We rode our first European tour (Spain/Portugal) in 2023. I brought a small supply of powdered electrolytes with me, anticipating ubiquitous Gatorade/Powerade availability at gas stations and convenience stores. Was I wrong on that one! We could find NOTHING resembling electrolytes. 

I use them on a daily basis. Jacinto typically makes do with plain water, and then has salted nuts with a beer or soda pop when we arrives in town. One hot day he got on the wrong end of the sweat scale. It took him a couple of days to recover. We started looking in earnest for some sort of electrolyte replacement. The best we could do was pickled vegetables. We also drank the juice. Even pickles were difficult to find!

Surely Europeans sweat? In the hot summer? 

We are again headed to Europe in June and July. I would rather not carry a 40 day supply for two people. Is that a must? I'm trying to think of the most compact form. Nuun tablets seem compact. I've never purchased them. Individual sleeves of Liquid IV don't seem the most packing friendly.

What do you all do when touring in Europe on hot, sweaty days? We must be missing something.

Roadside stores don't have salty snacks?  Nuts, crisps, crackers, etc.

If it's super hot, eat ice cream until you don't care about electrolytes.  ;-)

Central Europe was never hot when I lived there in 1970-1973. The climate has changed.

We have never used electrolyte supplements.  In general we are carefull to maintain hydration and carry salted nuts, etc (available at all convenience and grocery stores) to snack on regularly. We also try to leave very early in the day, think around 7am,  to take advantage of the relative coolness and take breaks in any available shade.  Where are you going on this next trip?

Hi Kelly,

I’ve never seen Gatorade here, but Powerade is available in most large grocery stores. Other than that, one can get powdered electrolytes at some supermarkets and all sporting goods stores like Intersport or Decathlon. Decathlon also markets its own Brand of electrolyte drinks . For years I’ve carried a jar of powder on my tours, mixing up our bottle every morning to carry along with a bottle of plain water. Sports bars, especially the fruit and sugar type, also contain electrolytes.

Cheers

I simply buy supermarket juice (flavours vary nicely by region) and dilute it. Plenty of hydration and energy.

I've used Nuun tablets, they're compact and much less messy than carrying Gatorade powder. And, they turn water into lightly carbonated Gatorade, which I find to be pretty refreshing. Just make sure to leave the valve of your water bottle open after you add the tablet, otherwise you'll be riding down the road and get startled when it pops open due to the pressure.

I too have difficulties finding electrolyte tablets in Europe.  I never used to use them but after my heatstroke scares in 2016, I do now, especially when it’s hot. 

I started the last couple of trips with a pack or two of Nuun, thinking I’d get more if and when I ran out. Could I find any, especially without caffeine?  Nope!  Ubiquitous here in BC, available in sporting goods stores, drugstores, and grocery stores but not there. From now on, I’m just going to bring enough for my entire trip, one tab per day. 

In the UK, Lucozade (which aims to fill that sport-electrolyte market niche) is pretty ubiquitous. It's orange and strangely salt/sweet. I have to confess I don't recall seeing it on the continent though! For electrolyte tablets, a pharmacy might be necessary.

Having endured some ridiculous temperatures in central Europe and being a great guzzler of tap water, I've had some brushes with washing out my salts. I'm also a salty-snacks fanatic, so pretty made up the ions with crisps/chips. Not a sophisticated solution, but they will be available nearly everywhere!

Before I had my ablation surgery at the end of 2023, I would have serious, debilitating arrhythmia episodes often enough that they would stop me cold and either end a day ride on the spot or in a few cases end or cause the complete overhaul of a tour - especially in dry, hot conditions with climbing (sometimes even on really insignificant climbs).  Most memorably, it forced us to scrap much of our existing plan for our ride from Palermo (and a meetup with Jacquie and Al) to northern Italy (and a meetup with Suzanne and Janos).  I barely made it through the first half of Sicily before it was obvious I couldn’t continue, so we took the flattest route east and then the train across Basilicata and the flattest route north we could find, up the Adriatic coast.  Still a great trip in spots, but much changed.  We scrapped meeting Racpat in northern Sicily ( on their way home from Morocco!), but were lucky to meet them later on in eastern Puglia, where even in that flat country I had an episode just as we met.

You’ll remember this trip well - it’s the one where on top of everything else I lost my wallet with all of our debit cards and you and Jacinto saved our lives by shipping us enough cash to see us through until we stabilized.  Thanks again!

Anyway, one thing that definitely helped then and now is electrolytes. Susan Carpenter’s recommendation after she’d seen enough of my episodes first hand herself was to add them to my water supply; and for me at least it’s definitely made a difference.  I still do it in warmer, drier conditions (and plan to in the Alps when we drop down into Italy this spring), emptying a packet into one of my water bottles before the ride.  The weight and space requirement is minimal:

Kelly did you check in pharmacies? 

Why I ask is that on a brief visit to Italy last year I discovered that some items which are readily available in Australian supermarkets eg paracetamol tablets, are Pharmacy Only items in Italy. 

Over the counter sale  (no prescription required) but nevertheless not as readily available in retail outlets as I’m used to in Australia. Sun cream was another example. I could only find it in pharmacies.