Riding in Heat

[hippymtnbkr]

It's been pretty hot here the past couple of days. 97 today. Ive been riding twice this week compared to my usual 5 days. Last nite I quit early because of a weird stomach ache. What are the precautions for riding in the heat. If you take it slow and stop every now and then, are you still getting a workout?

[RepublicanSS]

i make sure i hydrate during the day and the day prior to my ride.

i generally use plain water on the rides, the other drinks don't work well for me on the bike. if we stop by a store i may purchase a gatorade. i use gu and water.

as soon as i'm done i begin hydrating too.

being from fl you get used to the heat.

[RickB]

It's been pretty hot here the past couple of days. 97 today. Ive been riding twice this week compared to my usual 5 days. Last nite I quit early because of a weird stomach ache. What are the precautions for riding in the heat. If you take it slow and stop every now and then, are you still getting a workout?

Be hydrated to start, wear a wicking fabric, maybe use an electrolyte supplement (e.g. Endurolytes), keep drinking non stop. Also, I find it helps to "pre-sweat" - douse your head with cool water before you put on your helmet. That way you don't overheat before your body starts to cool itself. If you feel like crap, by all means slow down!

[mimbresman]

Riding in New Mexico and now Venezuela, I've learned a thing or two about riding in the heat.

I try to ride when it is cooler if possible. Early morning rides or later in the afternoon. Avoid mid-day. Common sense stuff.

Lots of water. I take two large waterbottles minimum on any ride. (I don't usually don't use a Camelbak just as a personal choice.) My weekend rides are usually as long as the water holds out (generally 1 1/2 to 2 hours). Sometimes I'll ride to a kiosk or store and buy bottled water to refill so I can keep riding.

Drink often.

Post ride: Rehydrate. I'll often stop and get a 600 ml Gatoraid and slam it down before getting home. At home its more water.

At home, a cool shower helps cool down the body core temp.

[cMc]

Sunscreen. Lotsa sunscreen. And a visor on your helmet.

Gatorade is crap. Highfructosecornsyrup crap. Try Hammer HEED instead; it's very light, tasty and refreshing even when it's friggin hot.

Keep it in a low gear and spin on the climbs, rather than stomping a big ratio (or riding a singlespeed). Keep moving and watch your heart rate (figuratively, I don't use an HRM), and you'll be fine.

[hippymtnbkr]

Riding in New Mexico and now Venezuela, I've learned a thing or two about riding in the heat.

I try to ride when it is cooler if possible. Early morning rides or later in the afternoon. Avoid mid-day. Common sense stuff.

Lots of water. I take two large waterbottles minimum on any ride. (I don't usually don't use a Camelbak just as a personal choice.) My weekend rides are usually as long as the water holds out (generally 1 1/2 to 2 hours). Sometimes I'll ride to a kiosk or store and buy bottled water to refill so I can keep riding.

Drink often.

Post ride: Rehydrate. I'll often stop and get a 600 ml Gatoraid and slam it down before getting home. At home its more water.

At home, a cool shower helps cool down the body core temp.The place where I ride is on the way home from work. I get off at 2:30 pm, so it's fairly warm by then. With the price of gas, it's kinda hard to drive back 10 miles to the trail. There's this trail about 4 miles from me that's built on an old landfill. But it's a city park and nobody takes care of it. It's a hatching ground for ticks and snakes. You want to learn about tick removal, ride there. The funny thing is, the trail is right next to the Parks an Recreation maintenance headquarters. They could pull in a lawn mower and do a cut in 1/2 an hour. You see more maintenance workers at the soccer fields on girls soccer night;)

[myron]

a large coffee and a 1 liter diet pepsi pre-ride works for me. I usually carry a 20oz. bottle of water in the cage for good measure also.

oath!!

[(P.)]

Don't forget a breakfast burrito

[mimbresman]

Sunscreen is excellent advice.

A lot of guys here ride with arm-warmers or long sleeve jerseys to keep the sun off. The equatorial sun is intense here.

A friend who lives north of Phoenix uses Railriders (http://www.railriders.com/) clothing to keep the sun off. Its good stuff. I have a couple of shirts and recommended it to him.

As for Gatorade, I live in a 3rd world country. I am lucky to find it sometimes...or milk. No way am I going to find some high tech sports drink! :p

[longhaultruker2]

since ya can't stress hydration enuff....drink more than you think you need,and if yer not having to stop and pee very often,yer a little dehydrated (also notice the color of yer pee,yellow's bad).and definately wear the wicking stuff!

[S. cerevisiae]

A note of caution: One needs to intake some electrolytes at some point on rides > 1.5 hours. Drinking nothing but water and sweating as much as one sweats in high heat can lead to hyponatremia, not having enough electrolytes left over after profuse sweating and physical exertion.

