MNSTRY Product Review #2: Remco’s Nutrition, Tested During a Race This Time | 3bikes.fr votre magazine Vélo, Gravel & Triathlon

During our three weeks in Portugal, we asked MNSTRY to help us put together the performance. Four- to five-hour outings, nearly twenty hours of weekly training, the heat, and enough kilometers to realize one key thing: successful sports nutrition is sometimes the kind you end up forgetting about because it never becomes a problem. But the most important question remained: what happens when you put on a race bib? Because competition changes everything. You no longer eat exactly when you want to. You no longer drink simply because the timer has just gone off. The pace picks up at the wrong moment, an attack forces you to postpone a refueling stop, your heart rate spikes, your breathing gets ragged, and your stomach suddenly gets a lot less attention than your legs. From late August through late September, we therefore opened the second half of the MNSTRY box. This time, there was no question of patiently building up performance. We had to deliver it.

By Jeff Tatard – Photos: DR

Picking up where the first test left off

The first part of our series ended with a deliberately open-ended sentence: after asking MNSTRY to help us build up our performance, the question remained as to how well this nutrition would hold up when it finally came time to put that performance to the test. So we did exactly what we said we would. Throughout the end of our season, between August and September, the products we’d deliberately left out in Portugal came out of their packaging and went into our race bags: Gel 40, Gel 40 Caffeine, Jelly 40, Chew 40, Race Carb X, Fast Carb, Fast Carb Heat, Power Carb Heat, Electrolyte Shot, Anti-Cramp Shot, as well as Porridge Bar and Whey Recovery Shake.

This time, the goal was no longer to see if MNSTRY could sustain four or five hours of steady endurance. We needed to know if the philosophy could withstand intensity. And that nuance changes almost everything. In training, you can slow down for a few seconds to open a bar. In a race, sometimes you can’t. In training, you can decide to drink at the top of the next hill. In a race, the hill is precisely where someone decides to attack. In training, a nutritional mistake can make the last hour unpleasant. In competition, it can simply determine where your name will appear on the results sheet.

Another Test Track

So our training ground no longer had much in common with the long Portuguese roads of August. This time, there were race bibs, nervous starts, changes in pace, surges, moments when eating becomes almost a technical skill, and others when drinking means letting go of the handlebars for a moment—just as everyone else seems to have chosen that exact moment to accelerate. It was in this environment that we used this second part of the MNSTRY line throughout the end of our season.

And this is probably the most interesting test one can put sports nutrition through. When the intensity rises, the issue is no longer just how many carbohydrates a product contains. The real question becomes: Can you actually consume them? How quickly? With how much water? And how do they feel in your mouth? And above all, will the stomach continue to accept what the legs are demanding? In our first installment, digestive tolerance was one of the key lessons we learned from MNSTRY. We now wanted to know if it would hold up when comfort was no longer a factor.

From Endurance to Immediate Availability

The difference between the two phases of our test then becomes much clearer. During the training block, we had mainly used products designed for long-duration performance: Power Carb, Performance Bar, Intensity Bars, Protein Bar, recovery, and sleep supplements. Competition demands a different approach. Sometimes you need 40 grams of carbs right now—not in twenty minutes.

That’s precisely the number that recurs throughout much of this second MNSTRY product line: Gel 40, Jelly 40, Chew 40. Three different textures, but the same idea: to deliver a significant amount of carbohydrates in a format compact enough to keep fueling an effort that has become too intense to eat as you would during a typical endurance run. Some products maintain a 2:1 glucose-to-fructose ratio, while others switch to 1:0.8, a ratio more geared toward very high carbohydrate intake and allowing athletes whose digestive systems have gradually adapted to it to implement strategies involving around 120 g of carbohydrates per hour.

On a technical spec sheet, this looks like biochemistry. In a race, it becomes much more concrete: how much energy can you actually keep taking in when the rest of your body just wants you to stop pushing it so hard?

Test MNSTRY : la nutrition de Remco Evenepoel mise à l’épreuve

Our protocol has changed as well

For this second episode, we deliberately chose not to replicate a laboratory protocol. That would have been almost contradictory. We used the products under real-world conditions at the end of our season, during races in August and September, incorporating them into our strategy based on the race’s duration, the heat, the expected intensity, and when we thought we’d need an energy boost.

