How cool is your drink on sportives?

phreak

I was reading about an Australian Institute of Sport experiment today where drinking an iced drink 30 minutes before an event ridden in hot conditions can see an improvement of a couple of percent. Over a 5hr sportive that could save you around 6 minutes, so no mean benefit.

I know a lot of you will be riding in Europe this coming summer where heat will play a big part so it might be something to consider.

ugo.santalucia

phreak wrote:

I was reading about an Australian Institute of Sport experiment today where drinking an iced drink 30 minutes before an event ridden in hot conditions can see an improvement of a couple of percent. Over a 5hr sportive that could save you around 6 minutes, so no mean benefit.

I know a lot of you will be riding in Europe this coming summer where heat will play a big part so it might be something to consider.

I am astounded by the amount of (taxpayers?) money wasted in completely pointless and stupid research... I thought that investigating the role of single women in the Victorian society was a pointless enough exercise... bit like a proper investigation in the gender of angels... :twisted:

phreak

Pointless in the 'duh that's obvious' sense?

SBezza

Not enough information in that link posted, but I would suspect it is only of use for short duration events, not a 5 hour event where no matter what you drank at the start you would be pretty well cooked still by an hour in if it is really hot. How will you keep your drinks iced during the 5 hours?

You could save 6 mins by not stopping at food points along the route, especially if it is a really busy sportive with alot of riders trying to get food and drink, though if it is hot you will need to get bottle top ups obviously.

ugo.santalucia

phreak wrote:

Pointless in the 'duh that's obvious' sense?

No, but being involved in research, I get a bit annoyed in seeing how money gets wasted in projects that have no obvious benefits for the society... there isn't much money for research around and it shouldn't be wasted on stupid investigations... but then again, maybe it's Lucozade or Coca Cola who pays, in which case it makes sense for them

phreak

SBezza wrote:

Not enough information in that link posted, but I would suspect it is only of use for short duration events, not a 5 hour event where no matter what you drank at the start you would be pretty well cooked still by an hour in if it is really hot. How will you keep your drinks iced during the 5 hours?

You could save 6 mins by not stopping at food points along the route, especially if it is a really busy sportive with alot of riders trying to get food and drink, though if it is hot you will need to get bottle top ups obviously.

Yes, that's true, unless you had people on the course to feed you cooled drinks. Still might give you an extra bit in a time trial for little extra effort. Marginal gains and all that.

phreak

ugo.santalucia wrote:

phreak wrote:

Pointless in the 'duh that's obvious' sense?

No, but being involved in research, I get a bit annoyed in seeing how money gets wasted in projects that have no obvious benefits for the society... there isn't much money for research around and it shouldn't be wasted on stupid investigations... but then again, maybe it's Lucozade or Coca Cola who pays, in which case it makes sense for them

As far as I can tell it was the AIS that paid. Surely you'd expect them to pay for research into possible improvements for athletes?

ugo.santalucia

phreak wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

phreak wrote:

Pointless in the 'duh that's obvious' sense?

No, but being involved in research, I get a bit annoyed in seeing how money gets wasted in projects that have no obvious benefits for the society... there isn't much money for research around and it shouldn't be wasted on stupid investigations... but then again, maybe it's Lucozade or Coca Cola who pays, in which case it makes sense for them

As far as I can tell it was the AIS that paid. Surely you'd expect them to pay for research into possible improvements for athletes?

