This article was first published in Rouleur Issue 139
Jonas Abrahamsen’s victory on stage 11 of this year’s Tour de France came off the back of repeatedly sustaining 400 watts-plus efforts over the five categorised climbs on the 157-kilometre loop of Toulouse. A 662-watt surge ascending Cote de Vieille-Toulouse saw the Norwegian and Mauro Schmid pull clear from the pack. A final 1,135-watt 15-second sprint delivered Abrahamsen and his Uno-X Mobility team their first-ever Tour stage win. The then 29-year-old’s historic win came off the back of resilience (he’d broken his collarbone four weeks earlier), persistence (needed for a breakaway specialist) and a fuelling regime that has arguably laid the foundations for the record-breaking speeds we see in the peloton today…
Fuelling Tour memories
“Fuelling was a challenge throughout the stage due to the speed of the race, making it difficult to always take drinks and gels from our team on the roadside. Furthermore, the sports director’s car wasn’t allowed behind the break to feed Jonas due to the gap not going over one minute. This was a 7,000-calorie day with 1,400g of carbohydrates consumed in total. In the race, Jonas averaged 115g of carbohydrates per hour and six litres of liquid.”
These are the words of Uno-X Mobility’s head nutritionist James Moran, explaining the huge energy burn – and consumption – that propelled Abrahamsen to success.
Those 1,400g and 115g figures were unthinkable until recently with 90g of carbohydrates per hour of on-the-bike feeding deemed the ceiling. Take on any more and any chance of stage success would be replaced by gastro distress. But that dogma was blown apart in 2017, the year that a virtually unknown Swedish sports-nutrition company burst onto the sporting world stage.
“Maurten proved a revolutionary sports drink when I first broke into the uncharted territory of 2:00:25 in Monza. A moonshot race and a world record later, it’s the drink that fuels me day-in, day-out,” said legendary runner Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, after becoming the only human to run a marathon in under two hours in 2019, two years after coming so close in Italy.
“Yeah, Kipchoge used Maurten products extensively for both records,” says Andy Sparks, research innovations manager at Maurten and honorary visiting research fellow at Liverpool John Moores University. “The Kenyans call Drink Mix the ‘disappearing liquid’ because it’s digested so smoothly and isn’t sickly-sweet. It means they can fuel aggressively; many are fuelling at around 120g per hour. It’s the same in cycling.”
Read more: Sodium bicarbonate: can it really improve your riding?
Hydrogel is key
Those of you who follow WorldTour cycling can’t have failed to witness the carbohydrate revolution that has swept over the peloton and which is credited for the record-breaking speeds generated by Maur-ten users like Ineos Grenadiers and, for the women, FDJ-Suez.
More is more when it comes to carbohydrate ingestion. The more riders can consume without stomach issues, the more energy is available for sustainable hard efforts. Maurten is credited with being a major driver in dialling up the WorldTour speeds, which is down to its unique formulation.
“Hydrogel is essentially a delivery device that was first used in the pharmaceutical industry. It protects the contents of drugs from harsh stomach acids,” explains Sparks. “At Maurten, we were the first to develop and use it in the context of delivering carbohydrates to optimise absorption whilst minimising gut problems..”
To dig a little deeper, Maurten’s hydrogel is made from alginate (seaweed) and pectin (fruit fibre). In water these are soluble. But when exposed to the acidic environment of the stomach, the chemical bonds between these natural ingredients create a protective 3D structure, which encapsulates the carbohydrate. This patented hydrogel technology efficiently transports salt and carbohydrates through the stomach to the intestine, where the hydrogel dissolves to release its goodness. In essence, the hydrogel is the diligent domestique that protects its prized asset – for GC rider see carbohydrate – in search of peak performance.
The result of this nutritional advancement reduces the risk of gastrointestinal problems, enabling Maurten to crank up the amount of carbohydrates available to the body as fuel. This is helped by Maurten’s mixes being devoid of ingredients commonly seen in many sports fuels such as colourants, preservatives and artificial flavours. Their scientifically evidenced blend of sugars also optimises how much a rider can absorb and assimilate into more speed.
“We have the Drink Mix 320, which contains 80g of carbohydrates and is designed for long sessions or races where carbohydrate demand is high (80-100g an hour),” says Sparks. “Then you have Drink Mix 160. This contains 40g of carbohydrates and is more appropriate for shorter training rides and lighter carbohydrate intake days.”
Both products contain a blend of maltodextrin and fructose, Maurten using maltodextrin instead of glucose for its appreciatively neutral taste. It’s a scientifically proven blend for optimum performance. That’s down to the small intestine using different transporters to absorb sugars, SGLT1 sucking up maltodextrin, while GLUT5 transports fructose. Together they raise the limit on what a rider can consume each hour of riding.
As for the Maurten gels, they come in 100 and 160 forms, containing 25g and 40g of carbohydrate, respectively. The 100 is for easy mid-ride fuelling and acts as a bridge between drinks; the 160 is a higher-carbohydrate option for sustaining 90g per hour (or more) strategies. Unlike many gels on the market, Maurten’s is a true gel, not a syrup, as the hydrogel is already formed in the easy-to-access sachet.
