Fresh back from a wee cycle with a knee on ice and visions of potholes dancing in my mind, it leads me to ponder whether to use or not to use energy gels?
About half way through my (fairly brief, although not for me and my lack of fitness) cycle I consumed one GU vanilla bean (as opposed to just vanilla flavour apparently) energy gel. Did it help me? Honestly, I don't know. Did it hinder me? Almost definitely not. Did it cost me 67p (rounding up)? Darn tootin' it did and that was at half price special offer prices.
As I mentioned, it seems most likely there's nothing physically detrimental in taking energy gels, other than the potential for tooth decay I'd guess. The question for me is whether they're worth the asking price. I'm merely a recreational cyclist. I don't cycle far and I don't go quickly. I potter along looking all around me and stay indoors when it's wet. Am I wasting my time taking the odd energy gel?
Although I'm only a recreational cyclist, I still don't like to 'bonk' (as people hilariously call it) and I think energy gels have helped prevent that for me in the past. The difficulty is I, of course, have no idea if I would have 'bonked' without the energy gels. If they do some tiny bit of good physically but mentally help me con myself into thinking they're giving me a great boost, perhaps that's enough and makes them worth the money. I honestly don't know. What I do know is I've got twenty-three GU and eighteen High5 (whose ZERO X'treme tablets I've also been using) gels left. I should be able to come to some conclusion by the time they're all done, if I don't have a caffeine overdose.
Perhaps I'm simply one in a long line of suckers.
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