Pooled research since 2011 shows sodium bicarbonate gives a small lift to very hard efforts of 30 seconds to 12 minutes when taken beforehand, and little for steady riding. A study published on 25 September 2026 adds a modest, uncertain gain from taking it during a 3 hour ride, from 11 riders who knew which gel they had.
What the new gel study tested
Norte and colleagues ran a randomised crossover trial with 8 men and 3 women, average age 37, who trained around 9 hours a week and averaged a VO2max of 53 ml/kg/min. The paper is open access in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports.
Each rider did two 3 hour rides at 95% of their gas exchange threshold, a steady endurance effort, taking 80 g of carbohydrate an hour both times. In one ride the gels also carried bicarbonate, 18 g of sodium bicarbonate and 2 g of potassium bicarbonate in total, split across four gels at 0, 30, 90 and 150 minutes. Straight after the 3 hours they rode three 6 second sprints, a 2 minute time trial and a 12 minute time trial.
Fresh, the riders averaged 269 W for 12 minutes. After 3 hours they averaged 239 W on carbohydrate alone and 251 W with the bicarbonate gels, a difference of 12 W with a 95% confidence interval of 3 to 22 W, so the true effect could be as small as 3 W. Three of the 11 riders didn't improve at all, and even with bicarbonate the group stayed 18 W below its fresh power. The sprints and the 2 minute effort showed no clear difference, and stomach symptoms scored the same in both rides.
Does sodium bicarbonate work for cycling?
For short, very hard efforts, the answer from the pooled research is yes, by a small margin. For steady endurance riding, the evidence says it adds little.
| Source | Sample | What was tested | Finding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carr, Hopkins and Gore, 2011 meta-analysis | 38 studies | About 0.3 g/kg before a 1 minute sprint | About 1.7% more mean power |
| ISSN position stand, 2021 | Review | 0.2 to 0.5 g/kg before exercise | Benefit mostly in efforts of 30 s to 12 min, best dose about 0.3 g/kg |
| Miller and colleagues, 2025 meta-analysis | 126 | Single dose before continuous running of 1 to 30 min | Negligible benefit (standardised difference 0.18), stomach symptoms in 29.5% against 2.6% on placebo |
| Ge and colleagues, 2026 meta-analysis | 241 | Repeated hard efforts in team sports | Small benefit (Hedges' g 0.23) |
| Norte and colleagues, 2026 | 11 | 20 g in gels during a 3 hour ride, unblinded | 12 minute time trial 12 W higher (95% CI 3 to 22 W) |
The 2011 meta-analysis also found the benefit shrinks as efforts get longer, and was smaller in women and in people who don't compete. The 2025 running meta-analysis found the same pattern by sex, with a small benefit in the eight men-only trials and no clear benefit overall once dropouts for stomach trouble were counted.
The new study tested something the older work hadn't, taking bicarbonate during a long ride and measuring a hard effort at the end. The authors suggest it may matter more once fatigue has set in. That idea rests on one small trial in which the riders could taste which gel they had, and the ISSN position stand notes that part of bicarbonate's benefit comes from placebo, so it is a lead to follow up, not a result to plan around.
How much, and when?
The ISSN position stand puts the single dose at 0.2 to 0.5 g per kg of body mass, with 0.3 g/kg the sweet spot, taken 60 to 180 minutes before the effort. Doses above 0.3 g/kg added side effects without adding performance. Spreading 0.4 to 0.5 g/kg a day across meals for 3 to 7 days beforehand also works, and moves the stomach risk away from race day.
The gel study's fixed 20 g came to between 0.23 and 0.35 g/kg depending on the rider, so the lightest riders got the most per kilo. Of the three riders who didn't improve, one had both the smallest rise in blood bicarbonate and one of the lowest doses per kilo.
Will bicarb upset your stomach?
It can, and that is the main reason riders stop. A 2026 systematic review of 101 studies found the usual doses of 0.2 to 0.4 g/kg cause mild to severe symptoms, getting worse with bigger single doses. Spreading the dose over hours, enteric-coated capsules and mini-tablets in a carbohydrate gel all appear to help, but no study has compared them head to head.
Twenty grams of sodium bicarbonate also carries roughly 5 g of sodium, a large salt load for one ride.
Our view at WattPlan is that bicarbonate is only worth trying if your event is decided by a very hard effort of 30 seconds to 12 minutes, a short time trial, a hill climb or a criterium, taken beforehand as the established research did, and never for the first time on race day. The evidence for taking it during long rides is too thin to act on yet. For a sportive ridden at endurance pace, carbohydrate and pacing do the work, and bicarbonate adds salt and stomach risk for little return.
What to do before trying it
- Decide whether your event has the effort bicarbonate helps, a flat-out effort of 30 seconds to 12 minutes that decides the result. A 10 mile time trial, a hill climb or a criterium qualifies. A sportive at a steady pace doesn't.
- Get carbohydrate right first. The study's baseline was 80 g an hour, which is the rate WattPlan's in-ride feed reminders prompt, 60 g every 45 minutes. Our race day nutrition guide covers building up to it.
- Rehearse it twice in training before a session that includes the effort you care about, once with bicarbonate and once without, taken 60 to 180 minutes beforehand, with the same warm-up and the same fuelling. Write down any bloating, nausea or urgency as well as the power, and expect any gain to be a few percent at most.
- Work the dose out from your weight, 0.2 to 0.3 g/kg, rather than copying a fixed amount. At 60 kg, 20 g is already a third of a gram per kilo.
Anyone who has been told to limit their salt intake should talk to their doctor before trying bicarbonate at all.
What we don't know yet
The gel study is small, 11 riders, and could not be blinded, because the bicarbonate gels tasted different. The maker supplied the gels, although the authors say it had no role in the study. The 12 minute test always came last, after the sprints and the 2 minute effort, so the gain may partly reflect recovery between efforts rather than the 3 hours alone.
The authors leave open whether bicarbonate during a ride works better on its own or on top of a dose taken beforehand, and the test was in a laboratory rather than on a real sportive. Most of the pooled research is in men, and both meta-analyses that looked found smaller effects in women.
Sources
- Bicarbonate and Carbohydrate Co-Ingestion During Exercise in a Novel Gel Format Improves Time-Trial Performance After 3 h of Moderate-Intensity Exercise in Trained Cyclists, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports
- International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: sodium bicarbonate and exercise performance, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition
- Effects of acute alkalosis and acidosis on performance: a meta-analysis, Sports Medicine
- Negligible benefit of oral single-dose sodium bicarbonate on continuous running performance: systematic review with meta-analysis of randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition
- Effects of acute or short-term oral sodium bicarbonate supplementation on high-intensity intermittent exercise performance and physiological responses in team-sport athletes: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Frontiers in Nutrition
- Gastrointestinal Symptoms Associated With Sodium Bicarbonate Supplementation Protocols: A Systematic Review, European Journal of Sport Science