There's a distinction worth understanding between this gel and Maurten's drink mixes. The drink mixes rely on the acidity of your stomach to form the hydrogel once you've swallowed them. Gel 100 arrives with the hydrogel already formed, which means it doesn't need water alongside it to work. You can take it dry, mid-climb, without a bottle in hand, and it still moves through the system the way it's designed to. For anyone who has fumbled a gel-and-water combination at speed, that's one less thing to coordinate when your attention is elsewhere.

Taste is where a lot of gels lose people. The category has a reputation for cloying sweetness, chemical aftertastes, and textures that turn each serving into a small act of willpower — sometimes bad enough that you're fighting a gag reflex just to get it down. Gel 100 goes the other direction because it's built from a short list of natural ingredients: water, glucose, fructose, calcium carbonate, gluconic acid, and sodium alginate. Nothing artificial, no preservatives, no colorants. The result is a mild, neutral flavor that sits closer to a light maple syrup or agave nectar than a candy-sweet shot. That neutrality matters over a long day, when flavor fatigue can quietly derail your fueling before your legs do.

The neutral profile also makes Gel 100 easy to layer into a broader fueling plan. Pair it with Maurten's Drink Mix and the flavors don't fight each other, so you can move your carbohydrate intake up or down across a session without introducing a fourth or fifth competing taste. Each serving also carries 20mg of sodium to support electrolyte replacement over sustained efforts. If you've been the athlete who dreads reaching for a gel, or the one who simply can't push carbohydrate consumption high enough without paying for it later, this is the format that tends to change minds. The box of 12 keeps a training block or a season of races stocked, and the team at Excel has watched plenty of riders switch over once they've felt the difference on a hard day. It's a straightforward way to fuel harder without asking more of your stomach than it can give.