The Great Clif Bar Showdown
- Thread starter Norm
- Start date
Round 3
November 20 (3 hours, 49 miles)
Today I went with 2 newcomers, freshly excited about my shipment from the night before. This was a battle of unranked contenders:
Unranked: Pear Apple Strudel
Unranked: Cranberry Apple Cherry
The Pear Apple Strudel was a no-brainer because it got mad props from Mike the River Guy earlier in the thread. I wanted another new one but I wanted to avoid the mistake of 2 overly flavorful and conflicting bars in 1 ride. Picked the Cranberry Apple Cherry even though both bars had apple. I figured there would be enough going on for these to possibly mix well enough.
The day was cold to start, around 33, and I took off to the cold Califon hills. I started far too fast for no reason I can explain, and after 20 minutes I was sweating far too much for a 3 hour ride. This made the food a bit of a second fiddle to the Clif bars, but I still got my food on during the ride. After all, one huge benefit of riding so much is being able to eat whatever you want, right?
My first bite was Cranberry Apple Cherry, and it was fine. Nothing amazing but not bad either. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pieces were Pear Apple Strudel. At first it was good enough, but by the 3rd straight piece it was better than good enough. Mike was right, this is definitely a keeper.
As the ride moved towards the 2 hour mark, I stopped being able to feel most of my left hand. These are the same gloves I wore Tuesday, same everything actually. But I overheated early, and my base layers were sweaty and not able to wick away the sweat fast enough to keep my body temp at a happy medium. So I needed to push a little bit to keep warmer on the climbs. On one downhill I hit 45 mph, not entirely sure my left hand would work if I needed to stop quickly.
As the ride went on, both of these got better. After the 2 hour mark the Cranberry Apple Cherry had moved up in flavor to damn good, and the Peal Apple Strudel had moved up to bordering on excellent, possibly in league with the Cool Mint Chocolate and Crunchy Peanut Butter. Both solid bars, a good showing for their first efforts.
Today's results as follows:
1: Pear Apple Strudel
2: Cranberry Apple Cherry
After today's ride both of these move into the top 6 of the overall standings.
Up next for round 4: My cold cold birthday ride, where 2 totally unknowns face off as Maple Nut meets Chocolate Almond Fudge, where one of these comes out surprisingly flavorful.
November 20 (3 hours, 49 miles)
Today I went with 2 newcomers, freshly excited about my shipment from the night before. This was a battle of unranked contenders:
Unranked: Pear Apple Strudel
Unranked: Cranberry Apple Cherry
The Pear Apple Strudel was a no-brainer because it got mad props from Mike the River Guy earlier in the thread. I wanted another new one but I wanted to avoid the mistake of 2 overly flavorful and conflicting bars in 1 ride. Picked the Cranberry Apple Cherry even though both bars had apple. I figured there would be enough going on for these to possibly mix well enough.
The day was cold to start, around 33, and I took off to the cold Califon hills. I started far too fast for no reason I can explain, and after 20 minutes I was sweating far too much for a 3 hour ride. This made the food a bit of a second fiddle to the Clif bars, but I still got my food on during the ride. After all, one huge benefit of riding so much is being able to eat whatever you want, right?
My first bite was Cranberry Apple Cherry, and it was fine. Nothing amazing but not bad either. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pieces were Pear Apple Strudel. At first it was good enough, but by the 3rd straight piece it was better than good enough. Mike was right, this is definitely a keeper.
As the ride moved towards the 2 hour mark, I stopped being able to feel most of my left hand. These are the same gloves I wore Tuesday, same everything actually. But I overheated early, and my base layers were sweaty and not able to wick away the sweat fast enough to keep my body temp at a happy medium. So I needed to push a little bit to keep warmer on the climbs. On one downhill I hit 45 mph, not entirely sure my left hand would work if I needed to stop quickly.
As the ride went on, both of these got better. After the 2 hour mark the Cranberry Apple Cherry had moved up in flavor to damn good, and the Peal Apple Strudel had moved up to bordering on excellent, possibly in league with the Cool Mint Chocolate and Crunchy Peanut Butter. Both solid bars, a good showing for their first efforts.
Today's results as follows:
1: Pear Apple Strudel
2: Cranberry Apple Cherry
After today's ride both of these move into the top 6 of the overall standings.
