will be fresher and make fewer mistakes than a strung-out caffeine-reliant or pill popping rider
I can tell you that twelve and twenty four hours on aero bars looking through your eyebrows is not great for a neck that’s carrying a twenty-year whiplash injury.
I'd say that's a fair reason for some painkillers, no problem with that. When I say pill-popping it's just meaning someone reliant on supplements over a longer event where the ups and downs can't be handled otherwise. And I'd still not say it's cheating if it's a legal pill. Just a more tricky strategy. I couldn't TT for 24hrs but when I'm talking about long events I mean a week and more where management of sleep patterns and fatigue/rest cycles add up, that's where pills and stimulants might put you out of synch. All just more for the rider to balance up.
Having said all that, no-one wins the Trans-AM or TDR now on regular sleep patterns anyway, we're almost 10 years past that. It'd take ex-pro speed vs the current crop of fast amateurs to do that I think. You need a high av speed to have the luxury of 5hrs sleep every night vs someone who can do without the sleep for 35-45hr stints and repeat that pattern with only 6hrs sleep in between.
I know that I'm no good at riding without sleep but I don't need a lot, 90-120mins is probably enough. I rode through the night on the last day and a bit of the Highland Trail but the pace after being on the go for 20hrs was pitiful. There were also some weird hallucinations - Six weeks later I did the YD300 and at 200km grabbed what wasn't much more than a power nap, probably 90mins of sleep, and my pace for the remaining 100km was equal to the first 100km. 29hrs for 300km on the YD300 vs 31hrs for 270km on the HT.
At 10kmh that 90mins (plus about 30mins faffing) would mean that someone riding with me at the same pace who could manage sleep deprivation and didn't stop would be 20km ahead. Repeat over several days and you end up being a long way behind. In the case of the YD300 I'd have to ride at 12.5kmh to catch them up by the finish, i.e. 25% faster.
It would have been interesting to see Sofiane Sehili's strategy on the HT550 this year had it gone ahead given he did the Atlas Mountain Race without sleep in four days.
was citrulline malate mentioned in this thread, im sure i saw something about it earlier, now its gone,
something to do with caffiene, beta alanine and citrulline malate
My pal is a chemist so if I really wanted to cheat I think I could get hold some good stuff. Just asking to see what other people use out of interest as I'm nosey.
I can't see creatine really helping much in endurance events. It's for building muscle mass - you need to haul that round with you! Maybe in training.
My guess would be anything to combat fatigue or physical depletion from extended activity.
So things which keep you awake - amphetamines etc, maybe EPO or similar to maintain physiology.
Some kind of synthetic 'blood' to carry more oxygen to the muscles.
Maybe some kind of 'recovery' agents to promote quick healing at the end of each day.
Cannister of Oxygen perhaps?!
https://www.drugs.com/drug-classes.html
I did adventure racing for a job. We used paracetamol, ibuprofen, codeine and tramadol quite a lot. We had teams with us that used anti-narcolepsy drugs to stay awake. We used pro plus and a cup of tea !