No, that's the research institute that carried out the work, the funding either comes from private companies (rarely) or, more often, from government or supra-governmental (like the EU) sources. When you want to carry out a piece of research, you need to preprare a proposal to submit to a funding body... the chances of getting it funded vary between 5-25%, so for every piece of stupid work funded, there are other 3-19 that are neglected the funding... now, imagine how you would feel as a taxpayer if your money was neglected to a project on renewable energy or a vaccine for some disease and given instead to a project like this... :evil:

DrKJM

Whilst I understand and sympathise with you Ugo, as an ex researcher myself, unless things have changed radically funding doesn't work exactly like that. Budgets are set and you compete for a slice of budget allocated to your area. So realistically, work looking at sports performance isn't taking money directly away from medical work on disease. Of course, on a grander scale there is only so much cash around...

ugo.santalucia

DrKJM wrote:

Whilst I understand and sympathise with you Ugo, as an ex researcher myself, unless things have changed radically funding doesn't work exactly like that. Budgets are set and you compete for a slice of budget allocated to your area. So realistically, work looking at sports performance isn't taking money directly away from medical work on disease. Of course, on a grander scale there is only so much cash around...

That's correct, but the budget for this research will compete with more useful projects in sport related research i.e. research on ipoxia, which is also useful in medicine.
Other funding agencies do not allocate parts of the budget to specific areas and are keen to accept proposals of various nature

Philip Whiteman

DrKJM wrote:

Whilst I understand and sympathise with you Ugo, as an ex researcher myself, unless things have changed radically funding does not work exactly like that. Budgets are set and you compete for a slice of budget allocated to your area. So realistically, work looking at sports performance is not taking money directly away from medical work on disease. Of course, on a grander scale there is only so much cash around...

I am with you on this one DrKJM.

At the University of Birmingham, we have gained various research awards from private sector companies to undertake leading edge research on nutrition and sport. We are also regarded as the World's leading institute in such studies. I myself have been an experimental subject for understanding the gut and its abilities to absorb different proportions of sugars. Some of you will be aware that caffeine is used in sports drinks - well that was thoroughly researched in the laboratory - it is not as simple to suggest that 'of course caffeine works' well it does not. You have to consider other physiological and nutritional combinations before developing such drinks. Stuffing caffeine randomly into the body does not improve performance. Without thorough scientific research and evidence, we should not have assumed that cooled drinks improve performance.

As for a waste of taxpayer’s money as suggested elsewhere in this thread - well I am afraid that assertion is made from a point of little knowledge on how university research is funded. No tax payers money was used. Aside from the obvious commercial benefit to producers from R&D, the wider scientific community benefit from these non tax-payer funded researchers publishing their papers in 4* research journals. Their advancement in the science of sports nutrition and related discipline benefits sports people. So in short, I am not prepared to be closed minded on the issue of cooled drinks. Often the findings from this form of study benefit not just athletes but also people in other areas of activity, such as dietetics and improve the conditions for people suffering problems with eating disorders.

jgsi

and I thought that this thread was about the 'sportivista' parading about with Rapha bidons.

Garz

phreak wrote:

I know a lot of you will be riding in Europe this coming summer where heat will play a big part so it might be something to consider.

However for the rest of the UK north of Londinium the heat will not pose a problem...

Xommul

I doubt tax payers money went into the research, prolly was private company sponsorship so some drinks co culd stick it in an advert.

You do see tdf cyclists drinking from bottles stored in cool boxes with ice blocks.

Lowers your core temps i guess allowing you to work harder without sweating as much?? I dunno but in hot weather you gotta love a cold one, make mine a cider,

Teddy Westside

I always fill my bottles with Vodka Martini, shaken not stirred. I think that's pretty cool. 8) *


Oh, I see what you mean!

If it's a warm day, I sore my drink bottles in the fridge, either with the drinks made up or just with water inside to help cool them. If it's really hot, I put the (empty) bottles in the freezer (tops off) before filling them, making sure they are totally dry beforehand to reduce ice build up around the screw tops. But we don't get too many of those days this far north! I've got cheap (Lidl) insulated bottles which I use sometimes - usually one of those and one 800ml or 1000ml regular (SiS) bottle for longer hot rides.

Unless you've got team backup to replenish your bottles, the liquid's going to warm up anyway so the benefits may be minimal over time. but it' nice to have a cold drink to begin with if it's a hot day.



* For the benefit of the hard of humour and law enforcement types, I never actually drink and ride!

oldwelshman

Wow a 5 minute improvement in a tourist event ?