Simple, cheap energy drink recipe

Nutrition
1

This works really well for me, so I thought that I’d share. I honest have no idea how anyone can afford gels (about 1 euro a pop here), so here is a much cheaper alternative.

Per litre of finished drink:

150g maltodextrin
50g table sugar
3g electrolyte mix/sodium bicarbonate
20ml lemon juice concentrate
5g creatine (I take this every day, so it’s easy to add to the mix)
200mg caffiene tablet (optional)

I blend it all with a stick blender with water at 50c. I find that I perform incredibly well on it, and for usual training, I do 120-150g an hour (depending on intensity) at 102kg bodyweight. It tastes really good and I usually notice an uptick in performance in the third hour once my body finishes digesting whatever food I have in my belly and switches over to the carb drink.

All in, it’s less than a euro for 200g carbs, which is almost 10 times cheaper than gels.

2

You might find this thread a good read: DIY Sports powder carb drinks - please share your recipe - #167 by WindWarrior

Lots of opinions and then a generally accepted recipe quite similar to what you have sans creatine or caffeine.

I personally use a crystal light packet for flavor in my mix instead of the lemon juice concentrate.

2 Likes
3

Caster/superfine sugar, salt and lemon juice is the move. 120g of sucrose will readily dissolve in a bottle of water with a little shaking.

3 Likes
4

Isn’t that 175g of glucose and 25g of fructose? I thought the ideal ratio was 1:0.8 glucose to fructose.

5

This is another good one:

2 Likes
6

It’s as much sweetness as my palette can take. Looking at the ingredients lists on gels, they seem to be mostly maltodextrin.

7

Sodium Citrate balances out that sweetness extremely well. You do need to watchout with over doing it but i’ve found i can get 120g of carbs in a bottle without too much sweetness fatigue. I hardly ever do that, i just wanted to experiment a bit. Lately on the trainer i’ve been doing a 80ish gram drink + a banana or poptart + as much water as i need for anywhere up to 2 hours.

1 Like
8

Good to know about the sodium citrate.

I need a lot of carbs due to my size, so it becomes a question of carrying enough on a long ride. For example, I was out for a leisurely 8hr gravel ride last weekend, and 560g carbs in bottles, a good breakfast before heading out and a good lunch was only just enough. Really, I ought to have had 800g in the bottles.

1 Like
9

Not sure if this will help, but my gravel bike carries 3 water bottles, so when I go really long, I mix a regular bottle and then make 2 high concentration bottles. Add in a hydration pack and you can mix the concentrate with the water into the first bottle.

2 Likes
10

If you’ll be able to find water on route then just bringing powder with you is another option to avoid having extra bottles in non ideal places. I’ve never used fork mounted bottles like you see on a lot of bikepacking setups.