Baking Soda in a Carb Gel? The New Cycling Study Behind a 6% Late-Ride Power Boost
UPLIFT IRON CLUBWhat the Study Actually Tested
Researchers used a crossover design with 11 trained cyclists, so each rider completed both conditions. Each trial included three hours of moderate cycling while consuming 80 grams of carbohydrate per hour. One condition used carbohydrate alone and the other added the study supplement across four timed servings during the ride.
After the three-hour ride, cyclists completed three six-second sprints, a two-minute time trial and a 12-minute time trial. This design matters because it tests performance after substantial endurance fatigue, not fresh performance. The result therefore applies most directly to trained cyclists trying to produce hard work late in a long session.
That specificity is the first guardrail. This is not evidence that every athlete, every workout or every event improves in the same way. It is a focused endurance experiment with a small sample and a useful within-person comparison.
A useful detail is the timing. The bicarbonate was not swallowed as one large pre-ride hit; it was distributed at the start and at 30, 90 and 150 minutes. That makes the experiment partly about delivery strategy as well as the ingredient itself. It also means the headline should not be simplified into “take baking soda and ride faster.” The protocol combined trained cyclists, prolonged moderate work, regular carbohydrate intake and repeated bicarbonate exposure before the final tests.
The baseline performance tests add another layer. Because riders also performed the efforts fresh, the researchers could see whether either condition restored them to unfatigued performance. It did not. Even in the better 12-minute result, accumulated fatigue still mattered. The intervention changed one part of the late-session performance picture rather than making three hours of work disappear.
The 12-Minute Test Improved—The Sprints Did Not
The clearest result appeared in the 12-minute time trial. Average power was about 251 watts in the supplement condition versus 239 watts with carbohydrate alone, a difference of roughly 12 watts or six percent. The researchers reported that difference as statistically significant with a large effect size.
The shorter tests tell the other half of the story. There was no significant improvement in the three six-second sprints or the two-minute time trial. Riders also remained below their fresh baseline, so the supplement did not erase fatigue.
That boundary makes the finding more credible and more useful. It suggests a possible benefit for sustained hard output after prolonged exercise, not a universal performance boost. Translating a late-ride 12-minute cycling result into claims about sprinting, maximal strength or hypertrophy would go beyond what the experiment actually tested.
Why might a 12-minute effort respond when six-second sprints do not? The energy demands are different. A six-second sprint leans heavily on immediate high-rate energy systems and maximal neuromuscular output. A 12-minute time trial asks the rider to sustain severe but controlled work while managing the chemical consequences of repeated muscle contraction. Bicarbonate is therefore more plausibly useful where acid-base regulation becomes a meaningful limiter over several minutes.
But “plausible” is not the same as proven mechanism. The study shows a performance difference in this protocol; it does not establish that buffering alone caused every watt of it. Small crossover studies are excellent for generating focused signals, yet they remain sensitive to individual response, pacing choices and day-to-day variation. Replication in larger groups would tell us whether the roughly six-percent difference is typical, exceptional or partly a small-sample effect.
Why the Effect May Show Up Late in a Long Ride
The performance aid in this study is interesting because it is not a fuel source in the same sense as carbohydrate. Its proposed role is related to buffering changes associated with hard exercise. That makes a late-ride sustained effort a plausible place to look for an effect.
By the time riders reached the final tests, they had accumulated three hours of work. A 12-minute time trial then required sustained high output on already tired legs. The lack of a clear benefit in the shortest tests suggests the effect may depend on the type and duration of effort.
Mechanism is not certainty. Eleven participants is a small sample, even with a crossover design. Individual responders can matter, and a single protocol cannot establish how the result generalizes across sexes, training levels, race formats or other sports. The right conclusion is that the signal deserves replication, not that six percent is guaranteed.
