You’ve got to drink. As well as making you feel rubbish, dehydration limits your ability to put the power down. Even mild dehydration, where you’re just one percent under your correct weight because of water loss, can slow you down as much as six percent, researchers have found.
So you need to keep your body’s water supply topped up. There are loads of products on the shelves to help, including energy drink mixes that contain some sort of sugar to provide fuel along with the water, and electrolyte mixes, intended to replace the salts you lose with sweat. But what do you really like to drink? The envelope please…
1 Tap water — 24%
Adam’s ale, H2O, aqua, l’eau — whatever you want to call it, it’s the basis of life and it’s also the most popular tipple in our poll. That’s not very surprising. Water’s refreshing, and also refreshingly cheap at about a tenth of a penny per litre from the tap. (Fill your own five-paragraph rant about the stupidity of buying bottled water here.)
2 Beer — 11%
As far as we know, none of the breweries recommend their beverages for enhancing sporting performance, with the exception of Erdinger, which The Guardian says, “is being promoted as a healthy, correctly carb-loaded, post-workout refreshment in Germany, hence the ‘isotonic, vitamin-rich, reduced calories’ labelling”. However, Erdinger is alcohol-free, which purists would likely say means it’s not really beer.
Nevertheless, a bottle of chilled beer or good cider at the end of a long, hot ride is surely a reward well-earned.
3 Water then beer — 10%
Now you’re talking. Sensible, cheap tap water on the ride; beer at the end. What’s not to love?
4= High5 Zero Electrolyte Drink Tablets: Berry Flavour — 6% — £3.49/20
High5’s electrolyte tabs were the most popular sport-specific product in the poll. Each tab makes 750ml of drink — the size of a large water bottle — and contains Vitamin C and five electrolytes, including sodium, magnesium and potassium. Our reviewer was impressed with them for reducing cramps on long rides (though some dispute that electrolytes can prevent cramps at all) and comments from readers suggest that they’re great for preventing hangovers!
4= Torq Energy drinks — 6% — £22.00/1.5kg
With a mixture of 60% maltodextrin and 30% fructose, this popular powder is claimed to deliver carbohydrates into the bloodstream faster than either of those two energy sources alone. As well as its effectiveness as a fuel source, people really seem to like Torq’s taste, which is described as not too powerful, and pleasantly neutral.
6 thoughts on “People’s Choice: Your favourite cycling drink revealed”
I favour the High 5 pink
I favour the High 5 pink grapefruit. 1.5 tabs per bottle with a splash of tonic water on hot days. Drink of champions. And old puffers like me.
WolfieSmith wrote:
Yeah, lovely stuff is that.
Here is my friends beer – for cyclists.
This is great “cyclist beer” made in Germany but created by a friend in Geneva, Switzerland. He is cyclist and owns a bike shop.
It is a great beer and the back label is classic in its description for its recovery benefits 🙂
http://www.velosophe.beer/
road.cc you should come over here, meet Damien and get a good ride in with us.
Definitely agree about
Definitely agree about electrolite tablet drinks preventing hangovers, one of those in a pint of water before bed and one first thing in the morning sees me right as rain after a heavy night.
As for using them when cycling, I generally just put some high juice squash into a bottle.
“However, Erdinger is alcohol
“However, Erdinger is alcohol-free”
They do an alcohol-free beer – but they do at least a few others, and the ones I know of are standard beer-strength.
Are they only touting their alcohol-free beer as sporty?
Big fan of erdinger
Having lived in Germany for a couple of years found they have a few decent alochol free beers. You can get erdinger AF online £14 for 12 next day with Prime