Seeing as how the original Stinger Waffle is still one of my all time favorite ride foods, I was excited to check out some of the new flavors Honey Stinger has goin on. New to the line up for the the organic energy chews are the pink lemonade flavor above, along with a caffeinated Limeade flavor as well. Of course the strawberry Stinger Waffle is relatively new as well. For one of my first rides back at home fresh from Interbike, I decided to grab the pink Lemonade chews and a Strawberry waffle before I set out for a short road ride.
Seeing as how I’m not a big fan of pink Lemonade the drink, I wasn’t so sure how I would react to the chews. Jump past the break to find out!
Seeing as how I had skipped lunch before the ride, and breakfast wasn’t all that substantial either, just over an hour into the ride I was starting to bonk, hard. As we were riding, I reached into my jersey pocket to find the chews and happily found them extremely easy to open with one hand and my teeth since we didn’t slow up at all for me to eat. The first chew slid effortlessly out of the package and I was blown away by how easy it was to palate. I’m a fan of most energy chews, but the Stingers, and the pink Lemonade flavor specifically hit the spot perfectly. It seems to have the perfect ratio between sweetness and tartness, with an almost thirst quenching finish. After eating any amount of them, I was never left reaching for my water bottle to wash them down. I ate about half of the bag as I began to lose the hunger pangs, and put the bag away for later.
Over the course of an hour or so I had finished the bag and was feeling pretty good. With water being the only other thing I had taken in during the ride, the effects of the chews seemed very quick and fairly long lasting for a chew. A short while longer I stopped for a break and couldn’t resist tearing into the waffle any longer. It was good as I expected, but I am still the biggest fan of the original waffle. There are probably those out there that really enjoy the vanilla or strawberry, but for me plain old original is tops. The combination of the chews and the waffle proved to be a nice substitution for real food, with each easily eaten during the course of a ride. If it’s any indication, most of the time I come home with half empty wrappers, which for Stinger products is definitely not the case.
