I had heat exhaustion a few years ago on a ride. I knew I was getting in trouble when my heart rate wasn't recovering after any type of effort/climb. Usually it drops quickly - not so on this ride. I found a shady spot in the grass, got comfy, drank everything I had left in the water bottle and then bummed a fresh water bottle from a passing rider. Stayed there about an hour until my HR came back down, then continued on nice and easy.

I've lived my entire life in the Searing Desert, so I don't know any better. But it takes time adjusting from our wonderful held-over spring the past couple years to Serious Summer and every day over 100°.

My heat stroke story is from 31 years ago. June of 1994, trying to get over an ugly breakup, had a meeting 100 miles away in the mountains, felt reasonably fit, decided to ride there, and my boss said "sure, why not - but you need to take leave time for the full days not in a meeting or the office." So I packed my panniers, filled all 4 bottles, and set off from Phoenix toward Prescott at first light (5 am) to "beat the heat". Made it to Wickenburg by 10, had an early lunch, topped off my bottles plus a Big Gulp in the front basket, and started up the steeper climbs. Topped off the bottles & the squirt bottle in Congress at the foot of Yarnell Hill and kept rolling. As a desert dweller, I knew that if I became overheated on steep climbs I could park and walk down to the cool shade of a box culvert and hang out until feeling better (provided the rattlers decided not to dispute the issue). Plus I had the quart spray bottle to douse me for some evaporative cooling. But I underestimated the hill that day - it was 104° out, but worse there was a westerly tailwind that was blowing at exactly my 5 mph pace. Just couldn't dump body heat. And no more culverts that could be reached without ropes and harnesses. And a clear southern exposure with Absolutely. No. Shade.

About two miles before the top, I noticed the telltale signs - dizziness and sweat tapering off. No chance for a ride and no place to go but up, so I just kept turning the leaden pedals over stroke by stroke as the symptoms worsened. Made it to the crest with 4 completely empty bottles, an empty Big Gulp, and maybe an ounce in the sprayer. I could barely balance. I saw a motel on the left side of the road, even though the plan was to get to Prescott by nightfall. I barely made it into the lobby. The clerk looked me over, probably noticed my scent and physical state, and tossed me a key. Don't know how I made it into the room. What I do remember is regaining my wits under a stream of very cold water in the shower. That night's motel was money very well spent.

The next day, I got up before dawn, got a great breakfast at a now-defunct diner, and pedaled through Peeples Valley and up the Spars into Prescott by noon. Felt fine. Attended the meeting the next day, and was planning to leave at dawn the day after - but an ongoing commotion in the next room which the motel wouldn't deal with had me rolling out of town at 2 AM. Took the freeway route home, and covered the near-century and was home before 10 am, including a fun downhill on the I-17 shoulder from Sunset Point.

I learned from the experience, but I may still be up for another ride like that if my schedule ever allows. But it won't be in the middle of the summer, and I'll probably leave at night anyway just to be sure.

Whoa. I've ridden through Congress and up the Yarnell Grade on RAW and RAAM. It was pretty hot then too, but we were only out there 30 minutes at a time. I can't imagine pedaling up that thing at 105F ... particularly with that speed-matching tailwind.

Yikes!

That is one heck of a story. Unbelievable resolve at the end.

Took a ride last summer and did a favorite climb of 1500’ in the high 80s. Was drenched in sweat (our normal temps are the mid 60s and low 70s) when got to the top and turned around for a fast cooling ride down. Drank a tall water bottle at the top. Rode 9 miles of flats into a head wind and saw a good opportunity to take a picture of a farm valley. Got off the bike and got out the camera and was hit by sudden dizziness to such an extent, I couldn’t stand. Sat down with my back to a guard rail to stay upright. Had half a bottle of water left. Drank that down and waited for the dizziness to hopefully resolve. It took about 5 mins, but felt ok enough to stand but was wondering what it would feel like up on the bike. Luckily being on the bike felt fine and managed the 3 miles back home. That incident, coming out of nowhere was enough to scare me to avoiding hot days when not acclimated and to drink and drink.

Edit: the climb was 5 miles with grades ranging from 5 to 12% with the majority in double digits.

At least I didn't have to keep going to the east coast.

I was riding self-contained with clothes, tools, etc., so the bike wasn't exactly as light as most RAAM setup. So there's that...

I now do Yarnell every Veterans Day when it's cooler, plus I don't ride all the way from home. Helps a bit.