Up next for round 4: My cold cold birthday ride, where 2 totally unknowns face off as Maple Nut meets Chocolate Almond Fudge, where one of these comes out surprisingly flavorful.
norm, can we do a sweet 16-esque bracket somehow? it would be cool to see how all lines up. that may be after you've done some additional research though.
Good idea Jake!
The only hitch would be that sometimes I go on longer rides and take 3 bars, though with these temps that's going to happen less frequently. But I don't have to make that part of the madness on those rare days. There are 18 bars so I could do a play-in for the bottom 2 spots. I say sure!
I have 7 bars that need to go through the Phase 1 competition yet. So when I get the initial 18 seedings down I'll post them and go from there.
Have you thought you might be, well maybe just a little, kind of a tad....
obsessive-compulsive?
I could make you a nice hydraulic punch and die to cut them into precise portions.
Oh yeah, watch out for the Chinese Clif knock-offs, they use asbestos and goat dung as filler.
obsessive-compulsive?
I could make you a nice hydraulic punch and die to cut them into precise portions.
Oh yeah, watch out for the Chinese Clif knock-offs, they use asbestos and goat dung as filler.
You are just feeding(ok pun intended) his insanity
Yes, obviously there's a problem of some sort over here. Embracing it is a first step.
Actually this is just another tool motivating me to go out and ride more. I have the time to do it, but I also have an excuse with the cold weather. This helps wipe out the excuse portion of it.
Now about that die cut...first I'd need a press, because sometimes they're lopsided on one edge, so it may be more like a 25-55 calorie split which would really screw up my lineat calorie consumption.
ArmyOfNone
Well-Known Member
This is LOL funny! This should be in the times, "the cliff bar chronicles" if it keeps you motivated, its possible I could be looking more forward to your rides than mine! 
Sweet! I'm in a unique position with work right now. I can get up early (like today), do what I need to do for the day, then take off for a ride. When I come home things are often starting to heat up with work then the afternoon is busier. If not, I can work on automating errors and incompetent people out of the system which just makes the next day easier. I also watch for emails/errors in the evening.
Having said that my work PC is not accepting my remote desktop connection so I'll have to wait for someone to come in and reboot it. So once the sun comes up this morning I'll take off for an early ride today and take notes on round 6.
Having said that my work PC is not accepting my remote desktop connection so I'll have to wait for someone to come in and reboot it. So once the sun comes up this morning I'll take off for an early ride today and take notes on round 6.
Norm, if you aren't a sales person for clif bar, you should start. For some reason I never bought any of the clif bars aside from the Clif Bar MOJO. I was in target today and I picked up 5 or 6, some choc peanutbutter crunch, blueberry something and one other. I actually can't wait to try one!
That's funny stuff man. I'll say this, almost every one of them tastes better after at least an hour. I hope you like them!
this is really entertaining stuff.
if you are going to have a winner - you gotta have a worst-of award too... something like the "Clearly Lousy Inadequate Filth" bar.
if you are going to have a winner - you gotta have a worst-of award too... something like the "Clearly Lousy Inadequate Filth" bar.
Absolutely will do that. Currently the Commode Spot is being held by Chocolate Brownie. In my experience, the only thing that tastes good with chocolate in it...is real chocolate. Chocolate Endurox, chocolate whey, chocolate Clif bars - they're all "not chocolate". It's like the George Carlin line about "New York Style" delis. That means, "not New York!"
How about a clif shot blok test too
Sure. You want to fund it?
kush
Active Member
Norm,
I had a brief love affair with Clif Bar several months back, alas only to drift apart some time later.
It wasn't Clif Bar's fault, nor mine, we just had different interests, and the chocolate / peanut butter taste ride after ride just wore thin on me.
Now that you have posted this sumptuous editorial, it really opened up my eyes to a whole new cadre of flavors and colors.
Because of you, I've started flirting with a carrot cake, and have to say its a whole new ball game! Everything tastes just a little bit better, my energy levels are up, as is my endurance where it counts...
Thanks Norm.
Clifless in New Jersey
I had a brief love affair with Clif Bar several months back, alas only to drift apart some time later.
It wasn't Clif Bar's fault, nor mine, we just had different interests, and the chocolate / peanut butter taste ride after ride just wore thin on me.
