The math on race fueling has shifted. Sports science now points toward carbohydrate intakes that would have seemed reckless a decade ago — 80, 90, sometimes over 100 grams per hour for athletes who train their guts to handle it. The problem is logistics. Hitting those numbers with a 25-gram gel means tearing open sachet after sachet, stuffing empties back in your pockets, and doing arithmetic in the middle of a hard effort. Maurten's Gel 160 answers that problem with volume. Each ready-to-eat serving packs 40 grams of carbohydrate into a single sachet, so you carry fewer wrappers and spend less time fumbling for fuel when your hands and brain are both busy.

Underneath that larger serving is the same Hydrogel Technology that runs through the rest of the Maurten range. Rather than a concentrated syrup, the Gel 160 is a biopolymer matrix that suspends its carbohydrate in a soft, jelly-like structure. That matrix encapsulates the sugars and carries them through the stomach, releasing them in the intestine where water, salt, and carbohydrate get absorbed together. The upshot is a fuel that tends to sit lighter than a traditional gel, even at this higher dose. It reads more like a mild, neutral jelly than the sticky-sweet shot you might be bracing for, and because it's built with just six natural ingredients, there are no added colors, preservatives, or flavors riding along with it.

The engine inside is a blend of fructose and glucose held at a 0.8:1 ratio. Those two sugars travel into the body through different transport pathways, which is what lets an athlete take on more total carbohydrate than glucose alone would allow before the gut hits its ceiling. It's the same ratio Maurten uses in the Gel 100, and that consistency matters — it means the Gel 160 slots into a fueling plan already built around Maurten products without changing how your system responds. Worth noting: the Gel 160 arrives as a pre-formed hydrogel, so unlike the Drink Mix — which relies on stomach acidity to gel up — you can take it with or without water.... Read More