Coffee Is Cycling’s New Performance-Enhancing Drug

These days, cyclists are getting high on caffeine.

Competitive cycling is a true test of mental and physical stamina. The sport measures a rider’s endurance, in addition to his/her ability to manage the difficulty of a given course. Cycling pros build strength through daily hundred-mile rides, a conditioning regimen that takes a toll. Which is perhaps one reason why so many pros and former champions have taken a little something extra to gain a competitive edge, leading to a culture of substance abuse growing endemic beneath the colorful fabric of cycling kits. Before their superhuman feats were called into question, many riders and even winners of the pro-circuit doped with all manner of additives, at times ingesting astonishing drug cocktails far exceeding rational expectations of the human body.

Take, for instance, Pot Belge, a slurry of illicit substances comprised of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and a little caffeine for good measure injected directly into the bloodstream, effectively transforming the training riders into rats on a wheel. Disillusioned, die-hard cycling fans could only hope that the juicing would dry up, and eventually be written off as a bi-product of the superfluous excess which flourished in the 90s and early oughts. Then the Lance Armstrong fiasco happened, revealing the use of hormones and strategic blood transfusions. So, cycling, it seemed, had something of a drug problem.


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