Now that you have posted this sumptuous editorial, it really opened up my eyes to a whole new cadre of flavors and colors.
Because of you, I've started flirting with a carrot cake, and have to say its a whole new ball game! Everything tastes just a little bit better, my energy levels are up, as is my endurance where it counts...
Thanks Norm.
Clifless in New Jersey
Mare
Well-Known Member
Not acid reflux...they're not gluten-free
I am not going to read all of the posts in the this thread, so I have no idea if anyone already mentioned this, but Tim - how about Lara Bars? Have you tried them? They are good and very minimal ingredients (no gluten!).
Edit: Read a bit of the posts. Sorry for bringing up LB in a CB thread - so sacrilegious of me.
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Round 4
November 22 (3 hours, 42 miles)
On the Place Your Bets ride, also my birthday, I made sure to bring on Round 4 of the challenge.
Again today, I pitted 2 unranked opponents against each other:
Unranked: Maple Nut
Unranked: Chocolate Almond Fudge
I don't know what made me pick these 2, other than the need to try new flavors. Going in I had no expectations, and my only hope was that the Chocolate Almond Fudge wouldn't suck as much as the Chocolate Brownie.
If I'm keeping with a boxing metaphor I say this one was like a Tyson fight, and not in the stage of his career when he was biting off various body appendages of his opponents. The first bite was Maple Nut, and it came out swinging. And connecting. Often times early in the ride these bars are ok, not bad, not great. The Maple Nut was surprisingly tasty from the door.
On the other hand, the Chocolate Almond Fudge was lackluster, nothing more than a local junk fighter that shows up every Friday to collect a paycheck. The taste hinted of coconut, a
flavor I'm not so keen on. It wasn't terrible, just not my first (or second or third or you get the picture) choice.
As I wound through my Odyssey of cold roads, each got better in taste as the ride went on. This is normal, and at this point I suspect these flavors are highly tuned to appeal to people both on and off the bike, an art that sounds a lot easier than it is.
In the end the Maple Nut simply outclassed the Chocolate Almond Fudge. The Chocolate Almond Fudge held up well enough to the demands of the cold ride, but the Maple Nut was far and away the better bar here. So this goes down as:
1. Maple Nut
2. Chocolate Almond Fudge
And in the seedings, Maple Nut jumps into the top 5 and the Chocolate Almond Fudge drops into one of the bottom slots.
Next up in Round 5, the middling Blueberry Crisp takes on an unranked Spiced Pumpkin Pie
November 22 (3 hours, 42 miles)
On the Place Your Bets ride, also my birthday, I made sure to bring on Round 4 of the challenge.
Again today, I pitted 2 unranked opponents against each other:
Unranked: Maple Nut
Unranked: Chocolate Almond Fudge
I don't know what made me pick these 2, other than the need to try new flavors. Going in I had no expectations, and my only hope was that the Chocolate Almond Fudge wouldn't suck as much as the Chocolate Brownie.
If I'm keeping with a boxing metaphor I say this one was like a Tyson fight, and not in the stage of his career when he was biting off various body appendages of his opponents. The first bite was Maple Nut, and it came out swinging. And connecting. Often times early in the ride these bars are ok, not bad, not great. The Maple Nut was surprisingly tasty from the door.
On the other hand, the Chocolate Almond Fudge was lackluster, nothing more than a local junk fighter that shows up every Friday to collect a paycheck. The taste hinted of coconut, a
flavor I'm not so keen on. It wasn't terrible, just not my first (or second or third or you get the picture) choice.
As I wound through my Odyssey of cold roads, each got better in taste as the ride went on. This is normal, and at this point I suspect these flavors are highly tuned to appeal to people both on and off the bike, an art that sounds a lot easier than it is.
In the end the Maple Nut simply outclassed the Chocolate Almond Fudge. The Chocolate Almond Fudge held up well enough to the demands of the cold ride, but the Maple Nut was far and away the better bar here. So this goes down as:
1. Maple Nut
2. Chocolate Almond Fudge
And in the seedings, Maple Nut jumps into the top 5 and the Chocolate Almond Fudge drops into one of the bottom slots.
Next up in Round 5, the middling Blueberry Crisp takes on an unranked Spiced Pumpkin Pie
Blueberry crisp against pumpkin pie? Pumpkin pie is a flasj in the pan. Blueberry brings it.
