This article is part of a series called ‘A love letter to…’ where Cycling Weekly writers (usually) pour praise on their favourite cycling items and share the personal connection they have with them. In this case, however, Tom Thewlis has has enough of energy products...
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It's hard to miss energy gels, bars or a plethora of other nutrition products these days as a cyclist. There are endless Instagram reels telling me that this is the solution to riding faster, longer, better, and it's hard to avoid. The promise seems good - that they are the perfect fuel for your ride - but I struggle to buy it, and so I don't buy them.
It's not just cycling, there are influencers everywhere you look promoting all sorts of brands towards us under the pretence that they’ll make us a better runner, footballer, or in this case, a better cyclist.
When it comes to nutrition, it’s easy to think that a lot of the marketing spiel is just a load of hot air designed to make you click buy on a website in the ether somewhere.
For a lot of amateur cyclists, this feels like a trap. It can be so easy to get dragged into thinking that you need the latest gels one brand is offering, or that you need them at all. But unless you’re training and competing at a serious level, it’s more than likely that they will have just provided the kind of energy that a more regular product would have provided. In the meantime, your bank balance will have taken a big hit in the process after you’ve tried the latest nutritional must-have.
I fell into that same trap as I got more into cycling and became convinced that I needed to get hold of one mainstream brand’s offerings in order to elevate my performance on the bike. However, after someone suggested a more normal alternative, I realised that I was actually wasting a lot of money.
The fact is you don’t need to spend 40-odd quid on a couple of boxes of energy bars every few months. There are plenty of decent alternatives out there at a fraction of the price, and that are far more quickly and easily accessible too. From malt loaf to cereal bars, via the trusty old banana.
They might not be as fashionable on the club run as the latest fancy offering, although if you’re concerned that your club mates will judge your mid-ride then you’re probably in the wrong club.
The other alternative is putting the time in to make some homemade flapjacks, which feels a lot more productive, as well as nutritious. It's straightforward enough to put together your own recipe, and the chances are they will taste a lot better too. You might be thinking: "Baking is not my thing, I don’t have the time to do this." But you really don’t need to be Paul Hollywood to pull off a few flapjacks once a week.
I waved goodbye to the costly bars that you've seen advertised online, and you can too. Supermarket snacks or homemade bakes are the way forward instead. They’ll taste good, they won’t leave your stomach in bits, and they’ll be better for your wallet as well. You might not feel as much like Remco Evenepoel racing, but you'll be better for it.
