Never mind the US, not readily available in Ireland! I didn’t cycle when I was growing up in the North West, but Soreen one of the few foods I miss, along with proper chippys (and chip barms), hand pulled pints of Holts.
It is available intermittently (along with Vimto) in a shop we have here called dealz which is part of the Poundland group (or was before the end of brexit transition). But due to covid/ remote working, my trips there have got even more intermittent than their stocking of it. They had the bars, and the banana bars at times too. Some of it used to survive long enough to be bike food.
btw Shout out to Shoddy Dave on the Cycling Tips podcast for pushing it a few months ago!
God, imagine if someone was sad enough to have already made a spreadsheet months ago for this exact purpose?
It’s even colour-coded for different types of food.
The winner is sugar, by a long way. Just dissolve it in water and it costs virtually nothing. The loser is a bottle of Chateau Montrose 2012, this is a very uneconomical way to get your carbs. I advise against it. But you can see the rankings of everything else in between. The main headline is, if you want solid food, then there’s plenty of stuff on the supermarket shelves which will save you a great deal of your dinero.
Protein per dollar. Everything per dollar. It’s awesome.
Also to answer OP question: plain granulated sugar is by far the cheapest and thankfully, works better than 90% of the expensive stuff. More info: Saving Money as an Endurance Athlete
To OP: Can I inquire about why you’re looking for solids on the trainer specifically?
If because of hunger… you may want to read point 3 in this article:
The maltodextrin I got tastes like potato water and it’s a little unpleasant. I don’t think a little salt will save it.
Maybe I’m doing it wrong? I weighed 80g and put it in a 500ml bidon with water. I tried to mask the taste with an electrolyte mix but it didn’t help much.
Mine is almost flavourless, just faintly sweet. This was from myprotein and I used 50g in about 300ml with 1/4 tsp seasalt. I think they can make maltodextrin from different things.
[quote=“martinheadon, post:45, topic:51679, full:true”]
God, imagine if someone was sad enough to have already made a spreadsheet months ago for this exact purpose?
snip
It’s even colour-coded for different types of food.[/quote]
I tried a number of these (and more) on the trainer for suitability (the chewy options) and had some surprising results. Firstly, jelly beans are absolutely useless for me as there’s just not enough moisture in them (they just get stuck in my teeth). Also, most things with a fizzy coating just end up getting breathed… except for Tangfastics, which seem to have a much more durable fizzy coating! Strawberry laces fall apart, and then also get breathed.
They’re not necessarily the most cost efficient, but so far my favourites are either Goldbears or Tangfastics. Jelly Babies might work, but I’m not really a fan of them.
Good job I’m doing all this training, or I’d get fat testing them all out!
Edit - Not sure what I’ve done to butcher the quote tag there.
I haven’t tried them yet. Will add them to my next shop.
Edit - Ahh, apparently not commonly available in the UK. Still, I’ll give them a go anyway. Might have to put them up against Haribo’s “Freaky Fish” to see who wins the fishy battle.
