Energy chews provide a fourth way to keep fuelled when cycling that has advantages over the other options of energy drinks, gels or solid food.
To keep up your energy intake even via the best energy drinks requires quite a high concentration of drink powder, which can feel sickly and can lead to stomach problems, particularly if you’ve not trained your gut to handle it. You’ll need to carry a significant volume of liquid with you, and even on hot days that’s going to filter its way to your bladder. It’s a useful way to keep up your fluid intake when riding though.
Solid food such as energy bars can be a better option, although chewing and swallowing can be hard when riding and probably needs a good follow-up swig of water.
Then there are energy gels. They’re designed to provide a quick energy burst, but most need to be consumed in one dose, they can be messy and you’re left with a sticky sachet to stash – don’t drop it on the road!
Energy chews provide many of the advantages of a gel. But since they’re in solid form they’re easier to handle, you don’t need to consume a whole pack in one go and they’re easier to chew and swallow than an energy bar.
Here’s our pick of the best energy chews for cycling.
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Our pick of the best energy chews for cycling
- Clif Bloks Energy Chews
- Precision Fuel 30 Energy Chews
- Torq Energy Jellies
- Veloforte Energy Chews
- SIS Beta Fuel Energy Chews
- OTE Energy Chews
Why can you trust Cyclist‘s advice?
We’re out riding a lot here at Cyclist. Whether that’s for our big ride features or testing the best road bikes and all the clothing and equipment that cycling involves, we’re putting the miles in year-long. That means plenty of fuelling and opportunities to use the best cycling nutrition products.
We know what works to feed our rides and for post-ride recovery and have selected our picks of the best energy chews based on that experience. We’re not paid for product placement, so you can trust Cyclist‘s team to provide an unbiased viewpoint.
The best energy chews for cycling
Clif Bloks Energy Chews
£16.50/6-pack | View offer
- Gummy chews with 70-plus grams of carbohydrates per 100g
- Six gels per packet, three per serving
- Many flavours to choose from with or without caffeine
Alongside its chunky bars, Clif sells these Bloks energy chews. There’s a wide range of flavours, some with added caffeine, others sour or with extra sodium for hotter rides.
Each pack contains six chews, with Clif recommending you chew half a pack at a go for up to 100 calories. They’re not too sticky, nor are they too difficult to chew and at 60g a pack they’re not heavy.
Precision Fuel 30 Energy Chews
£8.99/4 packs | View offer
- Energy chews boasting 30g carbohydrates per two-piece pack
- Natural or mint and lemon flavours
- 88g carbohydrate per 100g
Providing 30g carbohydrate per packet, the Precision Fuel 30 Energy Chews come in a pack of two bite-size square chews that are remarkably like turkish delight, both in texture, sweetness and with a sweet floury coating.
Precision Nutrition promises all-natural ingredients, with the single source carbs coming from sucrose and corn starch and electrolyte-free. They’re very pocketable and vegan-friendly too.
Torq Energy Jellies
£26.50/12 gels | View offer
- Three flavours with 30g carbohydrate per 36g pack
- Designed so you can mix with other Torq products for uniform fuelling
- 2:1 glucose:fructose mix
The Torq energy jellies come in small packs of six chews, providing 30g of carbs per pack. They’re smaller and a little sticker than the Clif Bloks and include a 2:1 mix of glucose and fructose, with pectin to solidify them. There are three all-natural flavours on offer: orange, lime and berry. Torq sells a six pack with two of each or single flavour boxes of 15 packs and you can also build a box of mixed Torq products.
Torq formulates its products so that they each deliver the same amount of energy per serving, so you can mix its jellies with gels, drinks and bars to take in between two and three servings per hour and vary your intake. The jelly packs are easy to pocket and to open on the go and the chews are easy to swallow.
Veloforte Energy Chews
£2.50/pack | View offer
- 44g carbohydrates with natural flavourings and electrolytes
- Four flavours include Amaro with 75mg caffeine
- Six chews per 50g pack
Veloforte sells four flavours of its energy chews, including Amaro, which contains caffeine too. Each pack contains six chews with 44g or carbs, 98mg of sodium from Himalayan pink salt and 50mg of potassium from dried coconut water per pack. Veloforte recommends two chews every 20 minutes to keep up your energy levels.
SiS Beta Fuel Energy Chew
£15/six | View offer
- 45g carbohydrate in maltodextrin/fructose mix
- Single block rather than individual chews
- Lemon and orange flavours
SiS sells its Beta Fuel energy chews alongside other formulations, including gels and drinks. As with other Beta Fuel products, its vegan formulation includes a 1:0.8 ratio of maltodextrin to fructose, which SiS says reduces the risk of gastrointestinal problems.
Unusually, the chew is a single piece, rather than individual blocks within the wrapper, although you can break off separate chew blocks with 7.5g of carbs each. The format may reduce the risk of dropping a block, making it easier to consume when riding. SiS recommends between one and three chews per hour.
OTE Energy Chews
£40/pack of 20 | View offer
- 23g carbohydrate per chew plus electrolytes
- Single chew per pack can be split to three
- Apple and strawberry flavours and mixed packs
As with SIS’s chew, OTE has a single chew per pack, subdivided in its case into three, so you can get 7g of carbohydrates per dose. Its two available flavours, apple and strawberry, are naturally flavoured and free from artificial sweeteners or colours. You can choose a mixed pack between 4 and 40 chews per box.
There’s a mix of glucose and fructose as energy sources, plus supplementary sodium, potassium and magnesium from sea salt and other sources. You get 5% strawberry or apple juice concentrate to provide the flavouring.
