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Side effects were mentioned. But did not make clear you will feel so sick if you knock back 8mg if you have no history with nicotine. So so sick. Lay down in the grass sick.
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If you get a blood test to get health insurance or life insurance or a health benefits thing with your health insurance, the presence of nicotine will flag you as a smoker. This happened to me when I tried nicotine as an experiment via ON pouches available at 7-11 etc.
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+1 to this. The podcast mentioned that a single cigarette contains ~10 mg of nicotine, which is about correct, but a person that smokes a cigarette only absorbs ~1 - 1.5mg of that. 8mg is a huge dose (about 6-8 cigarettes) and would be very unpleasant for someone, especially a non-nicotine user.
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I’m super early into the Pod, but isn’t Nicotine the highly addictive component of cigarettes?
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Posting this here because I can’t find any official podcast announcement and I’m hoping the TR folks will see this thread…there’s something wrong with the YouTube video. The video is jumpy and the voice and picture are not in sync.
I saw the title of this week’s podcast and think I’m going to skip it. It is probably just me… but ingesting pills of caffeine, salt, Tylenol (which seems to be discussed a lot lately) just feels icky to me. I know it’s legal and people can do whatever but it just doesn’t sit right with me popping pills to boost performance (even legal ones).
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@Jonathan and Sarah, I have a minor piece of feedback on the podcast.
I feel like there was a lack of a starting point here with regards what nicotine is and what effects it has on the body. I’m 10 minutes in and there’s only been fleeting mention of what it does.
That’s just my 2c on discussing anything like this.
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When I was doing longer events…like 12hr to 24hr events…there were definitely a subset of riders that were proponents of nicotine use. This would have been in the 2016 to 2020 time frame. None of them ever finished in front of me at an event.
I don’t think nicotine is ergogenic. So the risk is you pick up an addiction for no good reason. 
But, GOOD NEWS! Once you’re addicted you’ll probably swear that nicotine is the greatest thing ever…so you’ll never know.
Man, people get into this marginal gains mindset and completely lose the forest for the trees.
Let’s abuse drugs (being legal doesn’t make it not dumb), cut off circulation, or whatever the dumb du jour is, to possibly have a very slight performance “edge”. Don’t worry about any unintended consequences, being maybe faster by 10W is going to make or break my racing, not perfecting doing the fundamentals. And who cares about health anyways?
I stopped listening to the podcast years ago but I’m going to have to give this episode a listen because if TR really suggest using nicotine for performance then they’ve just guaranteed I’ll never give them another dollar.
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Jonathan pretty clearly states the known risks far outweigh any potential benefits.
It was a literature review, not an endorsement. It’s being studied for whatever reason, they covered the literature. That’s it
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Marginal gains pod is more.your cup of tea then (spoiler, no nicotine! 
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I would then to agree with the above statements… many other things to focus on but then again this also with garner plenty of attention. Interesting to know, but a grey area I would never dabble with.
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Kinda wishy washy… everyone (myself included) complain that the pod is the same thing over and over… they cover something off the beaten path and controversial, heads explode!
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That’s the nicotine.
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I agree. I’m just disappointed that the video is pretty much unwatchable.
Had anyone even heard of using nicotine as a performance enhancer prior to this podcast?
This whole topic seems like it never should have been discussed. Besides being addictive, nicotine is a poison
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I really enjoyed the episode and thought the disclaimer was adequate. Now my problem is I’ve got a VO2 max workout later and can’t find the pack of American Spirits I picked up earlier.
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Anyone know if you can chew nicotine and caffeine gum at the same time? While slogging 100 grams an hour of carbs.
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I really only think it is feasible if you chug sodium bicarb prior…
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Like Brennus mentioned above, I’ve also been hearing about nicotine use for athletic and mental performance from at least this period. Usually from podcasts like Ben Greenfield’s, but I don’t listen to those people anymore.
Having now listened to the podcast, IMO they did do an adequate (not great) job of stressing that nicotine isn’t worth using. But I was still a bit disappointed that it was more looked at as not being good enough gains to justify the risks.
IMO it should have been stressed that it’s a dumb thing to do, regardless of potential gains and legality (both US law and UCI/WADA).
With that logic, if cocaine happened to be legal, would TR be discussing studies of it showing performance benefits, which it does indeed have? Before today I would say no. Now I’m not so sure.
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I used to smoke cigarettes and the nicotine 2mg lozenges helped me get off of smoking. It was a bad habit but I’m glad I don’t smoke anymore. It’s been about 10 years since I’ve smoked a cigarette.
I haven’t used them for performance, but have heard of “marginal” gains by Ben Greenfield. That guy tries all sorts of things for “science”, can’t remember what he said it helps with.
I think it would help with sleepiness on long rides/events… I wouldn’t suggest someone to use it if they’ve never used nicotine before. Reminds me the first time I packed a lip ( chewing tobacco) back in high school and threw up!
Imagine JV and Sepp at the tour doing this 
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