Living Car Free - Cycling in a heat wave

I guess I have to agree with just building a tolerance to it. I've lived in Tucson and phoenix my entire life and I ride 5 miles in to work and 5 miles home. Was about 95 degrees on my ride in, will be about 115 on my ride home, and I don't notice that much. I make a point of drinking about 4 cups of water right before I leave, but thats the only difference.

When out for longer rides I don't change anything.. lots of water/Gatorade the whole time. I still wear a short sleeve shirt, bike shorts, helmet and thats thats about it... As long as you have the water you can keep going forever. I do seem to notice a slight drop in my energy levels, and I drink more water, but that is it.

So all in all, take a crap ton of water and just get use to it :)

P.S. I'm 23, that might have a lot to do with it.. youth is great :lol:

Bull-oney. This list often has posts and threads devoted to boasting about the inner joy derived from being homeless, jobless, TV-less, fast food-less, and/or material possession-less. I believe there even have been posts from Real People on this list suggesting/recommending rummaging through the dumpsters of grocery stores for food scraps.

For example see thread http://67.201.16.77/showthread.php?t=163801, start at post 395 and read a couple of pages of posts from people who recommend or admire dumpster diving for food.

Believing that there may be some LCF posters who would seek a freshly used cup from the McDonald's trash can to save a nickle (and the Environment!) doesn't seem like such a stretch to me.
Try to keep it real, brother.

I use my 2L water bladder to take a shower right before I go to the office. It's true, even in New York City. Fortunately, I take the bike path up, so I can do it in relative privacy next to the water. My shorts get wet, but I don't smell.

I use my 2L water bladder to take a shower right before I go to the office. It's true, even in New York City. Fortunately, I take the bike path up, so I can do it in relative privacy next to the water. My shorts get wet, but I don't smell.

What do you do with your wet clothing while you're at work?

An interesting thing happened today at my yearly medical checkup. The doctor looked at my lab test numbers and said they indicated I was "severely dehydrated" (BUN number was 38 = way out of normal range, everything else was in range).

What happened was that two days earlier I'd cycled to the lab to get tested. The trip to the lab was 16.5 miles including a side trip to straighten out some paperwork. It was in 95-101 F heat and about 25% relative humidity. I'd done my usual routine with electrolyte beverages & all to stay hydrated. I'm pretty sure I managed to achieve a worthwhile level of hydration that was able to keep me going, but the point is that even doing as much as you can to hydrate, you may still lose ground when it's really hot & dry.

This is useful information, if it is due to dehydration and not kidney failure. I guess that the everything else in range meant it wasn't kidney failure?

This is useful information, if it is due to dehydration and not kidney failure. I guess that the everything else in range meant it wasn't kidney failure?
The doctor deduced dehydration. Because of the paperwork snafu I mentioned, I also have a lab result from a few days earlier, where the bike ride to the lab was only 5.5 miles, in the early morning, where the temperature was about 85 F. That BUN reading was completely normal.

I'm not sure which physiological factors determine a person's dehydration rate in heat. A younger person in better condition might be able to absorb water faster or lose it slower. I don't know. I'm pretty sure every person has a limit of heat & humidity where they just can't absorb water as fast as they're losing it, but it probably varies a lot from person to person.

I drew three conclusions from this unplanned experiment -

1 - By the time you actually feel dehydrated, you're already way out of your normal physiological balance (to the point where it would probably worry a doctor)

2 - The lab result correlated perfectly with my earlier subjective estimate of what kind of mileage I can do in 100+ heat. Near the start of this thread I wrote
I'm good for 15 miles on the bike in 100 F heat before I start to wiltand the lab result showed I was close to hitting the wall after 16.5 miles in 95-101 F heat. So an experienced guess about what is your personal heat limit could be well founded, don't try to exceed it by too much at one time.

3 - Pre-hydrating as recommended by DanMach and maybe some other posters is probably worthwhile before starting on a hot ride. It may give you some extra miles. It might be good to start pre-hydrating an hour or so before starting the ride, I don't know for sure.