The condition is difficult to self-diagnose and is often fatal without treatment (administration of electrolyte solution).

Admittedly it takes huge efforts and extended periods of activity, but it's more common than one thinks. Happens to some marathoner in almost every race.

[longhaultruker2]

A note of caution: One needs to intake some electrolytes at some point on rides > 1.5 hours. Drinking nothing but water and sweating as much as one sweats in high heat can lead to hyponatremia, not having enough electrolytes left over after profuse sweating and physical exertion.

The condition is difficult to self-diagnose and is often fatal without treatment (administration of electrolyte solution).

Admittedly it takes huge efforts and extended periods of activity, but it's more common than one thinks. Happens to some marathoner in almost every race.


that's a very good point!thanx:)

[K-Man]

When I lived in Phoenix, I learned about swamp coolers (http://www.wonderquest.com/swamp-coolers.htm). A lot of homes out there had them. Here's how to make a portable swamp cooler for bike riding:

Required Materials:
Cotton T-shirt in your size
20 oz. Water Bottle
40 oz. of water

Assembly Instructions:
1. Put on the cotton T-shirt.
2. Fill bottle with 20 oz. of water.
3. Douse T-shirt with water from the bottle.
4. Refill water bottle, and put it in bike's bottle cage.
5. Start riding.
6. When shirt dries out, repeat step #3.

There you have it.

[Zinger]

K-Man knoweth of which he speak when he sayth "ride like you're in a wet T-shirt contest." I'll add that a cotton tank top is good too, and the looser the better. A wet, flapping tank can get air on your skin and on two sides of cloth for a 3x cooling effect. I've had bad experiences with wicking fabrics in the local extreme heat and humidity. They don't cling-and-conduct like wet cotton will. Instead, they seem to stay dry and comfy and provide a thin layer of insulation, which is exactly what you don't want. Works especially well when road biking, though roadies will frown and make comments.

CMC's right about gatoraid -- mostly. The gunk they sell in plastic bottles at the corner mini-mart is crap, but granular mix is the original stuff and I use it to good effect. Mixed a little weaker than half the reccomended strength gives the trickle of electrolytes you need. But whatever sports drink works for you. Just try to avoid the corn syrup based stuff.

Sunscreen: yeah, don't leave home without it, especially if you're wearing a tank. Oddly, the "Sports/Waterproof" screen is counterproductive, because sweat just beads and runs off. I've come in with my shoes sloshing from this. Just go with the regular in about #30 and your skin will be good for a few hours -- maybe longer than you'll be good with the heat. As long as the sunscreen can let sweat soak through, your cooling system will keep working.

But I still use full-finger gloves, even in August in the Mississippi swamps. Got to keep that little bit of protection.

[dirtworshipper]

Try Hammer HEED instead; it's very light, tasty and refreshing even when it's friggin hot.


I second the vote for Hammer HEED. For me it's the easiest stuff out there to put down when you're working hard. It's a little pricey compared to gatorade, but cheap per serving compared to energy bars (which you don't need if you're drinking an energy drink). It's got a really mild taste, kind of like really watered down gatorade, which I think is a good thing.

Main problem w/ HEED is you can't buy it at the grocery store. But check this out-- you can make a pretty similar drink by squeezing a couple Gu or Power Bar Gels into your water bottle & shaking them around. It should be better for you than Gatorade, and you don't have to deal with taking a break to get the gel out of your backpack.



If you take it slow and stop every now and then, are you still getting a workout?

stopping to take breaks still gives you a fine workout. In most cases it's the intensity, rather than the duration, that gets you the benefits from your workout (assuming you have a decent "base" of training built up, which isn't going to be an issue since it sounds like you've been riding 5 days a week consistently...) If you want to build muscle or cardio fitness, try to get some hard riding in for a few minutes at a time, then ride easy or take breaks to cool off.

A lot of the time when it's too hot for the trail I do like half hour workouts on the road w/ basically 5 minutes of hard riding... 10 min warmup, 10 minutes of intervals (one minute sprint, one minute trying to recover, repeat x5), 10 minute cooldown. By mountainbiking standards that's a tiny duration of effort (ride real easy for all but the 5 sprint minutes), but my experience (and a lot of exercise science research) points towards short hard efforts doing way more for you than long slow burns. Plus, that means you get some wind in your face to keep ya cool while you're working hard. Bonus: If you do the sprints uphill, you can turn around and get some breeze to cool off on the "easy" minutes (they're not easy, trying to catch your breath inbetween sprints is actually pretty miserable).