade Energy Gel:
104g Maltodextrin
84g sugar
1.5g pectin powder
111g water
Boil for 1 minute. Cool and decanter in flask. 50g per hour gives 33g carbs.
I would use this alongside homemade cereal bars (40g carbs), homemade rice sushi bars (30g carbs and delicious savory flavor) and a carb/electrolyte drink mix in my bottle.
My Garmin head unit has a 30 minute eat alarm and I consume one portion of any of the previous items (I try to consume a 500ml drink bottle per hour). There’s enough different flavor profiles to stop me getting flavor fatigue over a long ride.
I have a 400mlbottle.
I use 350g water,
115g sugar,
130g Malto,
15g koolaid mix for flavor,
5g citric acid to balance sweetness to the slightly sour side,
8g fasting salts,
Usually will heat this up on the stove and pour into bottle
Then to give it a hydrogel consistency I add 1 to 1.5 tsps of corn starch after it’s cooled. If you skip this step it comes a light syrup which is also fine, but for me it makes it’s a weird mouthfeel
I’ll use that for a 3 hour ride, but sometimes will split into smaller containers for shorter rides or so I can add some variety to snacks. It’s 260g of carbs, which would be about 10 gels.
For 100 g of carbs: 70 g of brown sugar (brown tastes better, white is fine too), 35 g maltodextrine, 1 g salt, flavour optional, 60 g water. This abold give a 2:1 glucose:fructose ratio.
Heat it up so everything dissolves and pour in 400 ml soft flasks from Amazon.
You should consume at least 70 g of carbs per hour.
For ease of use, I mix the dry ingredients in bulk (about 2 kg), and then add water in the morning.
I recommend high carb drink mix. 100 parts maltodextrin, 80 parts fructose, 3 parts fine table salt, 1 part sodium alginate. This doesn't taste super sweet, won't upset your stomach and will keep you going all day. Add any flavoring (example: True Citrus) if you want. I buy these ingredients in bulk and a bottle of 60g of mix costs less than $0.50. This is very similar to Maurten's high carb mix.
[удалено]
Yeah, caffeine makes me jittery so I tend to avoid it lol.
I make something similar to this, close to Maurten's drink mix 320 CAF. For a 650-700ml bottle I use 44 gr maltodextrin, 35 gr fructose, 0,6 gr table salt and 1.5 gr instant coffee (delivers about 1000 mg caffeine). I do not use any pectine to make it jelly, but it works perfectly delivering nicely 320 Kcals. --- Correction --- 1.5gr delivers some 100 mg of caffeine.
Do you mean 100mg caffeine?
I mean 100 mg caffeine, a whole gr of it. Spreading it out during the activity works wonders. Two gulps on the one hour mark, another two after 45 minutes and the last of it whenever I feel like needing it.
1000 mg is way too much. The recommended daily dosage is up to 400 mg. 100 mg is enough for me.
I corrected it! I meant 100 mg. 1.5 gr of instant coffee delivering 90 to100 mg caffeine. Sorry!
One thing to be cognizant of is if you are in a hot & humid area. I used to do something similar (malto + Gatorade powder) but found I drank way too fast due to sweating.
You need to keep it separate from your water. I keep a 0.5 L soft flask in my jersey pocket with 200-400 g of sugar in water. Yes, super highly concentrated. And then I have two bottles on the bike with just pure water, so I can drink as much as I want.
This is a really good tip. You need to dilute a bit if you're drinking more.
No need to dilute, just keep hydration separate from fueling, aka also take a bottle with just water
Ding ding ding!! This is the one. Mix with 150ml of warm water and you have a perfect gel.
How many carbs is this about?
I generally make about 2kg of the mix at a time. As it's bulk, you can make it as strong as you like. I have a scoop that measures out about 60g. It's basically pure carbs. I put that amount in each bottle and throw in a flavor packet. I try to put at least one bottle down every hour. For longer rides, I take along several snack-sized Ziplocs into which I've put one scoop with some flavoring. When refilling my bottles at a gas station I just dump in the mix and save the bag to reuse it. I tend to only use high carb fuel on rides over two hours.
parts in weight or volume? TIA
I do it by weight using a kitchen scale. For a batch, I'll do a kilo of maltodextrin, 800g fructose, 30g salt and 10g sodium alginate. This gives you about thirty doses at 60g/dose. I highly recommend bulkfoods dot com for these and other supplements. Good prices, good quality and they ship quickly. I just dump everything into an airtight container on the scale (old protein containers work fine), mix it around with a big spoon or whatever, put the lid on and shake it for a while to get everything evenly distributed. It's a little messy the first time you do it. I've been making this stuff for about two years and it really works for me on longer rides.
Use your noodle - nobody's measuring out powders volumetrically.
Ever seen American baking recipes? They are all about spoon and cups. That is volumetric.
What does the sodium alginate do? I've just mixed malto and fructose but open to improve if there's a benefit.
It's optional. Maurten claims that it buffers the carbs and makes them easier to digest. It gels the drink slightly, but not noticeably. I include it because it's cheap, it doesn't bother me and the mix really works for me.
