General Cycling Discussion - What does it take to be cold when it's warm out?

If anybody has an answer to this I would really appreciate it. Sometimes I can't even keep my water from getting hot. The only thing I can think of that has shown any signs of helping is becoming a totally boring rider and doing nothing that might increase one's heart rate even the slightest. This is not my favourite way of riding. :cry:

Chris......I sympathise with you if the temp`s are any where like they were describing while I was viewing the cricket highlights (Melbourne?) 44 centigrade, woooo, I don`t even have my oven that high for cooking :D .

Guess if I was cycling in those heats I would stay near water so I could plunge in, every few minutes, But I suppose the shallows of the Sea and the rivers are really heated up in those degrees.

A cool Lager must go down pretty well after riding in that.

Being cold blooded so you can acclimate to the temperature changes helps a lot.

Suggestions:

1.) Ride very early or very late.

2.) Fill your water bottles with coffee or hotbuttered rum.

3.) Enjoy the heat while we freeze our ding-a-lings off up here.

Originally posted by 1oldRoadie
Suggestions:
2.) Fill your water bottles with coffee or hotbuttered rum.

Don't know about the coffee, but alcoholic beverages will elevate you body temperature significantly. Of course, I guess maybe most of the alcohol would evaporate from hotbuttered rum...

The old beer ads that showed guys grabbing an ice-cold brew to cool off while they were working at manly things in the sun were great for a laugh -- those ads probably kept the paramedics plenty busy at some amateur sporting events, too!

John

:) I have seen race-car drivers place ice packs in their racing suits.I have not tried it myself, But it seems to work for them.

Have you thought about trying another continent? (Preferably in the northern hemisphere). :D

Originally posted by Gojohnnygo.
:) I have seen race-car drivers place ice packs in their racing suits.I have not tried it myself, But it seems to work for them. They also try to place the ice packs over their hearts as to use it like some sort of radiator to cool the blood.

Dang! I'm gonna remind you of this post in about 6 months. It's 27 degrees F here right now, that's like - (neg) something C. I can't wait until it's warmer here! I had a big ride planned and ended up staying around the house all weekend instead... :rolleyes:

Originally posted by MikeOK
Dang! I'm gonna remind you of this post in about 6 months. It's 27 degrees F here right now, that's like - (neg) something C. I can't wait until it's warmer here! I had a big ride planned and ended up staying around the house all weekend instead... :rolleyes:

27 is warm compared to 0:D

WINTER!! Like the one up here!:p

Originally posted by MikeOK
Dang! I'm gonna remind you of this post in about 6 months. It's 27 degrees F here right now, that's like - (neg) something C. I can't wait until it's warmer here!

To give you an indication of what I'm talking about, the coldest temperature ever recorded on the Gold Coast was 1 C. The coldest I've ridden in was -4 C. I don't even know what it's like to ride in conditions like you describe! :eek:

My own personal comfort level is about 40F (4C). I will ride when it's a little colder, but I prefer 100F to below that. It feels good to get up a big sweat when it's hot, and you don't have to worry about sweating up your layers and/or removing layers as you warm up. Give me heat any day!

riding early (or late) is your best bet, and you can see some pretty amazing sunrises that way. During the summer months, I like to get rolling at the latest by 6 am, and by the time it starts to get too warm your ride is about over.

As for keeping water cool, I will normally freeze one bottle fully and the other half frozen with half water, so one melts while I have a cool drink :)

my only other tip is to drink lots of water, sometimes I would plan to stop at a park or some place where I could replenish my water supply, because there have been times when I finished two 24 oz bottles in a 20 mile ride... hot!

Evaporating water is a great cooler. Pour water over yourself and wrap your water bottles in damp terry towel.

I havent been riding in the cold but my son has been commuting 12 km and one day this past week it was -27C with strong winds. He has been wearing long johns under his regular winter bike wear, and has snowmobile gloves. He says his hands dont get so cold when he is on the aero bars because there is no weoght bearing on his hands.

Originally posted by AndrewP
Evaporating water is a great cooler. Pour water over yourself and wrap your water bottles in damp terry towel.

When I was a kid my dad had canvas water bags that he would tie to the bumper of the truck. They were almost water tight once the canvas swelled, but enough water seeped through and evaporated to keep the water cool even in the deserts of Utah and New Mexico.

I haven't seen those kind of bags in years. I guess they were replaced by automotive air conditioning...

John

Chris,

There is no magical solution. A few ideas will work, but they will cost you a bit.

1. Get insulated bottles
I don't know if they are easy to find at home, but in Winter, I use a pair of Zéfal insulated bottles. Quite efficient in preventing water from freezing, but their capacity is only 500 mL (vs 800 mL), which could be a serious problem under the sun.

