The aim was to study effects on reaction time performance from participating in "Vätternrundan", a Swedish non-competetive bicycle race (300 km distance), which for most cyclist takes between 12 and 20 hours. The participants in the study were five women and five men, all reasonably prepared for the race. Since they all started the race in the evening, they were also subjected to the effects of sleep deprivation. After having completed the race, their performance was tested on a visual simple reaction time task of ten minutes' duration. They were tested on three occasions, 15 minutes after the race, 3 hours after, and finally, 6 hours after completion. The subjects acted as their own controls, with rotated order between own controls, with rotated order between the experimental and control conditions. Complete performance data was obtained for seven of the subjects. It was found that their average performance was impaired after the race. No recovery was noted at the later test session. (A)
Abstract