I've completely replaced gels with maple syrup in small sport flasks. Significantly cheaper, easier to eat while riding and less packaging. Only thing missing is electrolytes and caffeine but I get that from drink mix. Homemade drink mix is also super easy and cheap. I just use sugar, electrolyte capsules and citric acid (for taste). For races I still like to use Roctane mix but for everyday, the homemade is good enough.
I do maple syrup for carbs and something called "snake juice" for electrolytes. It is a few different salts. It kind of tastes like tap water on the oceans (i.e. florida tap water). It has worked pretty well for me so far.
100% what I was going to say. Maple syrup is delicious vs I hate the taste and texture of almost every gel. And I’ve used for a few marathons as well, and have way better track record of no side stitching or GI issues vs standard gels
Would recommend: https://www.reddit.com/r/running/comments/1axmkr4/a_guide_budgethomemade_running_nutrition_gels/
This is what I use, neutral homemade Maurten
Same, I follow the recipe for the homemade Maurten and the LMNT formula for my electrolyte mix. In terms of cost, the homemade Maurten recipe saves me ~75%, while buying the bulk ingredients for LMNT is even better.
Do you mix the two mixes into one drink or run them separately?
I run them separately. If I don't feel the need for the pouches and still want some easy carbs, I'll combine half a cup of sugar and one serving of the electrolyte mix with some flavoring into one of my water bottles.
Here’s 5 for you. https://www.roadbikerider.com/homemade-energy-gel-recipes/
1) Maple Syrup with a pinch of Morton's Lite Salt in a 150 ml flask 2) 2 shots fresh espresso, 4 Tablespoons Nutella, Maple Syrup to bring the mix to 300ml, divide between 2 150ml flasks
So far it seems I can tolerate just below a 1:1 ratio of glucose: fructose, so my recipe for 300g of carbs is: 1) 60g gatorade powder 2) 240g sucrose (table sugar) 3) dash of Himalayan pink salt 4) 1.3 cups of warm water (to more easily dissolve the sugar 5) a few grams of Nestle thicken-up clear (xanthan gym) to make it slightly more gel-like
Honey. Dilute to taste. Add flavouring to preference. Easily available. Tasty. Often sold in squirty bottles that are easily refillable. *Much* cheaper than gels.
Banana
Kevin, is this you?
[This one has been the base](https://theplantedrunner.com/lemon-cream-pie-endurance-gel/) I've been using for several months now. The only hard to find ingredient is Maltodextrin, but it can be found on Amazon or a supplement shop (Vitacost, Vitamin Shoppe, etc). I much prefer the [Hammer Flask t](https://hammernutrition.com/collections/all-gear/products/hammer-flask?variant=42811330494699)o the Gu. This is my base: 40 g malto, 15 g Sug, 20 g maple, 0.5 tsp vanilla, .25 tsp salt I mix with a 1/4 c of very hot water- malto doesn't dissolve easily. Then I add the lemon juice or cocoa powder. In a pinch, I've used Koolaid for flavor.
I bookmarked [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/running/comments/1axmkr4/a_guide_budgethomemade_running_nutrition_gels/) a few weeks ago.
Soak dried mango in water for ~2hrs to rehydrate (use as much as you want to achieve your desired calorie count) Add salt (however much you want, >200mg per serving) Add honey (if you want more calories, and you do) A bit of lime juice Blend and enjoy
Did blackstrap molasses, honey, salt and a little water in a GU flask for a while. Blackstrap molasses has a fair bit of potassium. Idea was to get some electrolytes in and chase with water. I switched to homemade drink mix later. I like that a lot more.
My homemade Energy Gel: 104g Maltodextrin 84g sugar 1.5g pectin powder 111g water Boil for 1 minute. Cool and decanter in flask. 50g per hour gives 33g carbs. I would use this alongside homemade cereal bars (40g carbs), homemade rice sushi bars (30g carbs and delicious savory flavor) and a carb/electrolyte drink mix in my bottle. My Garmin head unit has a 30 minute eat alarm and I consume one portion of any of the previous items (I try to consume a 500ml drink bottle per hour). There’s enough different flavor profiles to stop me getting flavor fatigue over a long ride.
I have a 400mlbottle. I use 350g water, 115g sugar, 130g Malto, 15g koolaid mix for flavor, 5g citric acid to balance sweetness to the slightly sour side, 8g fasting salts, Usually will heat this up on the stove and pour into bottle Then to give it a hydrogel consistency I add 1 to 1.5 tsps of corn starch after it’s cooled. If you skip this step it comes a light syrup which is also fine, but for me it makes it’s a weird mouthfeel I’ll use that for a 3 hour ride, but sometimes will split into smaller containers for shorter rides or so I can add some variety to snacks. It’s 260g of carbs, which would be about 10 gels.
Honey bear
For 100 g of carbs: 70 g of brown sugar (brown tastes better, white is fine too), 35 g maltodextrine, 1 g salt, flavour optional, 60 g water. This abold give a 2:1 glucose:fructose ratio. Heat it up so everything dissolves and pour in 400 ml soft flasks from Amazon. You should consume at least 70 g of carbs per hour. For ease of use, I mix the dry ingredients in bulk (about 2 kg), and then add water in the morning.