We focused primarily on ease of consumption, because a race product must be able to be opened and swallowed without becoming a test of dexterity in itself; digestive tolerance, because at high intensity, 40 grams of carbohydrates that remain in the package are still worth exactly zero grams to your legs; variety, because gels, jellies, chews, and drinks offer different textures to fulfill an energy function that is sometimes very similar; and finally, our favorite criterion since the first installment: which one would we spontaneously choose again for the next race? Once again, this is probably the least scientific question in our protocol. And perhaps the most honest.

The products in this second installment

This time, the lineup changes radically. Gel 40 and Caffeine Gel 40 make up the category most directly geared toward quick energy, with the latter adding 75 mg of caffeine for those moments when fatigue really starts to set in. Jelly 40 and Chew 40 offer two other textures to achieve the same levels of carbohydrate intake without endlessly repeating the same motion or sensation in the mouth. Race Carb X is probably the most unconventional product in the lineup: an extremely concentrated solution designed to pack a lot of carbs into a small volume.

The drinks round out this approach. Fast Carb is designed for a steady supply of carbohydrates and fluids during high-intensity activity, while Fast Carb Heat and, especially, Power Carb Heat 1:0.8 add an extra layer of support for hot conditions and heavy sweating. Electrolyte Shot comes into play when hydration is no longer simply a matter of drinking more water, while Anti Cramp Shot serves a very specific purpose: that of an emergency product which MNSTRY itself hopes you’ll never need. Alongside this race-focused lineup, Porridge Bar and Whey Recovery Shake fit into the two ends of the day—one to provide solid fuel during less intense phases, the other to put recovery front and center once you cross the finish line.

Twelve products, then, but above all, twelve solutions for very specific moments during the race. And unlike in the first article, we obviously weren’t going to use them all on the same day. Because a race isn’t just about knowing what to eat. It’s mainly about knowing when.

The most important change: eating becomes a tactical decision

This is probably one of the things we most easily overlook when planning a nutrition strategy in front of a computer. On paper, everything is perfectly organized: a snack every twenty minutes, a certain amount of carbs per hour, a dose of sodium, a water bottle at this point, a gel at that one. Then the race starts, and the bike quickly reminds you that it never read the plan.

A crosswind picks up just when you were supposed to eat. A hill appears just when you planned to drink. The pace picks up exactly when you’d need to open a package. And suddenly, nutrition ceases to be a simple physiological matter and becomes a true racing skill. It’s in this context that this second part of the MNSTRY line caught our interest: not just because it lets you carry a lot of carbs, but because it offers several ways to get them into your system. Gel. Jelly. Chew. Drink. Concentrate. Same fuel, multiple entry points.

And after several weeks of competition, we realized that this detail was probably much more important than we’d imagined.

1. Gel 40: forty grams that you barely notice

Gel 40 was probably the product we were most looking forward to as we kicked off this second phase. Not because energy gels are revolutionary—cyclists have been using them long enough that a packet of carbs no longer amazes us—but because 40 grams in a single serving significantly changes how you build a race strategy. Whereas some traditional gels require multiple doses to reach 80 or 100 grams of carbohydrates per hour, two Gel 40s already provide a baseline that’s particularly easy to remember: 80 grams. And when your brain starts to run a little low on oxygen in the final laps, simplicity has its own value.

But what interested us even more was how those 40 grams would hold up as the intensity increased. That’s where the Gel 40 won us over. Its texture remains fluid enough to be consumed quickly, without that extremely sweet, paste-like sensation that sometimes forces you to reach for your water bottle right away. Above all, we rediscovered what had already impressed us during our training camp in Portugal: surprisingly gentle digestion. No feeling of heaviness in the stomach, no lingering sweet aftertaste, and, most importantly, none of that slight hesitation that sometimes creeps in when you reach for the third or fourth gel during a race. The product goes down, your legs keep moving, and your mind can return to something much more important: what’s happening ahead.

So perhaps the real value of Gel 40 isn’t its 40 grams. Many brands today offer high-carbohydrate products. It’s the ease with which those 40 grams become a unit of measurement for the race. One gel, 40. Two gels, 80. Add a carbohydrate drink, and you can adjust your strategy without pulling out a calculator in the middle of the pack. As the intensity increases, this simplicity almost becomes a performance advantage.

