eral capacities. Lowered blood flow also makes the heart
pump faster and you will reach exhaustion more quickly.
This may, in good conditions, ruin the pleasure of your
ride and you may have to stop earlier than planned. In
bad conditions this may cause stress levels to rise to a
point where a small problem can increase into a dangerous
situation. A situation you might be able to get out of
… if you don’t get cramps …
You have probably heard that drinking coffee and tea
cause dehydration but a recent study from the United
Kingdom suggest that this is not the case.
One of the study researchers, Dr Claire Ruxton says:
“Studies on caffeine have found that very high doses dehydrate,
and everyone assumes that caffeine-containing
beverages dehydrate. But even if you had a really, really
strong cup of tea or coffee, which is quite hard to make,
you would still have a net gain of fluid.”
May I add that tea contains even less caffeine. The
human body is very efficient extracting the water from
the liquids we consume. Also, based upon the same
research, the diuretic effect of caffeine decreases when
people become used to the caffeine.
Another common misconception is that soft drinks
also cause dehydration.
One reason would be that it contains caffeine which
would have a diuretic effect. Another explanation would
be the amount of sugar in soft drinks, and that your body
would use more water to burn this sugar than you gain
from the drink itself.
TRAVERSE