Published June 26, 2026 12:03 pm
There’s a subplot here to watch in the upcoming Tour de France. a company called From lab to fieldor FLF, emerged from secrecy earlier this month (As told by Jim Cotton For outside sister publication Velo) to reveal that it has developed a new energy gel that contains lactateof all things. The gel is not yet for sale, but the company has produced an initial batch of thousands of gels. Seven World Tour teams tried to buy them for this summer’s Tour – but one team got there first and bought the entire production to make sure only they could get access.
Let the hype and speculation begin!
The physiologist behind FLF is Aitor Viribe Morales, who spent three years as chief scientist for the INEOS Grenadiers cycling team and is currently head of global sports performance for Salomon. They teamed up with food scientists from the Basque Culinary Center and the chefs of the Michelin-starred northern Basque restaurant Mugaritz, for reasons we’ll come back to. The result is – well, we don’t know yet. But in the wake of recent sports nutrition innovations like hydrogel sports drinks and baking soda, there has never been more interest in finding the next big thing.
Why lactate?
Lactate has a complicated history (as I explain in detail here). In the early 1900s, physiologists thought that “lactic acid” was a waste product produced during hard exercise because you didn’t get enough oxygen, and it left your muscles feeling tired and feeling burned. As it turns out, lactic acid doesn’t actually circulate in our bodies; We have two component parts, hydrogen ion and lactate. The first creates problems; The latter is really helpful.
In fact, there is a whole series of research called the “lactate shuttle” hypothesis, originated by physiologist George Brooks of the University of California, Berkeley, that argues for a grand and multifaceted role for lactate. It’s a fuel, like fats and carbohydrates – but not just any fuel: it’s Favorite Fuel for the muscles, heart, and brain is able to circulate from one part of the body to another where it is needed. It is also a signaling molecule, signaling the body what type of fuel to use at any given time and perhaps even triggering training adaptations.
All of these benefits have been studied for lactate naturally produced in muscles during hard exercise. So why don’t we drink lactate? Mainly because it’s impossible to stomach, just like ketones were a decade ago. This is where Viribe’s collaboration with food scientists and chefs comes in.
Exactly how FLF solved the problem remains confidential while patent applications are in process. Viribe told me via email: “In short, we have used chemical and physical properties to ‘tame’ our friend lactic acid. Chemically, we have discovered a way to buffer it with high efficiency. Physically, we have discovered a matrix that makes it digestible and palatable.”
What does the new prison do?
according to a launch webinarFLF’s new Exolactate Gel contains 40 grams of carbohydrate and 5 grams of lactate. He estimates that the correct dose of lactate during endurance exercise is between 10 and 25 grams per hour.
The idea is that lactate will act as a separate, parallel fuel pathway with carbohydrates. There is an example for this. Two decades ago, scientists thought the body could absorb a maximum of 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour, because the transporters bringing carbohydrates from the intestines into the bloodstream were maxed out. Then they discovered that different types of carbohydrates use completely different transporters – so if you mix glucose and fructose for example, you can increase your absorption by up to 90 grams per hour because you’re using two different sets of transporters. A similar effect occurs for lactate, which uses another group of transporters. So with two types of carbohydrates And Lactate, you can take advantage of three different transporters and get even more fuel.
There are other potential benefits as well. For example, glucose and fructose need to be processed in the liver before they can be used as fuel, which means it takes 15 to 30 minutes from the time of ingestion to the time of consumption. Lactate, on the other hand, goes straight into the bloodstream and begins to be used within five minutes.
According to Viribe, what lactate does once in the bloodstream depends on the context. If you are exercising at a low to moderate intensity over the prescribed range, the additional lactate will reduce your reliance on carbohydrates and promote fat burning. Above the limit, on the other hand, oxygen is scarce, so lactate will change its behavior: it will promote carb burning and inhibit fat burning, because carbs use oxygen more efficiently. In other words, it’s a win-win situation.
Does it really work?
That’s the principle anyway. Viribe was the first to point out that existing research on exogenous lactate is thin and non-existent. He and his colleagues have a scientific paper under review, and they have now been testing it in the lab and with professional athletes for 18 months. In the webinar, they showed pilot data demonstrating effects on carb and fat oxidation. They also demonstrated periodic fatigue cycling for approximately 20 minutes in seven subjects:
The control position is in blue. The results are interesting, with an average improvement of about 8 percent – but it’s dominated by two topics, each of which has a massive improvement of more than 20 percent, so you can’t read too much into it. Based on an extensive look at his test data, Viribe estimates – very tentatively – that on a climb like Alpe d’Huez, which takes about 45 minutes, lactate can shave 60 to 80 seconds off your time.
I exchanged emails with a professional cyclist who has been trying this gel for six months, using it in both training and racing. Without stomach problems, he has consumed four gels an hour for a total of 160 grams of carbohydrates and 20 grams of lactate. They estimate that based on taste and palatability, in a blind test, no one would be able to tell the difference between the new gel and a standard carbohydrate gel. He thinks it helps, but admits it’s hard to tell for sure in the mess of real-world training and racing.
This situation reminds me a lot of ketones, which were very popular in Peloton a decade ago. There were a lot of theoretical reasons to think that ketones should be a superfuel. The reality has been more complex: they have not been “debunked”, and they continue to be used by some athletes. But their use case turns out to be more nuanced than anticipated, and scientists are still exploring new ideas such as using them to ward off altitude sickness. Viribe suggested in his webinar that it may take years to learn the different ways in which exogenous lactate works in the body.
The gel should be made available for sale to the general public later this year, priced at what Viribe described as “similar to existing high-end gels”. He is also requesting cooperation from researchers to test the new gel. For now, however, we can only reserve judgment – and watch carefully over the coming weeks to see which Tour de France teams are carrying some of the unfamiliar-looking gels, and whether they appear to exceed expectations.
Sign up for more sweat science email newsletter and check out my new book The explorer’s gene: why we look for bigger challenges, new tastes and spaces on the map.