2. Caffeine Gel 40: Save It for the Right Moment

With Caffeine Gel 40, the logic shifts slightly. Carbohydrates are obviously still the core of the product, but the 75 mg of caffeine adds a variable that has led us to use it differently. This gel has never been considered an extra gel to be consumed mechanically throughout the race. Instead, we treated it more like a reserve to save for the second half of the race, when fatigue begins to alter your perception of effort and you know the decisive moments are approaching.

This is probably the best way to use caffeine in competition: not as a “turbo” button—because it obviously doesn’t transform your legs—but as a tool integrated into an overall strategy. At our level, 75 mg is a significant enough dose to be included in the calculation of total caffeine intake, especially when coffee or other sources have already been consumed during the day. We therefore consistently focused on total quantity rather than the number of gels, which we believe is essential as soon as you start combining multiple caffeinated products.

In practice, we especially appreciated finding the qualities of the classic Gel 40 without feeling that MNSTRY had tried to turn its caffeinated version into some kind of spectacular product. No magical sensation—and thankfully so. Simply a product that we gradually learned to use at the moment when its benefits were most effective. Caffeine never made up for the watts we were lacking. It sometimes helped us make better use of the ones we had left. That distinction is important.

3. Jelly 40: The Same Carbs, But Not the Same Appeal

On paper, the Jelly 40 might almost seem redundant. Why offer in a different form what the Gel 40 already does so well? After several races, the answer became much clearer to us: because after several hours, the problem isn’t always finding more carbs. Sometimes it’s simply still wanting to eat them.

We’d already observed this concept of food fatigue in Portugal with the different flavors of the Intensity Bar. Competition amplifies it. After several gels and several hours of drinking carbohydrates, coming back to a texture you can chew surprisingly changes how you perceive food. So the Jelly 40 doesn’t necessarily disrupt the energy strategy; it more significantly changes the experience of it. You momentarily move away from liquids and semi-liquids to return to something that more closely resembles food, while maintaining a precisely quantifiable carbohydrate intake.

And this detail becomes invaluable when you’re trying to maintain high intake levels over a long period. It’s not just the digestive system that needs to be conditioned—the palate eventually gets tired, too. Being able to alternate between a gel, a drink, and then a Jelly allows you to stick to your strategy without that all-too-common feeling of spending the day consuming exactly the same thing in different packaging. MNSTRY isn’t reinventing nutrition here. The brand simply solves a problem familiar to anyone who’s ever finished a long race with several gels still untouched in their pockets: at some point, you still have to want to eat.

4. Chew 40: Chew when the race lets you

The Chew 40 takes this concept a step further. This time, you actually have to chew. This might seem like a drawback when you’re pushing at maximum intensity, and it would indeed be a mistake to try to consume it right when you’re gasping for air on a climb. But during calmer stretches, transitions, or moments when the pack eases up slightly, we really appreciated this opportunity to return to a more “physical” way of fueling.

That’s also when our race protocol began to teach us something that product spec sheets never mention: not all carbohydrates need to be consumed the same way just because they serve the same purpose. Gel 40 excels when you want to go fast. The Jelly offers a change in texture. The Chew takes a few extra seconds, but in return provides yet another distinct eating experience. So the question isn’t which of the three is the best. Rather, it’s about understanding which one is best at that precise moment in the race.

Over the weeks, we began choosing our gel packs not only based on the total number of grams of carbohydrates they contained, but also based on how we thought we could consume them. And that’s a rather revealing development. Ultimately, a good nutrition strategy isn’t about setting out with enough energy. It’s about setting out with enough options to successfully consume it.

5. Race Carb X: The Product That Changes the Geometry of Packs

Race Carb X belongs to a slightly different category. Here, the goal is clear: to pack a lot of energy into a small volume. And for a cyclist, that’s no small matter. Jersey pockets aren’t infinitely stretchy, water bottles have a fixed capacity, and in some races, the availability of refueling is so unpredictable that every gram you carry must almost justify its presence.

It is in this context that Race Carb X truly comes into its own. We’ve never viewed it as a product intended to systematically replace gels, drinks, or solid foods, but rather as a way to optimize a strategy. It allows you to carry a significant amount of carbohydrates in a compact format and becomes particularly useful when the duration of the race begins to exceed what two water bottles and a few gels can comfortably cover. Again, the idea isn’t to consume as much as possible simply because the product allows it. A strategy of 100 or 120 g/h only makes sense if it has been properly trained for and if the body can tolerate it.

