I’m not even talking about all the pseudo-asthmatics out there, vaping their way to better breathing. My breathing is just fine. It’s my little citron sized heart that is slowing me down. Is there a street-legal injection or vacuum pump for heart enlargement, or a trip to a doctor in the Congo that would transplant a badass Mandrill heart for me? That would have to improve my uphill sprint. The transplant shouldn’t be illegal; possibly unwise- but not illegal. I digress.
We can’t all do up a block of training on Tenerife so I rely on un caffé, an espresso. This is legal doping at its finest. One can do it in public. There is no shame attached to drinking an espresso with your teammates before a ride. Faema, a company that Eddy Merckx rode for is still in business, in the espresso business. It’s sort of like Amgen, a producer of EPO sponsoring the Tour of California. The UCI limit is 12 micrograms per ml in urine which is a lot of espresso, like ten of them. That much espresso would just make one a wild slavering beast (a mandrill for instance) who would burn very brightly and then be found trembling in a ditch when the lights went out. I’m sure there are some kermis racers who get all jacked on coffee and burn up the course. That might be the only way to actually dope with caffeine; a race that only lasts an hour and never slows down.
If I enjoy a pre-ride espresso, am I doping or am I just feeding my caffeine monkey (or mandrill) that rides on my back and needs to be serviced? It’s not effective doping if you dope every day of the year, just to get to nine AM, is it? My dose is just to get me back up to baseline functionality. I can’t even tolerate much caffeine in the middle of a long hot ride. After dosing mid-ride, I get a very uncomfortable hypo-glycemic out-of-body experience and my brain detaches. My brain and eyeballs floats above and I can see that poor suffering bastard down below, with the pre-adolescent sized heart, barely in control of his bike.
I will, on occasion, do a morning ride sans caffé. Some rides start too early in the morning for me to even think about brewing up and sometimes the ride’s terminus is a café so I hold off. It is never good. A long climb without coffee is much less fun than a long climb with a little caffeine pumping around the nervous system. That small does of caffeine makes the sweating, front wheel staring, and bartape chewing so much more fun and interesting. A jour sans (coffee) is no fun unless one is into a ride so exciting and exhausting (and that started before sunrise) that the lack of buzz is completely unnoticed. Espresso and climbing go well together. Is that why the Colombians are excellent climbers? Espresso and cycling are a good match, like cycling and beer. I’m not saying one needs to develop a coffee or drinking habit to be a cyclist. If you already have them, chapeau, here is a sport that embraces both, completely.
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@Owen spot on! A wonderful drink as is tea. Both should only be drunk in the style of the culture that adopted them and perfected the drinking of them.
Note that the image (what post here never gets the image dissected?) that Gianni used is not of some fantasy butterfly in latte waves of hearts. No, it's a working mans/womans drink with just the right amount of white and sugar in a sensible cup to drink hot and fast and then get on with the ride.
Lastly, the science allows that caffeine is a slight vaso expander and yes it is good to have a reasonable amount of caffeine before physical effort as it does get the blood going. After reasonable it does nothin except give you monkey mind (think the Dutch kind caffeinated!).
I'm a 3 mugs of filter brew a day so any pre-ride coffee is simply part of my daily intake. I don't think of it as performance enhancing, I don't think it even is. There's no doubt it increases alertness. Perhaps if my body was caffeine free and I would feel something different going on after 200mg but I still don't think that would be my performance being enhanced. My max HR (and subsequent training zones) is my max HR and caffeine would only serve to increase heart rate before I've even turned a pedal, it won't increase my max by the same amount. Nothing beats Proper Training.
It's simple. I like coffee (without milk and sugar) but not after 6pm as it does affect sleep which is detrimental to performance. Riding tired after a coffee may fight off the drowsiness but I'm in now way performance enhanced as inside I'm still a half shut knife, masked somewhat by caffeine. Stay away from the big caffeinated 'energy drinks' you're simply paying for all their marketing and event support budgets.
@Rob the style of the academic and or grad student is cheap, black, and by the potful. Cheap and black because when consuming such volumes one cannot afford Starbucks or half and half. Photos of my PhD coffee would not have been so pretty as above.
Speaking of energy drinks, I know for a fact that consumption of a regular Monster drink and a Twinkie will get one exactly 57 miles before being completely and utterly destroyed by the Man with the Hammer.
Energy drinks are a waste of money and taste like piss and sugar. Choose coffee (espresso or a good pour over), or, in a pinch, No-Doz tablets from the gas station.
I find 400mg about 30 mins before the ride works beautifully. It's been scientifically demonstrated to a moral certainty with no shadow of doubt that caffeine improves one's ability to oxidize stored food energy at aerobic levels of output. I know this because I am a Doctor of Philosophy. And it fucking works, at least for me. And, no, I don't crash deep in the ride as long as I keep fueling.
400 mg..... holy shit, that's the equivalent of two energy drinks or 7 cans of mountain dew.
Blimey, a keen cyclist with a website who enoys an espresso. Who'd of thunk it.
@Fausto Crapiz
Or, rather, two cups of strong coffee. People think energy drinks are high in caffeine. Most that I have seen do not have 200mg/can.
@PeakInTwoYears
Wait a second... Mountain Dew?