DIY race mix & gel: race fuel from the baking aisle
Recipes · the 2:1 ratio · costs · hygiene · indoor
Commercial gels are two sugars, a pinch of salt and clever packaging. The sugars cost pennies; the packaging costs you €3.50 a serving. Every 90-grams-per-hour study that made high-carb fueling famous was run on exactly the molecules sitting in your supermarket and pharmacy: maltodextrin and fructose. This page turns them into race fuel — weighed, mixed, and priced.
How do I make my own energy gel?
Mix maltodextrin and fructose 2:1 — say 53 g plus 27 g for an 80 g serving — add a pinch of salt, and stir into about 120 ml of warm water until smooth. Fill a soft flask. For bottles, use the same mix in 500 ml. Refrigerate and use within 24 hours.
The science you're buying (and don't need to)
Your intestine absorbs sugar through two separate doorways. The glucose door (SGLT1) saturates near 60 g an hour — that's the old "you can't absorb more" ceiling. Fructose uses its own door (GLUT5). Feed both at once, 2:1 glucose-to-fructose, and 90 g/h clears; trained guts running 1:0.8 reach 120 (Jeukendrup 2014, Sports Med). Maltodextrin is just glucose chained together — bland on purpose, and gentler on the stomach than straight dextrose at race concentrations. Nothing in the branded sachet improves on that chemistry.
Honesty box (position, not fact): identical molecules, identical absorption — not identical convenience. A sealed gel on a rainy start line beats a sticky flask. That convenience is what the markup buys.
The recipes (one heaped tablespoon ≈ 25 g)
Bottle mix — the workhorse
Per 500 ml bottle at 80 g of carbs: 53 g maltodextrin · 27 g fructose · 0.5 g sodium citrate (two pinches of table salt also work). Warm water first — malto dissolves lazily — shake hard, top up cold. It tastes of almost nothing; a squeeze of lemon fixes that. One thing to respect: 80 g in 500 ml is a 16% solution — deliberately hypertonic. It's an energy bottle, not a hydration bottle. Ride it with plain water alongside, or it will sit in your stomach and sulk.
Flask gel
Same 80 g into ~120 ml of warm water. Stir, pour into a soft flask, done — gel consistency at raw-ingredient prices. A third of a flask per hour, water from the other bottle.
Light iso — hot days, easy rides
30 g of mix in 500 ml lands at 6%: isotonic, the sweet spot where fluid and fuel move fastest together. That's all "isotonic" has ever meant — a concentration class, not an ingredient.
Caffeine — deliberately NOT a DIY ingredient
Caffeine works: 3–6 mg per kg, timed 45–60 minutes before the decisive move (EFSA guidance, adults). But pure caffeine powder is a dosing accident waiting to happen and stays out of our kitchen. Take the racer's route: flat cola for the finale — genuinely supported by controlled trials — or a single commercial caffeinated gel as a timed one-off.
Real food: honey and rice cakes
Honey is nature's glucose-fructose blend, and in a 64 km time-trial study (J Strength Cond Res) it matched dextrose gel watt for watt. And the sticky rice cakes from WorldTour team kitchens — sticky rice, a little sugar, salt, pressed and wrapped — remain the most pleasant way ever invented to eat 60 g an hour on a long base ride.
Rice-cake recipe card: 300 g sticky rice · 50 g sugar · pinch of salt · optional cinnamon or banana.
About bars
Home-baked bars are pastry with cargo — fat and fibre slow everything down. Fine for café rides, second choice for racing. If you want to chew, take the rice-cake route.
Shopping list (pharmacy-grade, supermarket prices)
| Maltodextrin | pharmacy/online/sports bulk | ~$8–12/kg | flavour-neutral |
| Fructose | baking aisle/online | ~€4–6/kg | crystalline, dissolves fine |
| Sodium citrate | pharmacy/online | ~$10/250 g | kinder to the gut than plain salt |
| A 1-gram kitchen scale | you likely own one | one-off | scoops are the shortcut, the scale is the truth |
The honest math: 1 kg of 2:1 mix ≈ €5.50 → twelve 80 g bottles ≈ €0.46 each against €3–5 retail. Two bottles a week over a season is roughly $350 kept — a power meter's worth of sugar money.
Keep it clean (mandatory box)
Sugar water is a culture medium. Mixed bottles and flasks: fridge, and used within 24 hours. Wash flasks hot with a brush — mould loves valves. The dry mix itself keeps for months in a sealed jar. Hot day, long ride? Carry dry powder and mix at the refill stop.
The indoor cheat code
Everything awkward about DIY outdoors disappears on the trainer: no pockets, no wrappers, the kitchen is three metres away. Mix a jug, park two bottles on the bars, done. And since gut training (60 → 90 → 120 g/h over 6–12 weeks) is built in training anyway, the pain cave is the cheapest classroom there is.
FAQ
What can I use instead of energy gels?
Bottle mix, honey, bananas, rice cakes. The gram-per-hour target and your gut decide — the packaging never did.
What's actually in commercial gels?
Maltodextrin, fructose (or glucose), water, salts, flavouring, preservatives. Read a label once; you'll recognise this page.
Can I make hydrogel at home?
You don't need to. Hydrogel is a stomach-comfort delivery trick for very high intakes, not extra power. Up to 90 g/h, plain 2:1 does the job.
What ratio of maltodextrin to fructose?
2:1 up to ~90 g/h; 1:0.8 if your trained gut is heading for 120.
Run the numbers on YOUR race
The Fuel Lab runs your whole race: tank, intake, hourly ration — the recipe calculator above is one slice of it.
All fuel guides →Sources
- Jeukendrup 2014 — Sports Medicine (2:1 glucose:fructose to 90 g/h, 1:0.8 to 120 g/h)
- Currell & Jeukendrup 2008
- Costa et al. 2017 (gut training)
- J Strength Cond Res — honey trial (64 km time trial)
- Eur J Appl Physiol 2021 (cola)
- EFSA caffeine guidance (3–6 mg/kg, adults)
Sources as named — title and year are enough to look them up.
Sport, not medicine: fueling knowledge for healthy athletes, no substitute for medical or dietary advice. Homemade gels and drinks carry no preservatives — see the hygiene box above. Maurten, SiS and other products mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners; this page is an independent project with no affiliation to them. All facts from the sources listed — no AI-generated numbers.