Personally, i would just use maltodextrin for a 90 min ride, and save the combined fuels for 5 hour runs or runs with a lot of hard climbing. its just cheeper that way. The recommendation i have seen on some brands is 90min plus; - but hey that just me.
i have found one paper that suggests fructose digestion of 3 - 6 hours in a normal person, and 2 - 3 hour when exercising. However he know that metabolism increases with intensity.
What i am struggling with it the lead times or “time till the energy is available”. I know it has to be processed again by the liver once it has passed the gut.
This is the paper i am working through at the moment to try and undertand it tall ;
Yes i found that one. yes the interesting thin about that is , they were give a 2 hour rest between the carb mix intake and the exercise test, which would aid the fructose digestion.
Just to follow on from this is there a time limit on drinking made up bottles? I find mine don’t always mix great and that’s with only 30-40g in a 700ml bottle. When it gets to summer I like having a colder drink but I find it mixes even worse in cold water, would it be ok to make a bottle at 6 in the morning then leave it in the fridge until I ride about 5 in the evening
What are you using to mix with? I’ll do mine in 880ml Polar bottles (or 975ml Zefal) with 100-150g or more in a bottle 1:1 Malto to baker’s sugar (which is 50:50 glucose & fructose). Shaking just doesn’t do much of anything.
If I mix them with a milk frother and put them in the fridge overnight, the malto blobs are almost always gone. If I use the magic bullet mini blender, they’re gone that night.
My mix also includes sodium citrate and instant unsweet tea, but amount is less than 5g total so I don’t know that they impact the mix-ability.
I just mix in my water bottle with mix of malto and fructose and an about a gram of electrolyte mix. I will be changing to just straight malto soon if that makes any difference to mixability.
I suppose I could mix in a protein shaker then pout into my water bottle
Fill bottle about 1/2-3/4 with HOT water, throw in all your stuff, mix as best as you can. Put it in the fridge overnight and it should all be dissolved by morning. (or morning-> evening) Not filling all the way I think helps break up the clumps, even though it counterintuitively means it should have more water to help mix.
I currently mix it all in one then divide it up in the morning, but right now that is just trainer bottles so 120-150 max and then divide in the morning. If I’m riding out side and want say 90 per bottle i’ll mix them individually.
I have a hot water pot so it’s easy for me to add the gatorade and malto to a bottle that’s 1/8 full of hot water. I swirl until it’s mixed, then fill the rest of the bottle with cold water, shake, and then put the bottle into the fridge.
I put my powder into a big measuring jug so I can see how much water to add. It’s then easy to mix up and dissolve with a spoon. Once I’m happy that it’s all dissolved I’ll pour it into my bottles. Easy
I measure the stuff by weight into the empty water bottle, put maybe 12 oz of water in the mixer cup, turn it on, and dump the contents of the water bottle into the mixer. Let it run for awhile then dump it back into the water bottle and top off from the tap. It easily mixes 210g of sugar/maltodextrin mix in the 12oz for my “fuel bottle”.
I’m not sure what I’m doing different, but I can mix up to 120g Malto/Fructose per Liter, plus 5g Sodium Citrate (~1100mg sodium) add cold water, shake it up and it dissolves. Might take a little more shaking with cold water, but I’ve never had a scenario where I’m dealing with blobs unless I dump the powder into an already wet bottle.
I think the trick is - leave a little space in the bottle so there’s air in there to make the shaking more effective, add a little more water at the end.
Could be a case of the specific chain length of the batch of maltodextrin used. Maltodextrin is typically composed of a mixture of chains that vary from three to 17 glucose units long. If your source of maltodextrin is manipulated more or less during manufacturing by altering the extent of starch hydrolysis this influences the rate at which it dissolves in water.
I’ve noticed this differences between different suppliers. I don’t actually know if one is better then the other, I expect from an osmolarity p.o.v. one should be better then the other, but I don’t know which.
You named two “tricks” that make dissolving easier - add to an empty bottle and leave some room in bottle to shake. Adding powder to water makes it clump while adding liquid to powder works a lot better. I add my mix, fill bottle to about 1/2 to 2/3 with water, shake, add ice and top with water. Works perfect every time.
Despite all of this discussion I can’t believe there have been too many people actually using dextrose or sucrose instead of malto long term throughout their training and racing.
The palatability of that much sweet - lord alive - just unworkable. Even if the absorption of Dextrose was 20% better, I just wouldn’t be able to fuel a long race effectively because I couldn’t stomach that level of constant sweetness. Imagine trying to get down 620g of pure sugar in a 5-hour race. Studies aside this is why products like Maurten sell so well - they are just easier to stomach because they are less sweet.
The first bulk powder I tried was Now Dextrose Powder and then I switched to Now Carbo Gain (Maltodextrin) because it was cheaper. I don’t recall noticing any difference in taste. I mix the Carbo Gain with a little bit of orange Gatorade for taste.
whipped up two batches of 50:50 Malto:baker’s sugar last night. 60g of each 4g of sodium citrate and a heaping 1/4 tsp of instant jasmine tea. Magic bullet blender made quick work of it. Looked more like an emulsion but settled overnight in the fridge and was nice and clear.
