This is what I do. Almost no limit to the amount of carbs you can get into a bottle. It just gets really syrupy and sweet when you get towards 200g and more in a 500ml bottle.
I’ve had no issues with 250g in a 500ml bottle though, unless you spill it on your bike…mess to clean up.
although after hearing the precision hydration guys I am rethinking my strategy on the amount of carbs I put in my bottle. I still haven’t decided if I just want to buy some fructose powder or just keep doing some gatorade in there for a little bit of flavor. I think adding in some salt is key too. Standard gatorade has horrible actual ratios, tons of sugars with only about 150mg of sodium. I think my lesson is instead of making the drink mix more saturated, I should be drinking more of my ~300 calorie drink mix + 500 mg of sodium/hour.
Malto powder is quite cheap and the one I use has almost no sweetness to it.
Darn! Thanks for the clarification. Guess I’ll have to work on my strategy too. Since I like maple syrup and it’s absorbed by the glucose pathway I guess my next step is to try adding fructose powder to it.
It’s not. Sucrose is hydrolyzed by sucrase in the small intestine. The resulting glucose and fructose are absorbed by their respective pathways.
Well now I’m extra confused. I hope you’re right!
I use the Gu rocktane grape drink mix (mix of maltodextrin & fructose). One scoop is 30g carbs. I put 3 scoops in a 24oz bottle. They recommend 2 scoops per 21oz, but this mix is very very mild flavored and I’ve never had a problem at the 3scoops/24oz concentration.
Do you mean from the honey and sugar? As far as I know not more harmful than using maltodextrine and fructose powder mixes.
The lemon juice might pose some additional teeth issues. Will think about leaving this out. It just makes it taste so damn nice.
I do the same. Took a bit for my gut to get used to it but now I’m fine as I slowly increased from 60g to 90g over several weeks. I use a 1 L bottle though.
Would something like this be a good mix of Glucose/fructose or am I better off buying seperate bags of and mixing those myself?
Seems like it would be pretty cheap for a complete mix.
Sucrose is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. Just use regular cane sugar. 1/3cup/hr
Euro prices from bulk powders the Complete Hydration is €4 more for a third less than mixing your own.
Fructose 2.5kg €7.59 + Maltodextrin 5kg €16.99 + Electrolyte Powder 100g €5.99 versus Complete Hydration €34.79. The electrolyte would do multiple batches.
It depends on whether you want to bother mixing your own, or experiment with different ratios.
In the scheme of things, it’s still a good price for a pre-mix though!
I asked this on another thread, and there’s potentially more chance of GI distress in the breakdown of sucrose rather than already broken down glucose and fructose. I didn’t look into it any further though!
Do you get it from amazon?
Thanks, that would seem like the smarter choice.
I see you’re assuming a 2:1 glucose/fructose ratio.
Didn’t the TR crew recommend 1:1 for more absorption in one of their podcasts?
Do you have a source on this? Sucrase May break down sucrose, but the Jeukendrup article specifically noted that sucrose wasn’t absorbed faster than 60gm/hr indicating it is absorbed through the glucose transporter. I’ll look for the article tonight. Maybe the action of sucrase takes time…
This gets confusing quite quickly so I’m hoping Coach Chad can chime in!!!
If sucrose (i.e. table sugar) gets easily broken down into glucose and fructose in the gut then that would be a one to one ratio and we wouldn’t ever have to have any of these discussions! Table sugar is the most easily available sugar to all of us we could simply add it to water. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.
I was just doing 2:1 to give a fair comparison of the Complete Hydration v Glucose+Fructose+Electrolyte. However, I haven’t personally experimented with 1:1 (yet, next batch I plan too), but have been mixing my own for a while now.
In the context of this thread, I also tend to eat something on rides, as I’m not racing. So I’m not necessarily aiming for all my carbs just as drink.
Do you have a source on this? Sucrase May break down sucrose, but the Jeukendrup article specifically noted that sucrose wasn’t absorbed faster than 60gm/hr indicating it is absorbed through the glucose transporter. I’ll look for the article tonight.
I’d be interested in seeing the article, thanks! It seems like there may be some misinterpretation with the article. Jeukendrup is a coauthor on some of the papers where carbohydrate absorption rates >100 g/hr are achieved, and he’s an author on one reference for how sucrose is digested:
Oxidation of exogenous glucose, sucrose, and maltose during prolonged
cycling exercise
Sucrose is hydrolyzed at the brush border of the intestinal epithelium to glucose and fructose. It has been postulated […] It is more likely that fructose and glucose released from sucrose are absorbed by conventional monosaccharide transport mechanisms. Fructose is absorbed from the intestine by GLUT-5 transporters, and intestinal glucose transport
occurs via a sodium-dependent glucose transporter (SGLT) 1.
Some more digestible articles:
Sucrose vs Glucose vs Fructose: What’s the Difference?
Maybe the action of sucrase takes time…
I think that none of the brush-border hydrolysis is limiting.
There’s a whole class of sports drinks that are a mixture of sucrose and glucose, both of which are simple and dirt cheap. They presumably use those sugars to achieve a 2:1 glucose:fructose ratio. Apparently the problem is that above a certain amount of those simpler sugars, your sugar solution becomes too hypertonic. So you need to use a bigger-molecule source of sugar. Hence the other popular class of sports drinks, which use a mixture of maltodextrin and fructose.
My solution depends on the duration and intensity of the workout. Easy recovery rides an hour or less is just water or maybe Precision Hydration if I’ll be sweating a lot but don’t need fuel.
Anything 60-90 minutes and/or with intensity I use a half-strength mix of Gatorade. I have a second bottle of just water. I always have gels available in case I need more fuel than the Gatorade can provide.
90 minutes or more, or really intense work, I use a custom mix from from Infinit Nutrition (https://www.infinitnutrition.us/). They offer a free consult and mine contains 72g of carbs per 24 oz bottle, electrolytes, and a little bit of protein to stave off hunger pangs. It’s a bit pricey, though, at $2-3/bottle, hence why I only use it when I need it.
You can buy a pre-made mix or customize one to meet your specific needs including flavor and intensity, ratio of simple (dextrose) to complex (maltodextrin) carbs, calories, electrolytes, protein, amino acids, caffeine, and sodium. (https://www.infinitnutrition.us/custom-formula.html)
I do a maple syrup & maltodextrin mix for my bottles.
I’ve experimented over the past 5 months increasing the carb amounts per bottle and I believe I am capped right around 90-95g/hr. I start getting some gas, no full on GI distress, at that point and so I usually then drink a bit of straight water to help alleviate and everything is immediately fine again.
Interesting. I have used sucrose up to 150g/liter without any apparent ill effect. I have only used it for TR rides of up to 1:30 so no experience using huge quantities over a long ride