Carbs Fuel: Reshaping Effective Fueling

We were fortunate to talk with two members of the Carbs Fuel team: Gabe, the Chief Executive Officer who, “Lives and breathes carbohydrates,” and the Chief of Product, Aaron, who deals with all product development.

Origin Story

Gabe: Aaron and I are both from Santa Cruz, California. We grew up together going to the same schools, but we didn't become friends until later on during college. I was always a bike rider and Aaron picked it up a little bit later – that's how we ended up meeting. My whole dream was to be a pro.

Gabe dreamt of becoming a World Tour Pro road racer - intensely focused during his junior years on racing. After years of pursuit of that dream, it began to fade as he accepted he didn't have what it took to be at the top level of the sport.

“…over the years I've gradually found myself coming back to the sport and being really into bike riding and bike racing – more specifically within the last couple of years. For instance, I did events like Unbound and Leadville. However, recently I've kept an eye on what's happening in the sport as well as the developments that pros are making… and the big subject is fueling.”

The high-carb Revolution 

“I know it's not a new thing to fuel with high amounts of carbohydrates,” says Gabe, “but I feel like carbohydrates are getting their moment in the light.”

Pros are leading the way by showing what fueling limits actually look like. The “new standard” is 90 to 120 grams of carbs per hour. Not only is that a lot, is that just something for the pros or should every athlete pay attention?

“So I kept paying attention to this and I was like, ‘I'm going to try to shoot for a 100 grams an hour and make an impact on my performance.’ While I started trying to figure out how to do it, I realized it is so unbelievably expensive and so incredibly complicated to meet that fueling goal. If you're expanding that over a six or eight-hour event, and a typical gel is 25 grams of carbs, you're talking about four gels an hour – 24 gels over the course of a race.

You can't carry that much. You can't afford that much. You're not going to eat that much.

We realized most people under-fuel and aren’t hitting that mark, but the people that do generally, are doing it through their bottles by making ‘super gels’ in their bottles – highly concentrated drink mixes.”

Like many, Gabe was “a super salty sweater”, and so he wasn’t hitting his hydration goals along with his fueling because he was missing out on adequate fluid. He didn't really like that as a fix.

Then, he thought, “Why wouldn't we be able to make a more carbohydrate-dense product? There's no way it costs that much money. At the end of the day, the ingredients in these products are commodities.”

And Carbs Fuel was born.

Sort of.

“It's basic sugars, if you really boil it down (as well as some supplemental ingredients). It's ridiculous that some gels [cost] so much. I had this idea and that sparked a conversation, which led to many conversations with Aaron because I was like, “How would I go about doing this? Am I crazy?” I knew Aaron was getting his PhD in human bioenergetics, so I figured he was going to be able to rein me in, but he confirmed what I was assuming. So, we got super excited by it and decided to build this brand.

“We're trying to make products that are carb dense and at a price point that people can palette – this means that more people feel okay with fueling more. Not every athlete is going to be fueling a 100 grams per hour. Still, by offering a more dense product that's more affordable, our goal is to help people notch up towards that because it has a huge effect on their success in their training and their events and their longstanding love for the sport. They're not bonking every single long ride."

Q: What was the main focus behind creating Carbs Fuel?

"From the onset, we wanted to make a really simple and effective product. Now, something that was critical in the development of this was to ensure that our product was not inferior to other products in any sort of way – especially from a brand perception standpoint.

One of the main parts of developing this was ensuring that this product was just as good as that of a [high-level] brand."

Chief of Product, Aaron, adds, “We didn't just simply just mix together what other people were doing. We exhausted the science as a guide for what we chose; the specific carbohydrates we chose, the specific ratios that we chose, etc. We wanted to make a product that was not only equivalent to but better than others out there.”

They had a few core goals for their product, these were the standards they wanted to meet regardless of anything else.

“It needed to be 50 grams of carbs, it's going to be $2, and it's going to be a really thin consistency. Those were the three core things.”

Q: Is there anything in particular that sets Carbs Fuel apart from a nutritional perspective?

"Three noteworthy things make a difference from a nutritional breakdown perspective.

Q: What are a few key areas in which you feel this gel can make an impact?

"While it is nice from a convenience perspective, the current research even suggests that taking less frequent doses at higher volumes of carbohydrates is actually allowing your body to increase the amount of carbohydrates you can oxidize per minute. So, it's also more effective having to do it in fewer intervals at higher volumes.

The other really big thing is the price. I don't like to lean into the price too much because I want people to process this as a great product [first]. ‘Oh my gosh, it's 50 grams of carbs and wait, what? It's only $2?’

Naturally, the price point is going to be a key advantage. It's making it more accessible to all sorts of folks. In terms of the future and where we can thrive, it's across all endurance sports. Anytime someone's pushing the limits (cross-country mountain bike racing or marathon distance, running to ultra events) things of that nature. Our general mindset is to focus on carbohydrates and let's focus on fueling. But there is an intent to expand into other areas that kind of help the athlete in all forms of workout."