The drinks and gels also come in caffeinated options, which should be used strategically for key sections of your ride or race, be it an upcoming hill or to prepare for a finish-line sprint. Caffeine is proven to boost power output and dampen fatigue, when taken around 30 to 40 minutes before you need it.
As a sidenote, the Drink Mix contains sodium bicarbonate. However, unlike Maurten’s game-changing Bicarb System, the amount of sodium bicarbonate is minimal and serves to optimise the pH of the drink mix.
Mix and match
That’s the theory. But what about in practice? For that, we pass over to Elsa Hugot of FDJ-Suez to describe the protocol Demi Vollering followed on the decisive Col de la Madeleine stage of the Tour de France Femmes that secured a superb GC runner-up position for the Dutch rider.
“From the start, Demi rode with only one bottle of Maurten Drink Mix 320 to save a bit of weight on the first climb. Then we planned a filling point at the top where Demi collected two bottles of Drink Mix 160. In the valley she took one or two more bottles of Drink Mix 160 and then two more bottles of Drink Mix 160 before the last ascent.
“To complete the carb intake provided by the bidons, she also consumed one Gel 100 every 15km and one more Gel 160 at the top of the Col du Frêne [44km into the stage]. She then took one Gel 100 Caf 100 at the bottom of the Col de la Madeleine and one more Gel 100 during the ascent.” It’s a lot more fuel than your standard café ride, and is the end point from many thousands of hours spent in the laboratories lifting the physiological lid on elite cyclists.
“We’ve conducted countless experiments to better understand the carbohydrate metabolism of elite riders,” says Sparks. We use carbon-13 isotopes, which we can use to measure how much of the ingested carbs are being used, via a breath sample. It’s a highly advanced technology to understand the impact of carbohydrates on performance.”
To that end, Sparks has had “individuals come into the laboratory who are taking in excess of 180g of carbohydrates per hour”. That’s needed to support the huge, sustained power outputs generated by the likes of Abrahamsen. If you’re riding at 350 watts for hours – as the Norwegian did en route to Tour stage victory – that’s a massive energy output and, at that intensity, needs to be fuelled by stored carbohydrate (glycogen) and blood glucose, which is where Maurten’s products come in.
Get it right and victory edges closer. But success takes many forms. Cue those at the back of the pack. “We can see that the riders in the grupetto are sometimes fuelling just as high as the riders at the front of a mountain stage,” says Sparks. “That’s because they’re looking to start replenishing glycogen stores for the following day’s stage, which could well be one for the sprinters.”
Benefits to amateur riders
Fuelling improved performance isn’t all about the elite, of course. Sparks says recreational riders can take these late-stage learnings into multi-day events. As for single-day rides and races, he says it’s hard to be too prescriptive as there are numerous factors that impact carbohydrate intake.
“We know that training status plays an important role,” says Sparks. “Like the elites, the fitter an amateur rider, the higher power output they’ll maintain and the more durable they’ll be, meaning they’ll need more carbohydrates than a rider who’s new to road cycling.”
Years of cycling naturally exposes more experienced riders to on-the-bike feeding, meaning their guts will have a greater capacity to ingest and turnover carbohydrates than newcomers.
“Size also matters,” adds Sparks. “We can see this from our laboratory work where larger riders generally need more fuel than lighter riders. Which physiologically makes sense, though was only recently proved in a laboratory setting.”
That was the work of Dr Javier Gonzalez from Bath University, England, whose 2024 study revealed that cyclists weighing over 70kg oxidised around 45g per hour of glucose compared to 33g per hour for those under 70kg for the same workload. The reason why is down to larger riders possessing more muscle tissue that acts as a glucose sink.
Depending on all those factors, you’re looking at 60 to 90g of carbohydrates per hour, albeit more experienced amateurs could well be beyond this limit. “Basically, play around in training and see how you respond,” says Sparks.
This is something you can do both outdoors and indoors. Autumn has arrived in the northern hemisphere, meaning indoor cycling becomes ever more present. Whether you’re an e-racer or use the smart trainer as a tool to lay the fitness foundations for a strong 2026, a sachet or two of smooth-flowing energy will reward you with a multitude of gains.
“If you haven’t eaten for several hours before an evening indoor session, a gel is a good starting point to optimise your effort,” says Sparks. “You should consume carbohydrates and fluids during the ride, too.” Sparks says that consuming Maurten’s products will benefit any indoor session over 45 minutes, both by delivering energy to working muscles and altering perception of effort. “By feeding and drinking regularly, you simply enjoy the session more than riding indoors fasted. That’s important as ultimately cycling is all about having fun.”
All in all, Maurten’s hydrogel technology has fuelled a carbohydrate revolution in the WorldTour, enabling riders to tolerate 100g-plus of carbohydrates per hour and sustain higher power for longer. By breaking old limits on intake without gut distress, it has driven the record-breaking speeds that define elite cycling. More importantly, the same benefits extend to amateurs, who can train and race harder while enjoying greater comfort and consistency on the bike. Chapeau to that.