And it is perhaps with Race Carb X that the MNSTRY philosophy becomes most modern. For a long time, cycling nutrition was mainly about avoiding hunger pangs. Today, the reasoning has been reversed: the goal is to deliberately maintain a high availability of carbohydrates to delay the point at which performance begins to be limited by fuel. Race Carb X clearly belongs to this new generation of products. It’s no longer just an emergency food source. It’s competition fuel designed specifically for that purpose.

6. Fast Carb: Eating and Drinking Are Starting to Speak the Same Language

Fast Carb has reminded us of an obvious fact that’s easily forgotten when gels pile up in your pockets: a water bottle can also be a significant source of energy. And when the race gets intense, it’s sometimes even the simplest way to keep fueling up. Drinking requires less effort than taking out a gel, opening it, consuming it, and then stowing the wrapper. Taking a few sips repeatedly allows you to gradually consume carbohydrates without having to wait for a specific moment.

We particularly appreciated this ability to spread out our intake across different sources. A strategy consisting solely of gels can work perfectly well, but it quickly becomes monotonous. Conversely, relying on a drink to provide all your carbohydrates can become complicated as soon as the temperature changes or your fluid needs no longer exactly match your energy needs. The strength of the MNSTRY system lies precisely in this flexibility: some in the water bottle, some in the pockets, and the ability to adjust the distribution based on conditions.

Above all, this helps avoid a fairly common mistake: systematically confusing hydration with nutrition. In cool weather, you may need a lot of carbs without wanting to drink a lot. In intense heat, the ratio sometimes reverses. Fast Carb then becomes one piece of the puzzle rather than the entire puzzle. And this way of thinking seems infinitely smarter to us.

7. Fast Carb Heat and Power Carb Heat: When Temperature Changes the Rules

The Heat versions were probably the products for which context mattered most. Their value becomes apparent precisely when the temperature rises, sweating increases, and the water bottle must address a more complex equation than simply providing energy. We’d already done a lot of riding in the heat in Portugal, but we’d deliberately saved these products for this second phase to test them under more intense efforts—where the combination of heat, power, and dehydration becomes significantly less forgiving.

What appealed to us wasn’t so much the idea of a “heat-specific” drink—sports marketing loves to create categories—but rather the logic behind its formulation: simultaneously adapting the carbohydrate and electrolyte intake to an environment where fluid loss becomes more significant. Power Carb Heat maintains the high-energy philosophy we appreciated in the classic Power Carb, while Fast Carb Heat allows you to incorporate this aspect into a strategy more directly geared toward intensity.

And this is where a clarification is needed: no powder magically protects you from the heat. It is no substitute for acclimatization, properly planned hydration, or knowing your own sweat rate. But when a strategy must perform at high intensity in high temperatures, having a product specifically designed for this challenge adds an extra layer of consistency. During the end of this season, we didn’t feel like we were drinking a miracle solution. We had something much more useful: a water bottle that continued to do its job when conditions got tougher.

8. Electrolyte Shot: Small Size, Solid Logic

The Electrolyte Shot is one of those products whose value isn’t necessarily apparent in every race. And that’s precisely why you have to resist the temptation to use it automatically. Its role becomes much more important on hot days, during long workouts, or when sweat loss becomes significant. Under these conditions, drinking water obviously isn’t always enough to replace what’s lost through sweating.

We therefore view it as a tool for fine-tuning, not as a daily requirement. And this distinction seems important to us in a range as comprehensive as MNSTRY’s. Having twenty solutions available doesn’t mean you have to use all twenty at once. On the contrary, the more technical a product line becomes, the more athletes need to understand what they actually need.

This may even be one of the unexpected lessons from our test: MNSTRY works best when you learn not to use everything. The Electrolyte Shot is an excellent example of this. On the right day, under the right conditions, it makes perfect sense. Taking it mechanically just because it’s in the box makes no sense at all.

9. Anti Cramp Shot: the one we’d rather never have to evaluate

The Anti Cramp Shot is probably the product we need to be most cautious about. Exercise-related cramps are caused by multiple factors, and it would be far too easy to claim that a single small bottle alone could solve a problem that physiology itself doesn’t reduce to a simple electrolyte deficiency. We will therefore never present this product as a comprehensive solution against cramps.

