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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Argh..... should think before I write. Jaguar.
P.S. As a second generation Italian, I enjoy espresso, but the only way to drink it is hot. (I.e. preride) In general, I usually have enough adrenaline running through my system make a nuclear energy plant look like a prius.
A pre-commute stovetop is the usual start to the morning for me and changes the quality of the ride - the legs seem to spin faster for the duration and the cool air is sucked through the mouth like a supercharger. That's the drug for me. It's also a great communciation enhancer with mates at the cafe pre-ride
I would stat away from the Redbull, 5 hour energy shit. A dude necrosed his bladder after drinking 3 of those at once. That is not a good day. Stick to coffee, you'll puke before you OD.
I'm not with anyaya on this one. I fucking hate coffee. I don't need uppers, I need downers. And I think a drug is a drug is a drug. Caffeine fucks me up more than alcohol. I wish I could roll 2 beers deep at all times, it would allow me to shrug things off more. But, I can't.
*I'm all for cafe culture and having a drink with a pal, or the process of it. But some fat fuck driving to work Monday morning and guzzling down a Big Boy coffee while texting and putting their necktie on. Fuck them and fuck that.
Caffeine is used as a drug by most folks in the U.S. And, if you get a fucking drug break twice a workday, give me a Post Rider Recovery Drink break twice a workday.
Otherwise, I'm calling drug discrimination. Don't profile my drug(s) of choice.
@Ron A twice-daily Recovery Drink break would have me more worried about the calories than the caffeine.
I do agree there needs to be an element of caution. You can have too much caffeine and I'm not talking about WADA limits or long-term effects. It elevates heart rate and I know people who've been downing gels with caffeine in them and then suffered arrhythmia during a race.
Anyway, I tried the cold Turkish coffee thing this morning. Not bad - would probably work better with a bit more sugar as it is quite bitter normally and the coolness seemed to accentuate it.
It made the sediment completely settled so it was easy to down, although a little bit of sediment is part of the flavour of the thing.
Sounds like an addict attempting to find justification for their addiction. There is a reason it's not on the UCI banned substances list.... it does next to nothing, if anything in real terms.
As a Coach once told me (in reference to sups actually but applicable here); If it worked, it would be banned.
I don't put that shit in my body
I am going to keep my head down on this one because I know there are some very evangelical V-Barristas out there. Just to say:
1. Coffee - pre ride
2. Tea (malted recovery beverage only if the sun is over the yard arm) - post ride
If there are any performance enhancing properties to the caffeine, they have been firmly masked by less than perfect stroke!
So much hate for the beautiful drug called caffiene. Not sure how I would have gotten through grad school without it.