Lactate Gels: The Fuel Taking Over The Tour De France

Lactate has been a villain of endurance sport for many years, the "burn" you were told to avoid, the byproduct blamed for fatigue. Now, mid-way through this year's Tour de France, riders are reportedly fuelling with gels that contain lactate on purpose. Endurance athletes are already asking whether this is the next marginal gain worth chasing, or just another expensive science experiment. Here's what's actually going on.

I've written before about strategies to reduce lactic acid build-up, and it's since been brought to my attention that simplifying "lactic acid" as a stand-in for lactate, the way the fitness industry has for years, probably wasn't the best way to reflect current science. Framing lactate as the enemy is something I need to walk back.

Table Of Contents 

• What Exactly Is A Lactate Gel 

• The Science: Why Lactate Isn't The Enemy 

• How It's Being Used At This Year's Tour De France 

• What This Could Mean For Endurance Athletes

• The Evidence Gap Nobody's Advertising 

• Where I Got It Wrong

• Key Takeaways

What Exactly Is A Lactate Gel

Unlike a standard energy gel, which relies on glucose and fructose, a lactate gel adds exogenous lactate alongside the usual carbohydrate. The pitch is that lactate can act as a separate, parallel fuel source running alongside carbs, rather than competing with them for absorption in the gut. Similar in concept to exogenous ketones as the “alternative fuel source”. Some formulations are pairing around 40g of carbohydrate with roughly 5g of lactate per gel, with companies suggesting an effective dose somewhere between 10-25g of lactate per hour. No peer reviewed studies to support this to date.

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Exogenous lactate products have existed before (an early "Polylactate" gel launched in 2002 was reportedly inedible and largely useless), but newer culinary and biochemical techniques have made it possible to produce a genuinely palatable, higher-dose lactate gel for the first time.

The Science: Why Lactate Isn't The Enemy

Here's the myth that needed correcting first: lactate itself doesn't cause the burn or the fatigue. What actually happens during hard exercise is that your muscles produce lactate alongside hydrogen ions, it's the hydrogen ions that drive the acidity and the burning sensation. Lactate, on the other hand, is a genuine fuel source. 

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This isn't new science. Research on the "lactate shuttle," led by physiologist George Brooks, established that muscle, heart, and brain tissue can burn lactate directly for energy, and that it also functions as a signalling molecule that tells the body which fuels to prioritise. In fact, the heart preferentially uses lactate as fuel, shuttling it into mitochondria via dedicated transporter proteins.¹˒².

How It's Being Used At This Year's Tour De France

With the Tour de France currently underway, several WorldTour teams are said to be trialling a new gel called ExoLactate, developed by sports scientist Aitor Viribay alongside a culinary science team. Riders using it have reportedly noted no GI issues, lower perceived effort, and better resistance to fatigue late in stages, though these are early, anecdotal reports rather than controlled trial data.

The interest has been high enough that at least one team is reported to have paid a premium for early access. Even the product's own developer has been careful to frame it as promising rather than proven, describing the current evidence base as mechanistic and still developing.

What This Could Mean For Endurance Athletes

Cycling tends to be where new fuelling ideas get road-tested first, but all endurance athletes are watching closely too, lactate gels have already been linked to elite marathon fuelling strategies, including reports around a sub-two-hour marathon performance. For endurance runners managing 90+ minutes of sustained effort, the appeal is obvious: an additional fuel stream that doesn't add to gut carbohydrate load could, in theory, help delay fatigue in the closing kilometres.

But "in theory" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

The Evidence Gap Nobody's Advertising

Controlled trials on oral lactate supplementation are still limited, and what exists is mixed. A 2024 randomised, double-blind, crossover trial found an oral calcium-and-magnesium lactate supplement produced no change in VO2peak, lactate threshold, or ventilatory threshold, with only a modest 4% increase in work rate during a 20-minute time trial³. A separate 2024 trial in trained cyclists using calcium lactate found no time-trial benefit at all, despite measurably raising blood bicarbonate⁴.

Lactate also isn't currently among the handful of supplements recognised by the IOC as having strong performance evidence, a list that still centres on caffeine, creatine, sodium bicarbonate, beta-alanine, and dietary nitrate⁵˒⁶. That doesn't mean lactate gels don't work; it means the well-controlled evidence hasn't caught up to the hype yet.

Where I Got It Wrong

In previous articles, I've talked about "reducing lactic acid build-up" as a strategy or better performance and recovery. That language wasn't malicious - it's the shorthand the entire fitness industry has used for decade - but it does misrepresent what's actually happening in the muscle. Lactate itself was never the problem. The burning, the acidity, the fatigue we all blamed on "lactic acid" is largely down to the hydrogen ions produced alongside it, not the lactate molecule itself.

That distinction matters because it changes the goal. Instead of treating lactate as something to suppress or clear as fast as possible, the more accurate picture is that lactate is a fuel your body is already producing and reusing constantly, and trained athletes get better at shuttling and burning it, not just tolerating it. The strategies I've previously recommended (carb timing, warm-ups, active recovery, buffering agents) still hold up, but the reasoning behind them needs updating. They work by supporting how the body manages and uses lactate, not by minimising a "toxic" byproduct.

This isn't a new discovery, it's a correction that's been sitting in exercise physiology literature for over two decades, since Brooks' lactate shuttle research overturned the old fatigue model. It's just taken a while for that shift to filter down into mainstream sports nutrition messaging, including my own.¹˒²

Key Takeaways 

• Lactate isn't the fatigue villain → it's the hydrogen ions produced alongside it that cause the burn, not the lactate itself. 

• The lactate shuttle is real science → muscle, heart, and brain tissue can burn lactate directly for fuel, a mechanism established well before gels existed. 

• Tour de France teams are testing it now → early rider reports mention lower perceived effort and better late-race fatigue resistance, but this isn't controlled trial evidence. 

• Marathon interest is growing → lactate gels have been linked to elite marathon fuelling, but that doesn't confirm benefit for everyday runners. 

• The evidence is still early → controlled trials so far show mixed or minimal performance benefit, and lactate isn't yet on the IOC's recognised supplement list.

• Fundamentals still win → dialling in carbohydrate intake, hydration, and proven aids like nitrate or bicarbonate will do more for most athletes than an unproven exogenous lactate strategy right now.

Ash Miller
Dietitian and Nutritionist (Masters)
Bachelor of Physical and Health Education
Instagram: @ashthomo_nutrition

References 

1. Brooks GA. The tortuous path of lactate shuttle discovery: From cinders to the lactate shuttle. Redox Biol. 2020;35:101454. 

2. Brooks GA. Cell-cell and intracellular lactate shuttles. J Physiol. 2009;587(23):5591–5600. 

3. Ewell TR, et al. Acute effects of an oral lactate supplement on aerobic exercise performance. Nutrients. 2024;16(8):1123. McNaughton LR, et al. Calcium lactate supplementation and cycling time-trial performance. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2024;34:210–218. 

4. Maughan RJ, et al. IOC consensus statement: dietary supplements and the high-performance athlete. Br J Sports Med. 2018;52:439–455. 

5. Jones AM. Dietary nitrate supplementation and exercise performance. Sports Med. 2014;44(Suppl 1):35–45.

Disclaimer:

The content in this blog is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always speak with your doctor or allied health team before changing your diet, exercise, or taking supplements, especially if you have a health condition or take medication. Please use this information as a guide only. Aid Station doesn't take responsibility for individual outcomes.