Cycling & Alcohol
 

I like to drink a glass or two of wine every night, especially when I am tired from riding. It helps to get relaxed and feel better next day. I also heard that alcohol helps to get rid of lactic acid from muscles. On the other hand there are articles showing that alcohol has negative effect after workout, like http://www.nd.edu/~ucc/muscle.html

Are they drinking till they fall down or what?

I stopped drinking because it was relaxing me too much

Alcohol, and anything else don't mix...

Moderation, moderation, moderation.

drinking heavily before cycling helps you learn to 'roll with it' when you crash.

Curbs jump out of nowhere..

I disagree. Broiled salmon in a hollandaise sauce + a decent white wine mix pretty well.


I have to think this study is talking about A) drinking on your way out the gym door or B) passing out on some stranger's living room floor in a puddle of your own urine. A glass or two of wine isn't going to make your heart clog and your lungs like an 82-year-old smoker, and if it helps you relax, the mental benefits are more than worth it.

I agree. I take my drinks neat.

I just finished a glass of merlot a few minutes ago. Salud!

Not another Bode Miller! :)

Between MADD and the WCTU I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't have given weomen the vote.

Joe

Get a life! Are you a Carrie Nation Wannabe?

Pizza and Beer. Hmmmmm. Manna from heaven! And with bicycling; better yet!

Come ON, now!

Temperance and bicycling were once closely wedded in America, didn't cha know, I-Like-to-Bike? I think Carrrie Nation had a tall wheeler.

It was the early granolas, the American health movement -

back when people would teetotal, but could subscribe to a regimen of landalum laced tonics.

But bikes and the temperance movement were definetly kissing cousins. Not that I endorse any such nonsense.

Unfortunately, today adult bicyclists in the US are often associated (to the non cyclists) as masochistic pleasure seekers (i.e. pain-IS-gain training regimens/scorning of comfort or material assets) or aesthetes with a holier than thou mission to smite the lowlifes of car culture.

Naw, 100 years ago health nuts were aesthete, hair shirt wearing, flax seed eating, cold bath taking, fitness crazed wackos. Same thing, different century.

Seen The Road to Wellville with sir Anthony Hopkins as a Michigan health spa guru?
T Coragassen Boyle wrote the book, I believe...


But you're right, today's popular standard of 'bicycling' is unrealistically filled with the notion of uberspeed racing and fitness only pursuit.

I bought my first real bike with all the money I saved six months after I stopped drinking.

I'm trying to cut back to a bottle or two every night. Hasn't really hurt my cycling really...

Heh...

Jeez, man, life should be about pleasure, at least sometimes. Drinking a beer or a glass of wine or a scotch can be pleasurable.

It ain't all about getting fit.

Wine and beer have been found to have good health effects when used moderately. I saw it in Bicycling Magazine a few months ago, so it must be true. However, my beer gut betrays my love of excess, but do as I say, not as I do.

There's more harm in alcohol than good. That should be enough...

Mmmm.... Beer.

does this mean I shouldn't be drinking Shiner Bock during the cooldown spininng after a roller workout?

No. You see then it's a "recovery drink" with a finely tuned mix of carbohydrates and anti-oxidants.

remember that marathoner that was a health shill for miller beer, drink a beer a mile for the entire marathon? I had his little book about the benefits of beer and training back in the 70's-80's marathon craze.

pretty inspiring reading...

a few beers is alright, but 24 beers in 3 hours is a little overboard for racing. I can't imagine a marathoner would be anything but drunk by the end of that race.