Stop Buying Hope in a Tub: Evidence-Based Supplements for Real-World Cycling

Key Takeaways 🚲

• Most “performance” supplements don’t perform. Start with an evidence framework, not vibes.
• Masters and recreational riders often use supplements the most—and are just as liable for anti-doping consequences.
• Contamination is a bigger risk than most people admit. Batch-tested products aren’t optional if you race.
• The proven list is short: caffeine, creatine, beta-alanine, sodium bicarbonate (and sometimes citrate), nitrates, glycerol.
• Match the supplement to the limiter. A 7-hour road race and a 60-second cross start are different sports.
• Trial in training, not on race day. GI distress has impeccable timing.

The Gear & Grit Take: Supplements Aren’t a Strategy 🧠

You don’t “add supplements” to a training plan. You solve a problem.

That distinction sounds pedantic until you watch riders chase marginal gains while ignoring the obvious limiter—sleep, carbs, hydration, pacing, or plain old fitness. Supplements can help, but only when they’re aimed at a specific bottleneck, in a specific discipline, for a specific athlete.

And if you’re buying them because someone fast used them on Instagram, you’re not supplementing performance. You’re supplementing uncertainty.

The Two Real Problems: Hype and Risk

1) The evidence gap

The market is built on a simple business model: sell a promise, not a measurable effect.

A lot of products lean on ingredient-name recognition (“contains nitrates!”) while delivering doses too small to matter, or bundling ten things together so you can’t tell what—if anything—worked.

If a supplement can’t clear three basic questions, it doesn’t deserve a spot in your bottle:

• Is the effect supported by multiple controlled studies?
• Is the dose realistic in the real world?
• Is the outcome relevant to cycling performance (not just “biomarkers”)?

2) The contamination problem

The dirtiest secret in supplements isn’t that some don’t work.

It’s that some contain things you didn’t buy.

If you race—at any level—you’re responsible for what’s in your body. Masters athletes get popped too, and the excuse “I didn’t know” has never been a defense. The supplement industry has plenty of reputable companies, but it also has enough chaos that third-party batch testing should be your baseline, not your upgrade.

If you can’t verify the batch, you’re gambling.

Athlete Tiers Matter (Because Limiters Change)

A beginner’s limiter is often efficiency, durability, fueling discipline, and pacing. An elite athlete’s limiter might be the final 30–90 seconds after hours of work.

That’s why supplements that look “anaerobic” can still matter in endurance racing: road racing often ends with a violent, glycolytic moment. But the reverse is also true—some supplements that sound endurance-y won’t move the needle if you’re already highly trained.

So before you ask “what should I take?” ask:

• What discipline am I targeting (crit, road, CX, MTB, track, gravel, BMX)?
• What decides the result—steady output or repeated surges or one decisive effort?
• What’s my limiter: buffering, sprint repeatability, heat tolerance, fatigue resistance, or fueling?

Now we can talk supplements.

The Short List That Earned Its Keep ⚡️

Creatine: not just for meatheads

Creatine improves rapid energy turnover—great for sprinting and repeatability. That matters in BMX and track, obviously.

But it can also matter in road racing because the “endurance” part is often a long setup for a short, brutal finish: sprinting for position, punching over a climb, bridging, attacking, or surviving the final surge.

When it’s most useful

• Sprinters, punchy riders, repeated attacks
• CX/MTB riders who live in repeated high-intensity spikes
• Riders in strength phases or who need muscle preservation support

The trade-off

• Possible short-term water retention, usually most noticeable early.
• If you’re chasing power-to-weight at all costs, timing matters.

Practical reality
Creatine works, but it’s not “one capsule and done.” Effective protocols are meaningful daily doses over time, not fairy dust.

Beta-alanine: buffering from the inside

Beta-alanine increases intramuscular buffering capacity (via carnosine). Translation: it can help delay fatigue when efforts are hard enough to create serious acidosis—often the 1–10 minute pain cave, repeated or sustained.

Best fit

• CX, MTB, track endurance-ish events, hard crits
• Riders doing repeated supra-threshold surges

The catch

• It’s a loading supplement. You don’t “take it for a race.” You take it consistently for weeks.

A subtle point
If you train by lactate numbers, recognize that buffering supplements can change the relationship between lactate, power, and sensation. Don’t worship a single metric.

Sodium bicarbonate (and sometimes citrate): buffering from the outside

Bicarb works primarily as an extracellular buffer. It can improve performance in high-intensity efforts and repeated efforts—when the limiting factor is acid-base balance.

Why people love it
Because it can work, and the effect can be noticeable.

Why people hate it
Because it can turn your gut into a live science experiment.

Rules of survival

• Trial it in training first.
• Use strategies that reduce GI risk (timing, split dosing, delivery form).
• Think hard about event duration. If your key effort is hours into a race, your plan needs to reflect that.

Dietary nitrates: vegetables, concentrated

Often taken as beetroot-based shots. The early excitement focused on oxygen cost and efficiency, but the practical reality is messier: response varies, and training level seems to matter.

Highly trained athletes can be non-responders. Less trained athletes often respond more reliably. More recent work suggests potential benefits in muscle contractile function, which may explain why it’s popped up in more explosive contexts too.

Worst-case scenario
You took a concentrated vegetable product and got colorful urine. The downside profile is generally mild.

Glycerol: hydration “buffering”

Glycerol is about hyperhydration—starting an event with more fluid on board. This is context-specific: heat, limited drinking opportunities, or very long events where you want an early cushion.

Where it can make sense

• Hot races
• Events with constrained bottle access (technical MTB/CX scenarios)
• Long gravel where aid stations are sparse or pacing makes drinking tricky

Where it’s pointless
If hydration is already well-managed and conditions don’t demand it.

Ketones: the hype-to-evidence ratio is still ugly

Ketones refuse to go away because the story is seductive: a “third fuel,” glycogen sparing, recovery magic.

The problem: proposed mechanisms have repeatedly failed to translate into consistent performance improvements in real athletes. Skeletal muscle appears to use ketones minimally relative to carbs and fats—especially as intensity rises. The recovery story is still evolving, but the strongest claims have outpaced the best data.

My working stance

• If you’re not a funded pro with a lab-grade plan, ketones are a high-cost experiment with uncertain upside.
• If you are experimenting, treat it like an experiment: clear outcome, controlled conditions, honest accounting.

The Decision Engine: A Simple Workflow

Before you buy anything:

1. Fix the fundamentals first
   • Carbs, hydration, sleep, consistent training.
     Supplements don’t compensate for missing basics—they just add noise.
2. Name the performance gap
   • “I fade in repeated surges.”
   • “I cramp and overheat in hot races.”
   • “I need a stronger final 60 seconds.”
3. Match supplement → mechanism → event
   • Buffering agents for hard, acidic work
   • Creatine for rapid energy and sprint repeatability
   • Nitrates for potential efficiency/contractile support (variable responders)
   • Glycerol for heat/hydration constraints
4. De-risk
   • Third-party batch tested
   • Avoid “proprietary blends”
   • Track what you used (brand, batch, timing) if you race
5. Trial in training
   • Same timing, same dose, similar intensity
   • Especially for anything with GI side effects

This is how you turn supplements from superstition into a tool.

The uncomfortable truth

The supplement industry sells certainty. Performance rarely offers it.

If you want an edge, earn it in the boring places first: fueling discipline, repeatable training, and recovery you don’t sabotage. Then—only then—use supplements to target a real limiter with a known mechanism, a verified product, and a plan you’ve already tested.

That’s what “evidence-based” looks like on a bike.