Review: eLoad Endurance Drink

The second item from my April Bike Loot box I’m going to review is the eLoad Endurance Drink. I had the opportunity to try this out on my 30 mile jaunt on Saturday. Like all sports drinks they replace lost electrolytes due to sweat. They claim to be the sports drink for the heat due to its mix of electrolytes that help to prevent and control heat stress. Now I’m no scientist so I won’t speak about the actual ingredients and science behind the drink but they do have a handy comparison chart to other popular sports drinks if you want to see where your usual brew stacks up.

With that said the usual questions about sports drinks are “how does it mix?” and “how does it taste?” The packet I received was enough to make 16oz of the drink. I poured the contents of the packet into my water bottle followed by 16oz of water, replaced the top on the water bottle and shook it. Since I was using a clear water bottle it was easy to see that it all dissolved and nothing was left at the bottom. All too often that is not the case and you end up drinking a bunch of powder when you get to the bottom of the bottle.

Now on to the real important question… how did it taste? I took a couple of sips at the house before heading out the door and I though it tasted very good. It had a nice lemony flavor without being too tart or too sweet and most of all it didn’t taste salty either. But the real test would be out on the ride so out the door I went with my bottle of eLoad (and a second bottle of my usual brew). I went though the eLoad at a normal pace and the taste never got tiring. That’s a good thing, because a sports drink does you no good if you don’t like the taste and don’t drink it. I finished the bottle with no complaints, no cramping and most of all didn’t get sick!

I can’t say it did anything more for me than what I usually drink but we also weren’t in extreme heat either so I may try it again later in the season. I certainly would recommend people give it a try if they have a chance. Right now it doesn’t appear to be sold at many brick & mortar stores so it’s e-retailer only.

Will I be switching to eLoad? Well probably not. I’d like to try it some more in other conditions and see how it fares against my usual drink. The biggest detractor for me is actually its lack of local availability and for something like this it’s important to me that I can get it locally and quickly. It’s happened before where I’ve run out of mix the night before a big ride and need to make an emergency run to pick up more. Even Amazon doesn’t ship that quick.