Vitacost has them for $17+ but no free shipping so you’d need to buy at least a few boxes for the math to work out.
Betty Lou bars will definitely be part of my unbound race day nutrition once I try them out in training.
Then I need to sort out what gels to bring. Leaning towards Maurten and untapped maple syrup
I am limited due to Celiac, I like the betty lou option I might have to order a few. I like natures bakery but they are really dry at times and I end up choking on them.
My favorite thing to make is no bake cookies.
That’s my experience with natures bakery gluten free fig bars. Taste good. Used them on rides for a bit but I just found myself choking too much on them.
stares in Gatorade and Clif bars
I need your nutrition budget! 
Ha! I’m a bargain shopper for sure. I just choked my way through a box of SIS gels. Won’t do that again. Those taste like cough syrup.
right now for training I’m using carbo gain powder and glucose powder for drink mix.
I like the crank sports egel except it’s hard to squeeze it all out of the packet while riding.
That’s really why I like Maurten and untapped.
But between now and unbound I will fine tune my nutrition and try to narrow it down a bit beyond my typical “whatever’s on sale” Maurten is too expensive and never on sale.
My current unbound nutrition ideas are
160 Maurten powder
Betty Lou bars
Maurten or never second gels
Untapped gels and waffles
Skratch energy gels
Then whatever is at the checkpoints with the default support crew
But I hate thinking of the cost.
I am a Gatorade or make my own using fructose and dextrose.
I usually stick to candy while riding or home made cookies or ricebars
Agreed on the former, but the feed does have reasonable sales every once in a while if you want to stock up at slightly more reasonable prices.
Anyone ever tried these Bobo’s Bites? I have always found the bars to be a bit dry, but these are stuffed so could be a good option. $16 for 24 at Costco.com, so only $.66 each and 130cal.
Those are great, but I prefer the taste of the Sam’s Club version. I do find them a bit hard to eat while riding hard as they are dense
Use a gel flask - e.g. something like this one.
I fill these with 4 parts gel, one part water and shake to mix. It’s possible to get 200 calories in one squirt and hardly even taste the gel. It’s the easiest way by far to consume gels.
The hammer flasks are good quality and seal well, but they are just too small for how I want to use them. I tried these 6 and 9 oz bottles off amazon. They actually hold more than advertised and perfect size, but the closure is crappy. I use them with straight maple syrup and it oozes a bit around the bottom of the pullout tab when using them, so you have to be careful or you’ll end up with a sticky bottle. The big one will hold ~1000 calories, so a lot of fuel in a small package.
On my latest Costco run I picked up some organic fruit bars and a few other things. I mainly got these to try and use during training rides. The organic fruit bars are very good. The Mott’s gummies are pretty good and super cheap since there are 90 packs in the box. The Mini Fruit bars are pretty good too but pretty small. Pretty clean ingredients on all of these
Some Costco’s have another brand of organic gummies but my local one didn’t have them.
I used Triwonder 170ml flasks at the Rock Cobbler this. Weekend. Slightly bigger than the hydro flask and the closure / valve is superior. I’m going to try them with maple syrup & gu liquid on my next long ride. Coach has me on low volume / rest this week, so it will be a while.
I use the Hammer gels in these flasks, and the gel is pretty thick, especially on cold days. Really, just adding a few drops of water, and shaking it, will make it flow much easier.
Would the lid from a Hammer Flask fit in those?
I also have similar flasks. The hammer top does not fit on mine.
No, i tried.
I have a Gu flask which I haven’t used in a long time. I think I never added water to the gu mix so getting the gu out was a pain.
But that thing holds 5.5 oz. Looking at just some Great Value maple syrup I have and for its standard 2oz serving size it provides 26g carbs so end up with not quite 3 servings in a flask. Which is okay I guess not sure if it’s worth the effort.
I definitely prefer things like maple syrup and isotonic gels since they squeeze out easily which is important on the bike.
Gels like Gu are twice as calorie dense. 100 calories per oz.
In the 6oz bottles I have, they are a little bigger than 6oz, so I can fit 6 servings of gel and about an oz of water. 600 calories in an easily squeezable flask. That’s about 2 hrs worth of calories. When the flask is almost empty, I’ll take a drink of water, suck that water out of my mouth into the flask, and swish around in the flask to dilute the last of the gel. Can pretty much fully empty the flask this way.
If I just eat gels, I’ll need 7-8 of these 6oz flasks - that’s a lot of sugar!
Good point. I’ll have to try with gels and add a bit of water. As much I like Maurten it’s just so pricey
