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Home  Bathroom Reading / News The Chamois What's In Your Bottle, Part II
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What's In Your Bottle, Part II |
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Written by Jason Mahokey
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Wednesday, 05 March 2008 |
What's In Your Bottle, Part II
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This is what I guess you would call "Part II" to my post last month "What's In Your Bottle?". In that post I covered the ingredients of many of the new breed of dissolvable, portable electrolyte tabs that are on the market. If you're unfamiliar with these products, they're pretty cool. They're tablets about the size of a quarter that come in a tube of 10 to 12. Or in single serve packets. Simply drop the tab in 20 to 24 oz. of water. Let it fiz, dissolve, and you got yourself some quality hydration to slam down during your ride.
Over the past few years I've got much better with my race nutrition, using a variety of products such as Hammer Gel, PowerGel, Carbo Pro, and solid foods. But hydrations is a bit different with me. I find over long races and rides, I tend to tire of the flavors of many drinks to the point of gagging.
I've recently switched to unflavored Heed from Hammer Nutrition, and that has helped a bit, but I continue to search for a drink that will help me stay hydrated, give my body the electrolytes it needs and tastes good. If it tastes like sweat off of a dung heap, I will most likely NOT be reaching for my bottle all that often. But it can't be too sugary sweet either. Many drinks with too much sugar tend to thicken my mucus, and make swallowing hard. There's nothing like bombing downhill with a sticky stream of neon blue phlegm stuck to your lip, flapping against the side of your face! I would also like the ability to use a good tasting drink in my hydration pack, saving my bottles for my high calorie drinks. Sticky, sugary drinks are hard to clean, and will gunk up the bladder and then eventually my intestinal track. I try to avoid messy mid race nature breaks whenever possible.
Lastly I'm looking for something very portable. Having done more than a few hundred mile races, It's nice to use the same drinks that you're used to using in training and lap racing. Of course you can pack bags of your faves so as to have them waiting for you at a certain check point. But It's nice to not have to worry about what check point your bags are at, or whether you'll dig the drinks available at a check point. It's also nice to not have to ride and travel with baggies of white powder. That always sort of makes me feel like a Columbian drug runner.
So I recently ordered up some Zym, and then Big Al from Bikeman.com hooked me up with some samples that he scored at the Frostbike trade show a couple weeks ago. So now I've been able to test a few varieties of these products out. Here is some of my first impressions during some winter training.
Tested: Zym Endurance Lemon/Lime
Ride: 1:30, HR Zone 3 Tempo Intervals, Stationary Trainer
Location: My cold, dank basement. AKA "The Stankment"®
For tonight's ride I had the chance to try out Lemon/Lime flavored Zym Endurance. Zym is now the second brand of electrolyte tab that I've used this winter (the first being Propel single serve powder). My first impressions of Zym are pretty good. Dropped 1 tab in a 24 oz. water bottle. Let it fizz (sort of like an Airborne tab), and I was good to go. The major fizz stops after a couple minutes and leaves you with a mild tasting Lemon Lime flavor with just a slight hint of effervescence (that's fizz).
I have to say it was pretty refreshing. The flavor reminded me of what Lemon/Lime Gatorade tastes like after you dilute it enough to make it not so sticky and sweet. Zym has less than 1 gram of sugar, so on the tongue it sort of reminded me of Lemon/Lime Hammer Heed, except Zym actually tasted like Lemon Lime. Don't get me wrong I dig Heed too, but I buy the unflavored now for a reason! Right now Zym has DEFINITELY moved ahead of Propel. Propel had too much of a strong "fake sugar taste" to keep the masses happy. I would buy more of these again for sure. Makes me glad I bought the 3 pack!
Tested: Nuun Lemon/Lime Flavor
Ride: HR 1:00, Zone 1 Recovery Spinning, Stationary Trainer
Location: My cold, dank basement. AKA "The Stankment"®
In tonight's bottle was Lemon/Lime flavored Nuun. I went with the Lemon-Lime since that is the flavor of Zym I used, and I would have a little bit easier time comparing the two. It's the same deal as with most of the Electrolyte tabs. Plop the round tab in you water bottle, watch it fiz for a couple minutes and then you're good to go. The lemon-lime taste was good, and tasted a bit like a light lemonade. I think the Nuun was a TAD more subtle tasting that Zym. Zym had a little bit more bite up front and then went down smooth. I personally found the Zym a TTTTTTiny bit tastier. But of course that's JUST a personal preference. One man's "tasty" is another man's "skank". Both are very good, just a smidgen different.
I'll say this- if you go from something like Gatorade or Accelerade, you will find the flavor of Nuun (and Zym) SOOO much more refreshing. In my opinion I find them BOTH tastier than flavored Hammer Heed right now. And they provide very similar benefits (no sugar, mucho electrolytes, vitamins etc., you can check my last post for more of that info) Nuun retained just the SLIGHTEST bit of fiz to it (I think Zym may have had touch more). Again I found myself really wanting to drink it. Not just sucking it down because I know it will help me from cramping (which I didn't).
One slight edge for Nuun right now is what I call "bladderbility". That is the ability to add the tab to your hydration pack and not have it get skankier than $2 hooker. Nuun gets the edge on this right now. Boo from Nuun assures me there will be no residue or stickiness due to the lack of sugar. I have yet to try it myself, but I will say when I polished of my bottle tonight there wasn't one trace of stickiness or residue. That's cool.
