Rating energy gels and drink mixes
Why is a ratings table of endurance energy gels and drink mixes needed? These products are sugar. Sugar tastes good. Humans evolved to seek it. Endurance exercise elicits a strong desire for it. Surely it’s hard to mess up?
Surprisingly, gels and mixes can be bad. Flavors can have you questioning how a human, absent extreme duress, approved of its manufacture. In fact, I once had a lemon flavored drink mix so terrible that I had to pull off to the side of the trail and vomit. I will be petty and ascribe some blame to this mix for my second place finish (in my age group) at the 2024 Downieville Classic cross-country mountain bike race. Was it my fault for trying a new drink mix for the first time on a 95°F day? Was my suspension also improperly tuned? Did I overexert myself on the 8 mile, 3000 ft climb? Should I have crashed fewer times? Yes, yes, yes, and yes, but it’s agreed that in sport blame first belongs to equipment, weather, other external factors, day of the week, and only lastly, if at all, to the athlete.
As you will notice from the table below, I am a fan of a several Hammer Nutrition gels. Hammer also makes a gel flask that is great for carrying the equivalent of multiple gels, avoiding sticky used gel packets in your pockets, and lowering the average per-serving cost of gels through bulk gel bottle purchases. If you’d like a discount, here is a Hammer Nutrition referral link.
Gel
| Name | Rating | Caffeine (mg) | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hammer Huckleberry | 5 | 0 | Fantastic, and with real fruit |
| Gu raspberry lemonade | 4 | 0 | Surprisingly good actually |
| Hammer espresso | 4 | 50 | Slightly viscous, but good tasting with actual coffee and no preservatives |
| Gu jet blackberry | 4 | 40 | Solid flavor |
| SIS isotonic pineapple | 4 | 0 | Better than expected with low viscosity and relatively mild pineapple flavor |
| Hammer Raspberry | 4 | 0 | Not too viscous, strong raspberry flavor from actual raspberries |
| Hammer vanilla | 3 | 0 | Very 'vanilla' |
| Gu strawberry banana | 3 | 0 | Fine flavor (surprisingly) |
| Gu lemon sublime | 3 | 0 | Pretty good taste, slight aftertase |
| Hammer orange | 2 | 0 | Thick orange paste |
| Muir energy gel strawberry | 2 | 0 | Coconut nectar and molasses is pretty bad |
| SIS Go Orange | 2 | 75 | Bad orange flavor |
| Gu vanilla bean | 2 | 20 | Pretty gross, thick |
| Gu espresso love | 2 | 40 | Gross artificial taste |
| SIS isotonic lemon | 2 | 0 | The isotonic formulation means the solution is drinkable, but the flavor was quite bad |
| Honey stinger acai pomegrante | 2 | 0 | Palatable, but very viscous and the flavor was mediocre |
| UCAN edge gel strawberry banana | 1 | 0 | Horrible taste, would decline even if free |
| UCAN edge gel cherry | 1 | 0 | Horrible taste, would decline even if free |
| Hammer banana | 1 | 0 | Gross as one would suspect |
| SIS isotonic tropical | 1 | 0 | Gross taste, almost didn't want to finish it |
Drink mix
| Name | Rating | Caffeine (mg) | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tailwind endurance berry | 5 | 0 | Excellent. Enough flavor, not overpowering. Drinkable when warm. |
| Tailwind high carb ginger lime | 4 | 0 | Better than one would expect. With a strong ginger punch, it'll wake you up. |
| Tailwind high carb lemonade | 4 | 0 | Solid |
| Tailwind endurance matcha | 4 | 35 | Solid option with caffeine that isn't overwhelming in flavor or viscosity and thus avoids the drinking syrup feeling. Sadly discontinued. |
| Tailwind endurance grape | 3 | 0 | Could be much worse, but you don't want to be thinking “wow that is a strong grape flavor” every sip |
| Tailwind endurance lemon | 3 | 0 | Rather strong lemon flavor. Probably quite bad if warm |
| Tailwind recovery chocolate | 3 | 0 | Cacao flavor more than chocolate but solid |
Data lives in _data/energy_gel_ratings.csv on GitHub.
What do you think? Did I miss anything? Contact me!
This work by
Derek
Croote
is licensed under
CC BY-NC 4.0