Its positioning is, in fact, different. It’s more of a one-time solution when the first signs appear than a product meant to be consumed regularly as a preventive measure. And that’s exactly how we’ve incorporated it into our protocol: as a backup option. Not as a talisman.

It’s also the only product in this selection for which not having enough opportunities to test it is actually good news. We therefore prefer to remain cautious about its effectiveness and stick to the same rule we applied to the Immune Stick in our first installment: when real-world testing doesn’t allow for a clear conclusion, it’s better to say so than to claim certainty. In a world where every product sometimes tries to promise more than the next, this caution is also part of the test.

10. Porridge Bar: because a race isn’t always at 180 beats per minute

The Porridge Bar reminded us that between bursts of very high intensity, a long race also includes stretches where you can still eat normally. And when those moments exist, why must every calorie be turned into a gel? Its more food-like texture gives it precisely this function: providing solid nourishment when the race still allows enough time to chew and digest comfortably.

So we especially appreciated it leading up to decisive moments or during races long enough to warrant a real alternation between solid food and faster-acting nutrition. It doesn’t replace Gel 40 when the pace picks up; rather, it prevents you from having to rely solely on gels for several hours. We find this complementary relationship much more interesting than a direct comparison between the two.

And ultimately, how we’ve used the Porridge Bar pretty well illustrates how our strategy has evolved over these two months: we’ve gradually stopped looking for the perfect product and started looking for the right product at the right time.

11. Whey Recovery Shake: After the Race, Start Rebuilding

The Whey Recovery Shake comes into play when all of this mechanics suddenly ceases to matter. The finish line has been crossed, the race number can be removed, and the race is already a result. Yet, physiologically, the day is obviously not over. We really appreciated the Recovery Shake we used during our training camp in Portugal; this whey-based version allowed us to extend that exact same approach after competitions.

Again, we’re not going to credit the shake with how our legs feel the next day. Recovery remains a much broader equation, in which overall nutrition, rehydration, sleep, and the previous training load matter infinitely more than any single product. But the main benefit of a recovery shake is sometimes much more practical: making the first post-race nutritional step extremely simple. When you’ve just finished a race, the bike needs to be put away, and a proper meal will have to wait a little longer, having protein and nutrients immediately available simply prevents you from letting that window pass without consuming anything.

And that’s exactly how we used it—not as a reward, not as a recovery potion, but as the first building block for the next session.

How two months of competition have changed our perspective

In Portugal, MNSTRY won us over with its consistency. During races, the brand impressed us most with its versatility. Gels, jellies, chews, drinks, bars, caffeine, electrolytes: several products can provide similar energy without requiring you to consume them in exactly the same way. And when the intensity picks up, that freedom becomes much more important than it seems.

We initially thought this second phase would mainly allow us to rank the products. It taught us almost the opposite. The best product depends heavily on when you need it to kick in. Gel 40 is incredibly convenient when you need to absorb energy quickly. Caffeine Gel 40 is best suited for later in the race. Jelly and Chew break up the monotony. Drinks allow you to refuel almost without thinking about it. Race Carb X adds depth to the strategy. The Heat products are designed for specific conditions. And the Recovery Shake takes over when everything else is done.

Ultimately, after testing MNSTRY during training and throughout the rest of the season, we may be starting to understand what the brand is really trying to sell. Not products. Moments. And that’s precisely what will make our final verdict much more interesting.

When Nutrition Stops Being a Challenge

There’s a rather revealing moment in a long-term trial: the moment when you stop thinking about the products you’re carrying. Back in August, we were still packing our hydration pouches while thinking about the protocol, the products to test, and the sensations to observe. A few weeks and several race numbers later, the routine had changed. We’d fill our water bottles, pick out a few Gel 40s, and—depending on the circumstances—add a Jelly, a Chew, or a caffeinated drink, then head out for a run. MNSTRY wasn’t really “under test” anymore. The brand had become our go-to race nutrition.

And for us, that’s probably the most important takeaway from this second part. Novelty always gives you a slight edge when you’re first discovering a product. It’s much harder to keep choosing it several weeks later, when there’s no longer any obligation to use it. By the end of this season, we weren’t taking MNSTRY just because we had to write this article. We were taking it because we trusted what was in our pockets.