Worst I ever experienced was a 90+ degree day with me riding about 30 miles from home with only two water bottles and a 1.5L hydration pack, and no place to get anything to drink. I ended up stopping at a liquor store which was out in the middle of nowhere and asked them if they had anything nonalcoholic to drink. They said that their license doesn't allow them to sell non-alcoholic drinks. So I opted to buy a bag of ice with which I filled my water bottles and hydration pack, then sucked on some of the leftovers while I rested. On my way back home, about 3-4 miles from home, I started experiencing severe leg cramps. I stopped to try to walk them off, but a lady mowing her lawn at the house I stopped near came to check on me, and then flagged down a passing pickup to give me a ride home. I was grateful for the ride, though I did want to finish the ride myself, but realized I likely wouldn't have been able to.

The end result of that experience was that it taught me a very important lesson about not taking just water along for long rides in the heat, I needed electrolytes, too. So from then on I tend to take some kind of electrolytes with me, whether it be Gatorade mix powder, or if possible stop somewhere and get a Power Aid or Gatorade. On that ride I realized all the water I was drinking was washing all the electrolytes out of my system and I wasn't replenishing them. I was sweating so much and it was drying so quickly that I had crusty salt deposits on the side of my head from evaporating sweat.

I carry, and have carried, zip lock bags with pre-measured electrolytes for long rides.

Can’t imagine a liquor store not having a license to sell non-alcoholic beverages. My BS detector went off the chart - but I do believe what the poster said, not the liquor store employee.

Well, we do have some strange liquor laws here. It was just a few years ago that the state supreme court ruled that Sunday sales of alcohol are allowed.

At any rate, I didn't want to drink anything with alcohol in it for fear that I'd further dehydrate myself, but I was tempted to find something with a low alcohol content.

You olds going out there and still getting after it is inspiring!

My heat exhaustion story happened when I was about 40 (that was 30 years ago).



I went off on a 70 mile loop from Lakeport, CA with a half gallon of water and a quart of lemonade in late summer. There were a couple stream crossings I hoped to refill from. The tracks were mostly dirt forest roads. The day was warm; probably got up to 90 degrees. It was great riding but mostly exposed and the streams were dry. I plodded on after running out of water and lemonade. The area was remote and without places where I could ask for water. Late in the day as I was climbing Bartlett springs road and I felt quite weak. My legs would start to cramp and I would have to get off the bike and just lie in the dirt. This happened several times as I worked my way up the road to the summit. I would ride 200 yards, get off or fall off, rest until the cramp stopped, get on the bike again, ride another 200 yards, fall off the during a cramp etc, etc. There was no traffic to flag a ride from, at all.



At that point, I was not even thirsty. My gut had shut down and the idea of drinking water did not sound good; I would just throw it up. Finally I reached the summit where it was all downhill into the small town of Nice. I managed to get down the hill and stopped at the first place I saw which was a bar. There was a soda vending machine outside. I thought maybe I could manage to drink a Coke. I put the money in, but the machine would not give me the Coke. So I just lay down in the dirt, utterly exhausted. A drunk fellow staggered out of the bar and asked about my condition and wished me luck. I saw a pay phone outside so I got up and called my wife. She drove the 12 miles to save me and I threw up in the car on the way back home.



As a paramedic, I should have been more cautious about managing my hydration. I rested at home and tried to drink water with some salt in it, but just couldn’t. My body was saving the limited blood supply remaining for my heart and brain. The gut was getting almost nothing, which made me feel nauseated. My pulse rate was around 120 (normally is 50 or in the 40s) at rest. I think I lost almost half of my circulating fluid volume (normal is 4 to 5 liters). What I needed was a couple liters of normal saline intraveneously to replace what I had lost. An IV would bypass the gut, which was in no condition to absorb anything.



I worked on the ambulance in San Francisco. If I could go to work and give myself an IV and dump 2 liters into my body I knew I would be okay. But that was a 2 1/2 hour drive away. So after 2 hours of trying to orally rehydrate and failing, we went to our local small town ER.



My habit from work was to enter the ER ambulance bay where the paramedics enter, and thats what I did absentmindedly. They were confused about that, but I gave them a paramedics summary of my condition. A nurse took my vitals which were normal except for the 118 heart rate. I told her my resting rate was normally about 50, but she was used to lots of people being mildly tachycardic, from fever, pain, or just being in a hospital. We were sent to a mostly empty waiting room for an hour. Later we learned that the doctor was taking a nap and they did not want to disturb him.



Finally I got to see the doc. He said we will do some basic blood testing (okay fine), and we will administer IV normal saline (yes please!). Soon I had my IV. The nurse set it on fast dribble, but when she left I opened it up wide. Soon the bag was almost empty and I called her in to give me another. After 2 liters I felt pretty good. I could drink water and I felt a slight urge to pee, something I hadn’t felt in about 18 hours.



That event was a window into a dehydration experience that many of my patients had. Since then, I have been much more careful in my hydration and had an increased awareness of it in my patient interactions.