Drinking

Good evening readers,
Today I want to talk about what to drink while you're out... No, I don't mean when out for dinner and such, I mean when out on your bike.
Now, many people, including myself in the past, make the wrong choice in what to drink while in the saddle, some people drink fizzy and high sugar drinks, others drink energy drinks and some drink water or juice, now, before I go into why each of these are either the worst or not ideal, here are the good points for each, energy drinks, as the name implies, give you a boost in energy levels and most really do taste good, high sugar drinks also do the same but without(or much less of) a drug(Yes, caffeine is a drug) that causes your body to burn stored energy and finally, water and juice either have little to no sugar or have natural fruit sugars in them and are healthy while keeping you hydrated, now that the niceties are out of the way, here are the horrible truth about each of those drinks, first we start with water and juices, while they are by far healthier to coke or monster, too much water or juice can also have a negative impact, this is because water and water based fluids are known as hypotonic solutions meaning they contain little to no solutes, the negative effect they can have is causing you to become sluggish the more you drink, this because, the more you drink while you sweat, the less body salt you have which reduces the effectiveness of your nerves, too much water also causes cells to swell and burst, slowly drowning you from the inside out, drinks such as monster and coca-cola, are known as HYPERtonic solutions, meaning they are heavily laced with solutes, while they do give you an energy boost, they are still very bad for you, too many solutes in your body also starts to kill red blood cells through dehydration, meaning you want to drink more often and you will become exhausted quicker.
"So what should I drink?" I hear you ask? Well, drinks such as powerade, lucazade sport and gatorade are a good start, these drinks are known as ISOtonic solutions, meaning that the solute to water ratio in those drinks, closely resemble what would be found in an average humans body, these drinks also contain essential salts to replace what is lost through sweating along with water, with them you will find you want to drink less often but still be able to keep going for as long as you physically can, I drink such drinks myself and I find I'm less likely to be gasping at the end of a ride, I also recommend the High 5 ZERO drink tablets, they come in many flavours and do their job well, a single tube, depending on how strong you like it, will make up to over 10 liters of drink and at between £7 and £8 per tube of 20 tablets, that is like paying 50p or less per bottle of powerade, so well worth the initial cost.

Have fun, ride safe and make the right choice in drinks, I'll see you on Wednesday.