Do you need the sweet sports drinks for energy?

[OakLeaf]

Sugar helps with absorption too, so make sure you stay on top of hydration and don't get behind.

You do need to eat on longer rides, but there's no reason it has to be sugar as long as it's something that your body can process while you're riding. It depends a lot on how hard you're riding and your own body.

There've been a couple of threads lately on this topic:

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...ighlight=elete

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...ighlight=elete

I've never tried eLete, but I use EmergenC pretty often - it's easy to get anyhow.