I’ve had good luck with Jet Alert off of Amazon. $6 for a bottle of 120 count 100mg pills, with Prime shipping even! I don’t drink coffee or soda, so this and the occasional tea are my main caffeine sources.
Any reason you are only looking at the 60-80mg range? A lot of research shows you need about 3mg/kg before seeing any benefit during exercise. I will take two (~3mg/kg for my 155lbs) for a workout I need a little help on, and three (~4mg/kg) for a race. Research shows significant benefits up to 5mg/kg usually, but then it’s a game of diminishing returns after that. Did my thesis on this, so can drag up old sources for anyone interested.
I fuelled my last workout with caffeine…except that I didn’t use caffeine pills, just brewed coffee.
Unfortunately, the coffee I drink at home has a low-ish caffeine content. I attempted to guzzle down 3 cups of coffee in an hour pre-ride (135mg), adding a couple caffeine-boosted gels (100mg) on top of that left me feeling really gross. Not good at all.
Thanks for the info! I was more interested in caffeine for everyday use, like after lunch at work when I get tired. I don’t drink coffee or soda, so I was looking for a relatively small dose just to give me a little pick-me-up. In the past I’ve taken Excedrin. It worked, but is definitely not healthy. I’ll check out the Jet Alert pills.
I usually do my rides in the morning and take a caffeinated SIS gel for the tougher ones. They are 75 mg, so I may up that a little for those tough VO2 max workouts.
My research was focused on the efficacy of a, at the time, novel off the shelf product providing 100mg of caffeine per dose, taken immediately prior to exercise (as directed). So I personally did not look into any of those questions, but there are certainly many others who have! A quick google scholar search on ‘caffeine ingestion timing’ will keep you busy for days (trust me, I’ve been there!).
As with any research a meta-analysis or review will give you the best bang for your buck.