Originally Posted by pdlamb

It's probably too late for this year, but a study series I'd like to see is a comprehensive study of riders participating in late summer or fall century rides. Get a look at their training diaries, or just riding diaries. Record age, height, weight, bike style, heck, even tire pressure. Offer blood tests to all riders the week of the ride (night before registration, morning of the ride sign in, etc.), and follow-up checks at the after-ride meal. Muscle biopsies might be ideal, but no, I'm not interested in that. Have the grad students at each SAG stop recording rider numbers, what they eat and drink, with a field for "brought their own" pills, drink mixes, or whatever. Then do a monster statistical exercise of who cramps, when, what solved the cramping, etc. Repeat at 3-4 events across the country, so you get a cross-section of how riders respond to "hot weather of 80F" or "kinda cool, only 87F" or "over 100F in the afternoon, warm but it was a dry heat."

Why bother? Well, every "study" I've seen is flawed as far as "extreme" (usually meaning more than 10 miles) riding. Either the samples are skewed to 20 college kids, or 25 pro or semi-pro athletes, often not even cyclists. Show me an existing study, and I can usually find a good reason to put "N/A" beside it if I were writing a review. A comprehensive study of a 300-500 rider event should make it possible to weed out some of the nonsense that flies around.