Is it legal to use caffeine in cycling

[ballyhara]

Caffeine pills are not banned, as long as I know, and neither is coffee. But personally, I'm not a fan of pills, all of them. So, in case of needing some buzz, I choose to stay on coffee side, and it's just coffee, not those super mixed drinks that make you feel like desperate. Careful with the use of those, they will give you a super high rate of heart beating and you can get a heart attack. I suggest you guys to drink 1-2 cups of coffee daily, for a caffeine supply, and stay away from all those modified ways to get it.

 

[Froze]

Caffeine pills are not banned, as long as I know, and neither is coffee. But personally, I'm not a fan of pills, all of them. So, in case of needing some buzz, I choose to stay on coffee side, and it's just coffee, not those super mixed drinks that make you feel like desperate. Careful with the use of those, they will give you a super high rate of heart beating and you can get a heart attack. I suggest you guys to drink 1-2 cups of coffee daily, for a caffeine supply, and stay away from all those modified ways to get it.

Right, I don't see the necessity of taking a pill when a shot of coffee will do the same thing for lot less money. In addition to that there is water in the coffee so you are putting a bit more water in you system, and there are health benefits in coffee that's not in the pill. Plus if you over do the caffeine pill your performance will actually suffer and "could" lead to a heart attack if your riding moderate to hard.

 

[ballyhara]

Right, I don't see the necessity of taking a pill when a shot of coffee will do the same thing for lot less money. In addition to that there is water in the coffee so you are putting a bit more water in you system, and there are health benefits in coffee that's not in the pill. Plus if you over do the caffeine pill your performance will actually suffer and "could" lead to a heart attack if your riding moderate to hard.

Exactly! I've seen some riders completely exhausted the next day after a good cycling, and they were having those caffeine boosters that are supposed to give you energy. Of course they do feel like that, they were exercising, were extremely hyper, and their muscles are suffering afterwards, and that includes heart muscles. No wonder how some athletes get caught by a heart issue.

 

[Froze]

Exactly! I've seen some riders completely exhausted the next day after a good cycling, and they were having those caffeine boosters that are supposed to give you energy. Of course they do feel like that, they were exercising, were extremely hyper, and their muscles are suffering afterwards, and that includes heart muscles. No wonder how some athletes get caught by a heart issue.

When I go for a long ride all I do for energy is to take a GU flask and fill it, not with GU or some other expensive junk, instead I fill it with black dark roasted (dark as less acid) espresso that I make at home by mixing 80% Arabica beans and 20% Robusta. Then I drink about an 1/4 ounce of it about an hour into the ride and another 1/4 an ounce every 20 minutes to a 1/2 hour after that, but I also drink a small 4 ounce cup of espresso about 1 hour before the long ride starts. I don't know how scientific what I'm doing is, it's just something I created from reading other sources, but it seems to help on long rides.

This is something I found on the internet today so I haven't tried it yet, but I will!

Best pre-ride: Double Espresso; 185mg caffeine, 6cal, 0.4g protein, 0.8g carbohydrate, 0.2g fat.

Best mid-ride: Medium Americano (with a splash of skimmed milk); 277mg caffeine, 18cal, 1.6g protein, 2.6g carbohydrate, 0.3g fat.

Best for recovery: Medium Mocha (with full fat milk); 75mg caffeine, 301cal, 10.7g protein, 57.4g carbohydrate, 11.3g fat. (Chocolate milk is very good for a recovery drink and it's cheaper than buying those bike boutique mixes and better for you, I'm also not sure about the caffeine being necessary for a recovery drink, I have to research that more, but I do know this, if you drink a recovery drink with that much caffeine in it and need to go to sleep in less than 6 hours you may have problems sleeping and sleep is very important for recovery.)

The only way caffeine works though is that you can't be a heavy coffee drinker because if you are your body will be immune to the effects of the caffeine. So if your the type that drinks a 24 ounce Starbucks 2 times a day then you need to stop if you want the caffeine to work while you ride; f course if you drink coffee for some medical reason you need to continue that of course. An easy way to tell if you drink too much coffee is to stop drinking it for a day and see what happens, if you get a headache and or feel foggy you're addicted to the caffeine and the caffeine will have no effect on your riding.

If you're not a competitive cyclist you don't need to spend a bunch of money on various witches brews sold by bike shops, all you need is a little caffeine to sustain you on a long ride, and some chocolate milk for recovery. I do use one bottle of Cytomax mix for on the bike hydration, but I weaken it about 50%, and I have one bottle of clear water; I use to use Gatorade even when I use to race but over the years Gatorade has put in more sugar to where now it's got too much sugar and isn't good for cycling sports.

