What’s a factor of 3 between friends (and a PhD) 
Sorry @Dr_Alex_Harrison, I couldn’t resist 
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Yeah, a recent visit with my parents I was making up some bottles for the next days ride and it just set my 75 year old diabetic mother off the deep end when she walked into the kitchen as I went “field expedient” using NUNN tabs and table sugar,… tried explaining but the “mom look” was still strong…
That’s old school thinking. Sugar is fuel on the bike. I’d say it’s not disgusting at all, it’s optimal fuel for your body.
I get this when i demolish pancakes and nutella for breakfast and pile 200g of malto and sucrose into bottles. When my folks were staying with me for a week the look accompanied by “that’s not what athletes eat” comment was just hilarious.
Don’t mind me over here crushing “non athletic meals” while in the best shape of my life…
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I believe I corrected that post a couple months ago. ~1000mg per teaspoon is correct. And actually… I have not done the hard math to figure out the error there. So this is one of those “close enough” moments.
LOL!
Oh, just some solid cramps and diarrhea. Ya know, no biggie. 
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@Dr_Alex_Harrison and others might find this article interesting. Tl;dr women may be better at muscular glucose uptake than men inspite of greater fat stores. Not totally sure what to do with this information encouraging though it is. Maybe just keep slamming more sugar? Frontiers | Gender Differences in Skeletal Muscle Substrate Metabolism – Molecular Mechanisms and Insulin Sensitivity
How do you make the DIY mix less sweet? I do 1:0.5 maltodextrin to fructose, and having 90g in a bottle is super sweet, which makes me not want to drink it. I know the fructose is the sweet one, which is why I have a 1:1/2 ratio. I’ve used GU roctane drink mix and it doesn’t taste nearly as sweet with the same amount of carbs.
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Just wanted to comment that I’ve never seen 2:1 called 1:0.5. Makes sense, it just caught my eye.
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Thinking out loud here…
Trying to nail down fueling for a “fast” century with maybe one stop for water. Want to get my gut trained to handle as much as possible. Target time 5hr fwiw.
I do my long road rides with 2 1000ml bottles which usually last 2 hours each. I’ve handled 85g/hr of carbs in a couple long races earlier in the year. Sometimes I teeter on gut distress depending on the effort level though.
What I’m wondering is if I mix 2 hours worth of carbs per bottle (around 20% mix, call it 160g in 1000ml bottle minus the room the powder takes up) would that be way too much to handle?
I normally do 90g in these big bottles and the taste is great and it works well coupled with other things like gels and stroopwaffles. This is 2:1 Gatorade powder, maltodextrin and some sodium citrate.
I know the only way to find out is to try but just had these thoughts pop up this morning and thought I’d see if anyone is doing something similar.
I do 120 - 160g in my litre bottles. 1 per hour plus a couple of gels. Zero issues but any stronger than 160g/l and it gets too concentrated for me and I feel dehydrated. I think there’s a concentration tipping point in the stomach which has been discussed above (and I didn’t try to follow or understand 
).
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I’ve found that on longer rides I crave pure water after about 3 hours. I’ll start with two (somewhat) super concentrated bottles (probably 100-120 g) and gels for an emergency bonk recovery, then switch to one super concentrated bottle and one pure water bottle at the first (only) fill up.
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The follow-up… https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/gatorade-maltodextrin-mix-and-a-sub-5-hour-solo-century/59817
the craving for pure water is because at the carb levels you are talking about you might actually be dehydrating yourself. that’s a lot of calories to sit in your small intestine and your body is going to be pulling fluids to the area to try and absorb, which in turn basically dehydrates you. i’d be interested to know how you felt if you knocked it back to 80-90g of carbs and if you still felt the same way just as a test.
Use lime juice for flavoring, it cuts the “sweet” with a bit of sour/tart flavor which is slightly less fatiguing on the palate i find
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I think in his case it may have also been sodium-related because he was approaching 3000mg/L which is about double the typical top-end recommendation.
Adding sodium also helps this. But going that route after seeing his recap is probably a bad call! haha
Thats what I do
I have been messing around with making this kinda DIY mix into batches of syrup, for easier dosing before a ride.
533g Maltodextrin
1067g Granulated Sugar
+
Warm water to make 64 fluid ounces of volume
Into vitaprep, blend until all dissolved.
With a 1 ounce syrup dosing pump, each pump into my water bottle is 25G of carbs.
Later I will add salt/other electrolyes/preservatives so it’s more ready to go and room temp stable.
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How long is that good for? Do you store it at room temp?
I store at room temp, the batch I make gets used within a week.
Storing in fridge will extend storage life greatly though - think of commonly known things like simple syrups made by bars for their use in drinks etc.
YMMV wildly though - generally a combo of sugar concentration, low water activity etc serve as barriers to nasties growing but it still is not lab challenge test proven/guaranteed/fully safe etc. Room temp, cleanliness of ingredients/storage containers, etc all may introduce yeasts/molds/organisms that cause spoilage.
I need to work out the #s for how much salt/electrolytes/other supps, plus preservatives I want to add, which should produce a syrup that I would feel comfortable leaving out for my own use pretty much indefinitely.
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I should add that when I did store some in fridge, it got thicker of course - right on the edge of pump-ability.
Ive messed around with making Gels. I usually boil the water based on the mix I would normally use for liquid version. Haven’t been able to quite get the stopping point of evaporation figured out. Sometimes too thick sometimes too liquid.