When I asked Brian at Zym about using it in a bladder he recommended against it. Saying that currently the Endurance Lemon/Lime flavor may leave some slight residue behind from the magnesium in it. But they are working on eliminating that issue now. He also said that new Catapult Zym should be just fine in a bladder. I checked my finished bottle of Lemon/Lime Zym after my ride the other night and I saw nothing that would prevent ME from putting it in my hydration pack. I've put worse in it for sure! But, YOUR interpretation of clean and MY interpretation of clean may be two different things, so Nuun gets the slight edge in "bladderbility" for not having to worry at all.
As of now. Nuun and Zym are both doing it for me and I'm enjoying them both. I'll be trying more flavors in the near future and testing them in my hydration pack. Next on the test is Motor Tabs.
Tested: Motor Tabs Lemon/Lime Flavor, Zym Catapult Berry Flavor, Nuun Lemon/Lime Flavor
Ride: 1:45 of Tempo Riding on an Energy Sapping, Wet, Snow Covered, Rail Trail
Location: Yough River Trail, Boston, PA
I sucked down some Zym Catapult during the ride. In my opinion, NOT as tasty as the Lemon/Lime Endurance formula but still damn good, and nice to get a kick in the junk with 100 mg of guarna powered caffeine. I also used some Lemon/Lime Nuun. Both bottles were nearly empty at the rides end. For the record I ATTEMPTED to use Motor Tabs today, but they were DQed from the day's test, because after 10+ minutes the tab had STILL not dissolved. I checked the web site later in the day and they do say that you can break the tab (which is pretty huge) in half to speed up the time it takes to dissolve. I did not do this. I will attempt again during my next ride, I will have a back up Zym or Nuun ready for sure though. While on the Motor Tabs web site, I I checked some stats. Looks like they have 14 grams of sugar. That would rule out use in the pack (enter one sticky, skanky bladder). AND if they can't dissolve quicker, rule out use during a race. I'm slow enough without putzing around while my drink dissolves!
Since I was tired of standing around the house in 10 layers of bike clothes waiting for the Motor Tab to dissolve, I hurriedly called Lemon/Lime Nuun in as my back up bottle. This was now my second time using Nuun and it was again good. I'll be trying Motor Tabs again during my next trainer ride coming up.
Tested: Motor Tabs Lemon/Lime Flavor
Ride: 1:30, HR Zone 1-4/5 Spinning, Stationary Trainer
Location: My cold, dank basement. AKA "The Stankment"®
Mixed up some Motor Tabs for the ride tonight. Once again it took over 10+ minutes for the tab to dissolve in water. And that was even after I broke it into little pieces. I again went with Lemon/Lime flavor to keep all my "test drinks" the same. The taste was pretty good, but tasted a bit too sugary for me. I would have liked it to be toned down a bit. It's flavor was about as strong as GatorAde. With 14 grams of sugar it has the most sugar out of all the drinks I've tried so far. This also would make it a "bottle only" drink. No way I would put something that sugary in my hydration pack.
Even though it took a while to dissolve, and was a little too sugary tasting for me, I didn't cramp during the 1:30 I was on the bike. And I pumped out a LOT of sweat tonight. Plus there was a lot of fast muscle contracting going on with the high intensity intervals I was doing, and I find that that's when I tend to cramp the most. Muscles going from tense to loose after an interval has often caused my calves to seize up. So I was happy about that at least.
My hypothesis of why the tabs will not dissolve properly for me is this- Motor Tabs contain both Dextrose and Sucrose. In other words- SUGAR. Sugar has a bitch of a time breaking down in cold water. To be fair, Motor Tabs does recommend that you drop the tab into 20 oz. of "room temperature water". BUT how many of us have a faucet that pumps out room temperature water? How often have you kept some nice warm water in your pit so as to mix up your drinks? Pre mixing with some warm water and then adding cold or ice would of course be an option, but one of the best thing about these products is their portability. The idea of stashing some your jersey pocket during a "hundie" or long ride is the appeal. I can't imagine pulling into an aid station and asking if they have any "room temperature water".
Would I buy Motor Tabs? No. There are too many options out there (both powders and tabs) that have better stats, better taste, and no or less sugar. Taking forever to dissolve and having no "bladderbility" doesn't help matters. I'll use my samples in a pinch or to toss in car for if I forget a better tab, or drink. But I can't say I would buy or recommend these. Motor Tabs has the right ideas, but just haven't got it perfected yet.
I'm really digging these tabs. In the end Zym and Nuun were the best. Motor Tabs didn't really cut it for me. I really like Lemon/Lime Zym Endurnace formula the best, But Nuun was a VERY close second. I'll be using one of both of these for sure throughout the season. Zym Endurance is available in Lemon/Lime and Zym Catapult with 100 mg of caffeine is available in berry flavor. Nuun is available in Tri- Berry, Citrus Fruit, Lemon/Lime and Kona Cola with caffeine.
There are a few other products such as CamelBak Elixir that I may try to get my hands on in the future, but for now I'm going to enjoy adding Zym and Nuun into my arsenal of hydration products. If you're interested in these products I hope this and my last post helped you out a bit. I'm sure I'll be updating as my season goes on.
Good luck.
Jason
"The Soiled Chamois"
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