William Blake (1757-1827), A Squatted Devil with Young Horns, ca. 1810.
Driving at speed in your insulated box Feeling the pressure of time, your obsession with clocks Now who are these people who get in your way? It’s those lyrca-clad pedalers out for the day.
Why do they wobble so, in and out? What are they pointing at, and why do they shout? They should stay in the gutter, where they belong The road is for you, the fast, the strong.
Let’s get even closer, let’s watch them run Much less than one metre is much more fun Press hard on that horn and watch them start Then laugh out loud, as their group falls apart.Continue reading →
I’m really not out for an ego ride Till I have the measure of who’s by my side And then I’ll slowly press the pace Lead them into a tacit race
I’m struggling up this hill for now
But when I get to that far off brow
I’ll put my head down, get back in front
That will show I lead this hunt
But wait, wait, I’ve got it wrong I didn’t think they were this strong Perhaps round that corner the road is flatter But there again, why should it matter There is no reason I should lose face There is absolutely no disgrace After all I have nothing to hide I’m really not out for an ego ride.
N.B. Read in conjunction with ‘Espresso Delivery‘
(VeloScience, 5 February 2015).
In every coffee bean Lies a variable dose of caffeine Which blocks your adenosine Thus raising your catecholamine.
With adenosine you can’t tell But it’s present in every cell It chills things down, makes you less aroused You feel its effects whenever you’ve drowsed.
Catecholamines are for fight or flight But they can make you feel real uptight Adrenaline is one, that makes you act From every day frights we know this fact.
With caffeine our cerebral vessels constrict But you will still feel that you have it licked In fact you may feel deceptively fitter It affects more than one neurotransmitter.
Time to exhaustion can improve by a large amount Nearly 15 percent by the last count Sprinters and weightlifters need not apply Slow twitchers is where the advantages lie.
As potassium falls within the cell It rises in the blood which rings the bell That muscle fatigue has just got pending And lest you stop it will force an ending.
But caffeine improves the cell pump So your electrolytes don’t get the hump Thus blood potassium it decreases And all muscle cell activity it increases.
Heart muscle should always respond to action But caffeine ups its force of contraction And when it comes to your heart’s rate Like blood pressure, caffeine can it elevate.
There’s debate about caffeine’s role with fat Stimulating energy expenditure from that But fat oxidation is more likely with endurance Fast twitch muscle activity provides no such assurance.
And your need to pee may make you strained Because sodium and water are less retained But with time your body may adjust So that this becomes much less of a must.
In theory caffeine could your airways dilate So that your lungs can better inflate But for that the dose would need to be high And so for that effect let’s not try
So caffeine is a powerful drug That you put daily into your coffee mug It’s a psychoactive in a common bean With some of the effects of amphetamine.
