Home > Other Fun Stuff > Training & Nutrition

Lucho Dillitos: all natural guava fuel of the Colombian greats

16 Comments
Support us! Bikerumor may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn More

lucho-dillitos-classic-bocadillo

If you haven’t heard of Colombian bocadillo, you’ve been missing out on one of the best tasting, most all-natural ways to stay fueled on the bike – pretty much just guava + sugar. But at the same time, maybe it’s best to not know about something when they’ve been relatively hard to come by if you don’t either a) live in a Colombia, or b) live somewhere in Spain where Colombian cyclists call home base for their European road campaigns. Well, that is starting to change with a new company called Lucho Dillitos, who are looking to bring the sweet-tasting guava paste blocks to cyclists around the world as a natural energy source, cheaper than most gels, and in a totally biodegradable packaging. The first bocadillos came to market in Hong Kong, then the UK, with more markets coming very soon…

Essentially these are just a more palatable natural fruit and sugar substitute to the overly engineered bars and gels that have begun to dominate the current sports nutrition segment. While many of the better on-the-bike-fuel companies have worked painstakingly to include more natural ingredients in their modern offerings, Lucho Dillitos is going back to the more simple with an international distribution of Colombia’s original energy bar. Still made in Colombia, the Lucho Dillitos bocadillo are solid blocks of guava paste (made of just two 100% natural ingredients: 85% Guava & 15% Sugar) that are dry to the touch, but just dissolve in your mouth.

lucho-dillitos-classic-bocadillo-box

The taste is sweet, but not overpowering, and they pack a good bit of naturally occurring vitamins, minerals, and carbs from the guava. The bocadillos come wrapped in a biodegradable leaf wrapping which means there is no plastic wrapper to keep track of on the bike. Just pull it out of your pocket, eat, and toss the leaf away.

They come in flat packs of 10, or in a box of 12 (or in bigger quantities if you are a shop who wants to retail them) and cost about £1.50 (<2€) per piece (depending on quantity) and have a 1 year shelf life with no added preservatives. They’re available direct for customers in Hong Kong or the UK now with reasonable shipping rates (anywhere else really too, if you want to pay postage.) But the big news is that they are coming to the EU and US via new distribution very soon as well. European sales and a new e-commerce website are expected around February 2017, with US sales expected next summer.

LuchoDillitos.co.ukLuchoDillitos.com

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

16 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Shawn Moore
Shawn Moore
7 years ago

In the 80’s, my Puerto Rican cycling coach was a member of the US Army Special Forces and went to Colombia a lot for drug interdiction rotations. One particularly long and difficult road ride, I was suffering mightily and he pulled out a “Colombian energy bar” from his pocket and handed it to me, telling me to eat all of it. My 17 year old brain was only mildly suspicious as the desire to avoid an epic bonk superseded the obvious question of what was in a Colombian energy bar in the 1980’s. This is exactly what he handed me that day! Tasted great and worked as promised!

evorgsumafrandon
7 years ago
Reply to  Shawn Moore

Was hoping you said it was cocaine and you set multiple PRs that day.

Carlos Rodriguez
Carlos Rodriguez
7 years ago
Reply to  Shawn Moore

Who was that coach? I curious…and also from Puerto Rico…

john smith
john smith
7 years ago

Great product but easily accessible for people who are curious and cook all their edibles, guava paste is like buying fruit rolls in the US. Same old school product on amazon for 13 $. Same fricking wraping. If you want you can also turn this into a bit more of an asian product by combining rice fine flour to the mix and turn everything into more energy with a bit more chew to it. Now watch scratch lab turn this into a 10$ cake mix.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mycolombiancocina.com%2Frecipes%2Fdesserts%2F250-bocadillo-de-guayaba&edit-text=&act=url

strange
strange
7 years ago

Love the packaging. The nutrition industry needs to take notes!

JBikes
JBikes
7 years ago

The packaging is great, but don’t think that the cumulative effect of tens or hundreds of riders a day on a given route, throwing away the leaf wrapper won’t add up. Plus many rides are done through private property or extremely sensitive environmental areas, some of which don’t have the moisture or soil structure to support fast degradation of what is surely a non-native leaf.

Save the wrapper in your pockets. Throw it away in the garbage, or better yet the compost bin.

Sorry for the rant, but the thought that just because something is stated as biodegradable you can just “toss it away” is absurd

strange
strange
7 years ago
Reply to  JBikes

The idea of a leaf not breaking down properly because it isn’t native is about as absurd as there ever being the issue of having these leaves piling up from cyclists throwing them during their ride.

If that were the case, popular cycling destinations would have already been destroyed by ever growing piles of non-native banana peels.

JBikes
JBikes
7 years ago
Reply to  strange

One example – In the desert, things don’t biodegrade very fast. So it’s not absurd. There is no excuse for not taking the trash with you. You came out with it, ate 90% and are now unable to ride back with the remaining 10% even to a trash bin?

Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean its not trash for someone else even for a short period of time. When I’m backpacking, other people think apple cores and banana peels are fine to throw anywhere, and yet I see them and it is an eyesore to an otherwise pristine area. They don’t biodegrade as fast as people think and it why you have “leave no trace” and “pack it in, pack it out” mantras. Biking should be no different.

John
John
7 years ago
Reply to  JBikes

You need to pick your battles man. You need to focus on the big picture.

pTymnWolfe
pTymnWolfe
7 years ago
Reply to  JBikes

I agree 100%. If you can pack it in, you can pack it out. Clean up after yourselves! No exceptions.

Loki
Loki
7 years ago

If I could post a photo I’d show what my street looks like in all its Fall glory – must’ve been the work of a 1000 Colombian cyclists who passed through and all ate their energy food in the same 100m…

Necromancer
7 years ago
Reply to  Loki

Damn trees, just tossing they’re leaves on the ground. Have some respect and properly dispose of them.

dG
dG
7 years ago

This is excellent, but guava pasta is not a treat indigenous to Colombia *only*. However Colombian pros being numerous, the association is natural. I’m Brazilian and we absolutely love our guava pastes, which come in myriad forms. The best combo on the bike is a mix of dry-ish cured cheese and a guava square, the ratio being 2×1 (5cm thick guava treat and 2.5cm cheese). it’s insanely delicious, very nutritious and will keep you going.

Joe G.
7 years ago

Just toss the trash in open car windows that have smoking cigarette butts magically fly out of them. That’s where Smokey the Bear said trash power bar wrappers should go.

traildog
traildog
7 years ago

On a bike tour i happened into a mexican grocery store in southside chicago and found some kind of guava sugar roll: a sheet of this kind of thing rolled up into a 4″ diameter cylinder. it was amazing and have never seen one since.

dubtap
dubtap
7 years ago

You can get these unbranded for a quarter the price in any grocery store in London with a south American food section.

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.