 

[ballyhara]

When I go for a long ride all I do for energy is to take a GU flask and fill it, not with GU or some other expensive junk, instead I fill it with black dark roasted (dark as less acid) espresso that I make at home by mixing 80% Arabica beans and 20% Robusta. Then I drink about an 1/4 ounce of it about an hour into the ride and another 1/4 an ounce every 20 minutes to a 1/2 hour after that, but I also drink a small 4 ounce cup of espresso about 1 hour before the long ride starts. I don't know how scientific what I'm doing is, it's just something I created from reading other sources, but it seems to help on long rides.

This is something I found on the internet today so I haven't tried it yet, but I will!

Best pre-ride: Double Espresso; 185mg caffeine, 6cal, 0.4g protein, 0.8g carbohydrate, 0.2g fat.

Best mid-ride: Medium Americano (with a splash of skimmed milk); 277mg caffeine, 18cal, 1.6g protein, 2.6g carbohydrate, 0.3g fat.

Best for recovery: Medium Mocha (with full fat milk); 75mg caffeine, 301cal, 10.7g protein, 57.4g carbohydrate, 11.3g fat. (Chocolate milk is very good for a recovery drink and it's cheaper than buying those bike boutique mixes and better for you, I'm also not sure about the caffeine being necessary for a recovery drink, I have to research that more, but I do know this, if you drink a recovery drink with that much caffeine in it and need to go to sleep in less than 6 hours you may have problems sleeping and sleep is very important for recovery.)

The only way caffeine works though is that you can't be a heavy coffee drinker because if you are your body will be immune to the effects of the caffeine. So if your the type that drinks a 24 ounce Starbucks 2 times a day then you need to stop if you want the caffeine to work while you ride; f course if you drink coffee for some medical reason you need to continue that of course. An easy way to tell if you drink too much coffee is to stop drinking it for a day and see what happens, if you get a headache and or feel foggy you're addicted to the caffeine and the caffeine will have no effect on your riding.

If you're not a competitive cyclist you don't need to spend a bunch of money on various witches brews sold by bike shops, all you need is a little caffeine to sustain you on a long ride, and some chocolate milk for recovery. I do use one bottle of Cytomax mix for on the bike hydration, but I weaken it about 50%, and I have one bottle of clear water; I use to use Gatorade even when I use to race but over the years Gatorade has put in more sugar to where now it's got too much sugar and isn't good for cycling sports.

Wow! that's really good information. My cycling pack usually tend to do caffeine mixes with different types of coffee like you, but unfortunately there's not a wide variety available in my country. Definitively, I know for sure if you're a big coffee drinker, then you will need a high dose to fill up your caffeine booster limit.I will pass this mixes to my friends, and I know for sure they will appreciate it.

 

[Bartra228]

I do not think that because of a cup of coffee there can be problems.

 

[greatscott]

Exactly! I've seen some riders completely exhausted the next day after a good cycling, and they were having those caffeine boosters that are supposed to give you energy. Of course they do feel like that, they were exercising, were extremely hyper, and their muscles are suffering afterwards, and that includes heart muscles. No wonder how some athletes get caught by a heart issue.

I do know that since 2016 we've had 5 die due to heart attacks while racing, was that because of caffeine had them too pumped up? They will never tell us what caused the heart attacks, there are caffeine products on LBS shelves that they sell a lot of, and if controversy arose that those were creating a potential for heart attacks those sales would die somewhat, some riders simply don't care about the risk, all they want is to win no matter the potential cost.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I drink dark roast which has LESS caffeine than light or medium roast, so I think that helps govern the caffeine better. I know when I drink a full cup of light coffee I get a bit jittery, but not with medium or dark, so I don't want that much caffeine in my system when riding, all you need is a little bit spread out over a long period of time. The Robusta I use with a 20% into 80% Arabica is high in caffeine which is another reason I blend it with Arabica dark roast to blend the caffeine back down, plus real espresso is a 20/80 blend of those two anyways, and you can blend to taste, I just do the 20/80 because that's the way I like it best.

Another thing I learned recently, I use to drink a double shot of espresso about 15 minutes before I left the house, I now found out that's better to drink it about 30 to 45 minutes before leaving the house, not sure why, but supposedly it works better doing it that way.