We asked five road.cc readers to use a selection of cycling nutrition products for a week. Here's what they had to say about the Science in Sport range.
Our tasters were recruited from Team road.cc. We asked Kirsty Diggory, Steve Hanna, Steve Swindells, Ian Upham, and Simon Tuck to score Science in Sport gels, bars and chews out of five for for taste, ease of use, performance and value. Here are the averages of their ratings:
| Taste | Ease of Use | Performance | Value |
Overall
|
|
| Go Energy | 3.8 | 4.2 | 3.4 | 3.2 | 3.65 |
| Rego Rapid Recovery | 3 | 3.6 | 2.8 | 3.4 | 3.2 |
| Go Hydro and Caffeine | 3.2 | 4.8 | 3.8 | 3.6 | 3.85 |
| Go Isotonic Energy Gel | 3.4 | 4 | 3.8 | 3.6 | 3.7 |
| Go Energy Bar | 3.2 | 3.8 | 3 | 2.8 | 3.2 |
Note: Our tasters rated vaue for money based on RRP, but SiS products can be found heavily discounted — the prices below reflect that.
We also asked for their comments on their favourites. Here's some of what they said:
Simon Tuck: The SiS Rego protein is a big favourite of mine, so creamy and easy to mix. The only product of theirs I've tasted so far that I'm happy to pay the brand premium, and I'm really tight!
Steve Hanna: The SIS recovery drink has to be one of the worst tasting drinks I have ever had the misfortune to consume.
Steve Swindells: The SIS Go Hydro + Caffeine tabs (cola flavoured) were close behind the Honey Stinger Energy Bar as my favourite. It was a strange sensation tasting cola whilst riding as I associate it with a treat, but the flavour was not overpowering and made a really refreshing change. Performance wise they are probably no different to any tabs that I've had, but they were much tastier.
The other SIS products I was much less impressed with as they were overpowering with flavour, particularly the blackcurrant energy powder.
Kirsty Diggory: Having used SIS products for some years these products will fall straight in line with long-standing products.
Ian commented on each product individually, so his thoughts are below.
Go Energy drink — £15.85 for 1.6kg
Ian Upham: Very nice tasting, just like Ribena. Stupidly large packaging, but very nice tasting.
Rego Rapid Recovery — £23.39 for 1.6kg
Ian Upham: The vanilla flavour really did not sit well with me. That's strange considering I love vanilla ice cream, but as a drink, it made me feel sick. I couldn’t finish it.
Go Hydro and Caffeine — £4.99 for 20 tabs
Ian Upham: I did not like this. Why would you make a product taste like flat Coke? I genuinely do not know a single person who likes flat Coke. Would you drink fizzy tea?
Go Isotonic Energy Gel Box of 30 x 60ml — £20.99
Ian Upham: The Tropical flavour gel is very nice. I know the taste of “Tropical” is very generic but I guess it fits the description. It tasted nice, easy to eat and as it states, I did not need a drink afterwards. The packaging was a little hard to open and that the gel was very sticky, as they all are.
Go Energy Bar Box of 24 x 65g — £18.49
Ian Upham: The Cherry Vanilla flavour bar I tried was surprisingly hard to eat. Almost too chewy. Made up of what looks like rice and goo. The flavour wasn’t to my liking either.
8 comments
I will admit when clicked on the link to this page I was dreading an advertorial in the style of certain other bike sites, should have known better! Instead I find myself wanting to defend SiS a bit, the Berry hydro tablets are really nice and are a nice shade of pink
I've got to agree, who wants to drink flat cola?
In fact why would you want to drink any cola when riding the bike?
Back in the day Flat cola used to be the drink of choice - Just sayin
Must say that I find getting into the bars is far from easy. The plastic wrapper does not tear easily.
Taste is a personal thing of course, I really like the vanilla flavour Rego Rapid but loathe the chocolate variety, rancid!
I would like to get on with SiS because they are often available at discounted rates, but I just can't stomach the energy products. The gels taste overly sweet to me and cause me terrible bloating, the energy drink has the same effect.
As for the energy bars - so difficult to eat something that dense on the bike.
Most of their drinks and gels I find OK and the recovery Strawberry drink is lovely IMHO.
However the energy bars, my god, who the hell designed them ? They are awful, impossible to eat on a ride without lashings of water.
I got some of these free thanks to a certain Mr Hoy being sponsored by them and arranging it, I liked them, my usual is High5, but of course it's very personal, my friends mostly prefer zipvit, which I mostly find disgusting!
I love the recovery strawberry drink and it is vegan so it is my choice every time. I also like the fact that their blackcurrant energy drink tastes of what it is supposed to taste of and is not bland.