2. Use a water pouch (à la Camelbak)
I don't like the idea of wearing something on my back -- especially in warm weather --, but what about using that pouch or a homemade one (large plastic bag in a milk crate, for example), with a tube to sip in the water. It's easier to insulate a 4-L bag than 4 individual water bottles, and if you start with ice or icy water, you will have ice floating around for quite some time.

3. Use a wet towel on your water containers
Evaporative cooling works best on small containers like water bottles, and if the weather is dry, you will keep a 10 - 15 C differencial between outside and water temperatures. However, a wet towel won't last long, so the solution is feasible only if you have lots of (non-drinkable) water around to wet towels frequently. It wouldn't make sense to empty your bottles to keep them cold, after all!

Regards,

Dunno if I can offer anything that you Aussies haven't heard of already (us folks in the Seattle area don't have much experience with things sunny ;) ).
Wear, uh, lotsa loose light colored clothing.
Think "Laurence of Australia", but try to avoid the Turkish Prison scene :eek: .
But seriously, short of packing an air conditioner along, your only option is to sweat a lot and facilitate its evaporation. Light colored clothing will reflect heat, and the high-tech fabrics available today will pull moisture off your body and dump it into the slipstream, producing a nominal cooling effect. Any skin that is exposed to sunlight is soaking up thermal energy, so check out long sleeved shirts that won't flap in the breeze and try to find footwear, helmets, and gloves that are as light colored as possible. I was gonna say you should check out light colored cycling pants in lieu of cycling shorts, but I don't believe there is such a thing on the market.
Really, the only other choices you have are when and where you ride. At this time of year I'd love to trade my problems for yours! :cool:
Tailwinds, g3

Originally posted by HalfHearted
When I was a kid my dad had canvas water bags that he would tie to the bumper of the truck. They were almost water tight once the canvas swelled, but enough water seeped through and evaporated to keep the water cool even in the deserts of Utah and New Mexico.

I haven't seen those kind of bags in years. I guess they were replaced by automotive air conditioning...

John
had those in africa, suspect you can still buy them there, also had big cyclindrical ones with a tap attached to hang in the shade, in the breeze. when fishing we would put our beers in a double sack dunk it in the river then hang it in a tree, keep it wet with a good turn over of beers & we were pleasantly refreshed all day with cool beers:beer: the milk cars on the railways had water tanks on the roofs wich drips water down thru the sides, constucted of 2 layers of mesh filled with charcoal, these worked well keeping the milk cool & fresh.

ChrisL

Fill your water bottle 3/4 full and freeze it over night in the icebox.

If you use a camelback it will take about 3hours to melt out at 100f.

Along the lines of what great was saying ... It gets very hot here in the summer (110 F). You want to wear a coolmax shirt under your jersey (also coolmax or some other "wicking" material). It sounds odd, but wearing an undershirt keeps you warmer and cooler. I have several of these (http://www.sierratradingpost.com/xq/asp/base_no.15115/str_base_no.15115,15211,31027,31499,31594,31638,31691,31779,31781,31790,31793,31795,31796,31815,3181 6,31818,31834,31837,31838,32119,/header_title./page_name.prod_list_display.asp/search_type.L2%7E186/size1./size2./gender.0/ShowImages.yes/sq.0/cont.1/sqlSearchStr./intPgNo.1/special_type./qx/product.asp) and they work wonders.

I forgot what it's like to be warm out.

Chris

I fill my water bottle(s) half full then freeze them solid. Then before the ride I fill them the rest of the way with water. keeps it cold for a while. Depending on temp at least a couple of hours.

Joe
:beer:

It surprises me that in a thread of this length on this subject no one has mentioned that cold drinks are really not a good thing when exerting oneself in hot weather. There's been a lot of emphasis on ice here and iced drinks are really a bad idea.

Sure, they are much more satisfying, but that is the first of two reasons not to use ice in hot weather -- you take a little and are "satisfied" by the ice cold drink, but in most cases you haven't taken in near enough water to meet your body's needs. I.e. you get a false slackening of thirst.

The second reason is that if you do take enough of the cold drink to provide all the water your body needs, you are in danger of cramping or at least going queasy and having your performance fall off.

In Malaysia in '96 I learned the hard way that the real way to stay cool (or at least adapted) in hot weather is to make sure that your body really gets all the water it needs, and that the way to do that is to drink lots of unchilled water.

John

Originally posted by HalfHearted
In Malaysia in '96 I learned the hard way that the real way to stay cool (or at least adapted) in hot weather is to make sure that your body really gets all the water it needs, and that the way to do that is to drink lots of unchilled water.

Thanks. That's what I do now.