From Training to Competition

Our first installment brought one word to the forefront: tolerance. During those long days in Portugal, nutrition had rarely been an issue. The question remained whether this performance would hold up during competition, when intensity increases, eating becomes more difficult, and carbohydrate intake must continue even as the body is already fully occupied elsewhere.

After these weeks of racing, our answer is yes. We never artificially tried to reach 100 or 120 g of carbohydrates per hour just to boast a spectacular number. The best intake isn’t the highest—it’s the amount you’re able to absorb, tolerate, and utilize. And in this regard, the variety of the MNSTRY lineup is a real strength. Some of the carbs can come from a water bottle, some from a Gel 40, and then from a Jelly or a Chew. We’re gradually shifting our focus away from specific products and toward needs—in terms of grams of carbs and when to consume them.

This is also the key takeaway from the Heat products and Electrolyte Shots: your strategy must adapt to the conditions, not the other way around. Temperature, duration, intensity, refueling options, and individual tolerance should determine what you bring along. Having such a wide range of products certainly doesn’t mean you have to use them all.

Our Verdict

By deliberately dividing this report into two parts, we wanted to answer two questions. The first was whether MNSTRY could support performance development. Three weeks in Portugal and nearly twenty hours of weekly training had given us an initial answer. The second question was more challenging: what remains of this philosophy when it comes time to race? Almost everything.

The digestive tolerance that had convinced us during training remained consistent even as the intensity increased. But above all, the logic behind the product line became even more evident once we were in the race. Gel 40 when you need to eat quickly, Caffeine Gel 40 when the situation calls for it, Jelly and Chew to vary textures, Race Carb X to refine the strategy, and Heat solutions when the temperature complicates the equation: MNSTRY doesn’t offer a single product meant to do it all, but rather several tools that let you build your own strategy.

Of course, not everything is perfect. The premium positioning represents a significant budget when you expand the product lineup, and the breadth of the range requires a real learning curve before you can fully understand its logic. We’ll also remain much more cautious with products like the Anti Cramp Shot, whose effectiveness is far harder to isolate in a simple field test. But based on the criteria we could actually observe—ease of use, energy intake, variety, palatability, and, above all, digestive tolerance—MNSTRY passed the test of competition with the same consistency we saw in training.

No Gel 40 will win a race for you. Race Carb X won’t boost your FTP, and a Recovery Shake will never replace a good night’s sleep. And that’s precisely why our conclusion is ultimately quite simple: MNSTRY doesn’t create performance. The brand provides athletes with the nutritional tools to ensure they aren’t held back.

When the decisive moment arrives, no one wants to think about their stomach, the texture of their gel, or what’s left in their water bottle. You want to watch the wheel ahead, feel what’s left in your legs, and decide whether to follow, wait… or attack.

After several months with MNSTRY, this is probably the greatest compliment we can pay the brand: in Portugal, it helped us build our performance. During the race, it allowed us to stop thinking about it when it came time to deliver.

And in the end, perhaps the best sports nutrition is this: the kind that works well enough to let the cyclist do their own thing.

PROS

Excellent digestive tolerance, even at high intensity
40 g carbohydrate serving size—particularly convenient for competition
Wide variety of textures: gel, jelly, chew, drink, and solid
Easy to consume during a race
A highly complementary product line that allows you to build a comprehensive nutrition strategy
Ability to tailor intake to intensity, duration, and heat
Solutions tailored to high-carbohydrate strategies
Heat-specific products for when temperatures and sweat loss increase
Nutrition effective enough that you eventually forget it’s there during a race

CONS –

Premium positioning and a budget that quickly adds up
A very broad product line that requires a learning curve
Need to gradually acclimate your digestive system before aiming for very high carbohydrate intakes
A growing number of product options that can make it difficult for a beginner to choose
Some products are designed for very specific situations
The effectiveness of the Anti Cramp Shot is difficult to assess objectively during a field test