Sodium bicarbonate raises extracellular bicarbonate availability, which can increase the gradient for hydrogen ions to move out of working muscle. In practical terms, that may help preserve the environment needed for repeated contractions when intensity is high enough for acid-base disturbance to matter. This is one reason bicarbonate has a longer research history in hard interval and time-trial work than in easy endurance riding.
The new wrinkle is using it during prolonged exercise. Traditional protocols often front-load bicarbonate before the session, where gastrointestinal distress can become the limiting factor. Spreading intake through a long ride could potentially change both blood bicarbonate availability and tolerance. That is an interesting research direction, but athletes should resist turning a single delivery method into a universal recipe. Body size, event duration, food intake, product formulation and individual gut tolerance all affect what is practical.
Fueling and Tolerance Still Matter More Than the Headline
Every rider was already consuming 80 grams of carbohydrate per hour. That is important context because the supplement was layered onto an established endurance-fueling strategy rather than replacing it. For long sessions, carbohydrate intake, hydration and pacing remain the foundation.
The study also reported minimal gastrointestinal discomfort, which matters because any performance aid becomes useless if an athlete cannot tolerate it during a long event. Taste was a drawback. In endurance sport, palatability is practical performance information: a product that becomes unpleasant after repeated servings is harder to use consistently.
The hierarchy should stay boring. Build fitness, practice fueling, manage fluids and pace the event intelligently. Only then do marginal aids become worth evaluating. A promising result can add to a good system; it cannot rescue a weak one.
There is also a basic race-day lesson here: test the boring variables before chasing the marginal one. If an athlete under-fuels carbohydrate, starts dehydrated or rides the first hour above sustainable pace, a buffering supplement is unlikely to rescue the final hour. The study’s riders were already receiving a substantial carbohydrate intake, so the bicarbonate result sits on top of a controlled fueling foundation.
For real-world use, tolerance has to be rehearsed under conditions that resemble competition. A gel that feels fine during a 60-minute indoor spin may become unpleasant after several hours, heat and repeated servings. Taste matters because athletes stop consuming products they dislike. Any future bicarbonate gel would need to solve both physiology and compliance: enough active ingredient to matter, a formulation the gut tolerates, and a flavor athletes will still accept late in an event.
What Athletes Should Actually Take From It
For endurance athletes, the study is a reason to watch the research rather than immediately redesign race nutrition. The signal is promising: after three hours of cycling, the supplement added to carbohydrate improved one sustained finishing effort without producing major stomach problems in this small group. The signal is also narrow because the shorter efforts did not improve and the sample was only 11 riders.
For lifters, the direct relevance is limited. This experiment did not test conventional strength or hypertrophy sessions. The broader lesson is to judge performance aids by the exact task they improve. A tool that helps late-race sustained power may be valuable to a cyclist while doing little for a powerlifter.
The sensible response is curiosity with brakes. The delivery strategy deserves more investigation, but the biggest endurance gains still come from building the engine, practicing race fueling, pacing intelligently and repeating quality training for months.
That is less exciting than a headline about a kitchen staple. It is also how performance actually gets built.
The strongest practical takeaway is not a dose recommendation; it is a decision framework. First ask whether your event actually contains the kind of late sustained effort this study tested. Then ask whether your training, carbohydrate strategy, hydration and pacing are already reliable. If those basics are inconsistent, they offer far more upside than a new supplement.
If the basics are solid, treat emerging evidence as something to trial conservatively in training rather than debut on race day. Track the session, perceived exertion, gut comfort and whether performance is repeatably better under similar conditions. One good workout can be noise. A pattern across several comparable sessions is more informative, although it still is not a laboratory trial.
That mindset protects athletes from both extremes: dismissing an inexpensive ergogenic aid because it sounds odd, or assuming one exciting paper has settled the question. The study is interesting precisely because its result is specific. Better 12-minute power after a long ride is worth investigating. It is not permission to rewrite the rules of endurance performance.
Cardio and conditioning gym gear for runners, endurance athletes and anyone who earns the sweat.
EXPLORE COLLECTION
