BREWING A BOOST

Coffee and cycling may be inextricably linked, but does the black stuff really improve our performance on the bike? Lexie Williamson investigates

Coffee culture is huge in cycling,” says Will Girling, head of nutrition at EF Education EasyPost. “Many of the team have their own Aeropress, and Rigoberto Urán even owns a coffee farm in Colombia and sometimes brings his own coffee along.” As professional athletes, every rider in the team hones the dose and timing of their caffeine hit to optimise its performance benefits by testing double espressos, gels and gum, with nutritionist Girling on hand for advice. But what about the rest of us?

With the caffeine content of supermarket-sold beans and cafe-bought flat whites varying enormously, and caffeine metabolism being different in each individual, it can be hard to know how to squeeze the best performance hit from the beloved bean. So let’s get stuck into all things caffeine and cycling.

First up, the performance-boosting effects of coffee. As cyclists, we’re familiar with the rejuvenating buzz that comes from the mid-ride coffee, bringing an energy spike and the sense we can push harder and suffer less. But is there hard evidence behind these sensations?

It turns out that there’s plenty of research on the ergogenic (performance-enhancing) effects of caffeine. A 2019 study investigated the effect of coffee ingestion on 5km cycling time trial performance. Thirty-eight participants (19 men and 19 women) ingested either coffee or a placebo. A third control group drank nothing.

The cyclists in the caffeine group improved their time trial times by a startling nine seconds (men) and six seconds (women) compared with the placebo and control groups, who showed no improvement.