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Brand	MNSTRY
Type	Sports nutrition – training and competition
Total duration of the test	Several months
Phase 1	Training camp in Portugal
Phase 2	Competitions from August through September
Competition products tested	Gel 40, Caffeine Gel 40, Jelly 40, Chew 40, Race Carb X, Fast Carb, Fast Carb Heat, Power Carb Heat 1:0.8, Electrolyte Shot, Anti-Cramp Shot, Porridge Bar, Whey Recovery Shake
Gel 40	40 g of carbohydrates
Caffeine Gel 40	40 g of carbohydrates + 75 mg of caffeine
Recommended Intake	Adjustable based on duration, intensity, and individual tolerance
High Intake	Strategies that can approach 100 to 120 g/h for athletes trained to tolerate them
Available forms	Gel, jelly, chew, bar, drink, concentrate
Usage	Training, competition, hot weather, recovery
Positioning	Premium
Gel 40 – Price	€17.90 for 6
Caffeine Gel 40 – Price	€17.90 for 6
Jelly 40 – Price	≈ €17.90 per pack
Chew 40 – Price	≈ €17.90 per pack
Race Carb X – Price	€24.90
Fast Carb – Price	€35.90 / 1 kg
Fast Carb Heat – Price	€37.90 / 1 kg
Power Carb Heat 1:0.8 – Price	€37.90 / 1 kg
Electrolyte Shot – Price	≈ €3 per unit, depending on packaging
Anti-Cramp Shot – Price	≈ €3 each, depending on packaging
Porridge Bar – Price	€17.90 for 6
Recovery Shake – Price	€37.90 per 1 kg
Contact	mnstry.com

FAQ – MNSTRY Sports Nutrition

Why is the 40 g carbohydrate serving size beneficial during competition?

Because it greatly simplifies your nutrition strategy. One Gel 40 contains 40 g of carbohydrates; two contain 80 g. This makes it much easier to track your intake during a race without having to carry multiple small gels or constantly do calculations. When the intensity increases and your attention is elsewhere, this simplicity becomes a key advantage in itself.

What’s the difference between Gel 40, Jelly 40, and Chew 40?

They serve a similar energy-providing function but offer three different ways to consume carbohydrates. Gel 40 is particularly effective when you need to eat quickly; Jelly offers a change from the texture of gels; and Chew provides a sensation closer to that of solid food. During a race, this variety helps above all to reduce fatigue as the hours pass and carbohydrate intake accumulates.

Is it really possible to consume 100 or 120 g of carbohydrates per hour?

Yes, certain modern strategies can achieve these intake levels, particularly through specially formulated glucose-fructose blends. But this absolutely does not mean that every cyclist should aim for 120 g/h. The digestive system must be gradually acclimated to these amounts, and the best intake is the amount you’re able to absorb, tolerate, and utilize. More isn’t automatically better.

When should you use Caffeine Gel 40?

We prefer to think of it as a strategic tool to be used sparingly rather than as a gel to be consumed systematically. Its 75 mg of caffeine should be factored into your total daily intake, especially if you’ve already consumed coffee or other caffeinated products. For our part, we mainly used it during the second half of races, when fatigue was starting to set in and the decisive moments were approaching.

What’s the difference between Fast Carb and the Heat versions?

Fast Carb allows you to incorporate a significant portion of your carbohydrates directly into your water bottle and to distribute your energy intake between your drink and the items in your pockets. The Heat versions are specifically designed for hot conditions and increased sweat loss. Of course, they don’t miraculously protect you from the heat: acclimatization, hydration, and awareness of your sweat rate remain essential.

Does the Anti Cramp Shot really prevent cramps?

We cannot say for certain. Exercise-related cramps are caused by multiple factors, and our field protocol does not allow us to sufficiently isolate the product’s effectiveness. We therefore consider it a temporary solution when the first signs appear, rather than a guarantee against cramps. With this product, we prefer to err on the side of caution rather than turn an impression into a certainty.

Is MNSTRY only for elite cyclists?

No. But the more technical the product line, the more important it is to understand what you actually need. The point of MNSTRY is precisely not to use all the products at once. It’s about being able to select the right solution based on duration, intensity, temperature, and your own digestive tolerance. As our test progressed, we gradually shifted our focus from individual products to specific needs and the right times to consume them.

Is MNSTRY worth the price?

That’s probably its main weakness. It’s positioned as a premium brand, and the cost can quickly add up when you buy multiple items. On the other hand, after several months of use, the best argument in favor of the line is quite simple: we continued to choose these products spontaneously even after the discovery phase was over. MNSTRY had become our go-to race nutrition even before the test was finished.

=> Read the first part: MNSTRY Review: Remco Evenepoel’s Nutrition Put to the Test

=> All our Test Articles