Cold skin after ride
 

I commute pretty much everyday in denver and I've noticed that when I finish a ride the skin on my thighs and stomach are really cold. Is this normal? Also I've noticed that I overheat on the way home in below 30 degrees i wear a softshell jacket,softshell tights and base layers when it's below 30.

My stomach gets cold after cold weather rides, the skin can get ice cold and numb. I think its due to blood flow being diverted from digestive processes during exercise, and its that flow that keeps your body warm. The past few years I've taken to tying a wide scarf around my stomach to keep it warmer, and it seems to work well as a full additional layer would make me too warm.

Another thing I noticed with the cold stomach is that about 10 minutes after I stop riding I feel very cold with intense shivering. I think it is caused by blood flow returning and carrying that extreme cold all throughout my body triggering a mild hypothermia. I've taken to putting on a sweater and knit cap immediately after a ride to help minimize the effect, or if I'm feeling extra cold my down winter coat.

The chill effect for me is pretty nasty if I stop riding but am not at home, such as a long break on a group ride inside or out. Particularly early season brevets when we make an extended stop for breakfast after about 80 km.

For the thighs you probably need a better wind blocking layer.

I suspect your body is losing heat. I was cold and had chilly thighs until I started wearing a fleece skull cap. Honest! As for the cold stomach... not sure. Are you breathing in through your mouth? Cold air might be contributing to cold innards.

I breathe through my mouth when climbing sometimes,trying to change the bad habit.also my skin is cold but i don't feel cold.

How is your wind blocking layer? If you are cold primarily on your chest, abdomen and/or fronts of your thighs, it might not be a matter of insulation as much as wind. Adding a wind vest and switching to tights/pants, like Sport Hill's XC pants, can make a big difference.

i'm wearing softshell tights and jacket which are windproof.

I get a cold patches on my stomach and my thighs that turn red when I get home and start to thaw. They feel hot internally but the skin is really cold to the touch for about 15 minutes. It's the wind as those areas are not very protected.

Before I got windproof tights, my privates would get the same way. Some of my death march winter rides would hurt so bad down there. I think the wind gets funneled into that area.

TL;DR - bubble mailer

Last winter I had so many days in COLD weather that my stomach was numb for months. Literally. That numb stingy feeling did not go away until spring.

I agree that cold air gets funneled to the stomach and the crotch. I solve the crotch problem with a plastic bag between my boxers and my pants. The stomach thing is a tougher problem to solve. I have tried lots of things. The problem is that any layer I add to protect the stomach tends to overheat the other areas. I have been trying for years.

My solution this year is very primitive - a bubble mailer envelope. I keep it in my bag and if the conditions are so bad that my stomach skin starts to go numb I stop and put the bubble mailer between my shirt layers.

Last winter I was out in such cold weather with such little protection that when I got to the office my stomach and penis were screaming in pain. I immediately went into a meeting and could not sit for ten minutes. The pain was so intense I had to get up and walk around. I was worried that I had caused permanent damage. Fortunately the pain went away after twenty minutes but, as I mentioned above, lingered for months.

This sounds to me like the thighs and stomach don't have quite enough insulation on them. Your core is very warm probably because you ride pretty hard which is why you are over heating. Sometimes in winter you just have to slow down and wear a little more insulation to be comfortable. But as long as you are not getting frostbite and the cold thighs and stomach are not causing you any further problems it's probably not too much of a big deal.

Nutrition can effect this too. If you eat fried foods and a lot of packaged foods you are getting a lot of manufactured vegetable fats which damage your bodies ability to transfer oxygen from the bloodstream to the cells of the body. This problem can make it so the cells can not either heat or cool themselves properly.

It could be contributing to both the overheating and the coldness. But I think the coldness is more due to not enough insulation in those areas.

I have experienced this before and I found over time that I needed to increase my insulation on certain areas just a little bit. You might try another thin insulation layer on the thighs and torso.

One thing to manage this situation that you can do is drink a warm beverage and jump in a hot shower as soon as you get home. But wait about 10 minutes to warm up slowly so it's not too much of a shock.

Yep, cold stomach thing is cold weather related for runners and bikers. Has to do with all the warm blood going to the extremities and such. I use a tyvex envelope between my 2 base layers with a wind proof layer on top. Still cold. According to the health stuff I read, it is a sign of good, active circulation. Happens more on my commutes than my off road mountain biking.

I get cold white skin that turns red-to-purple when I finish a ride. It stings and burns for a few minutes while it warms up and then regains normal color and feeling.
The areas where this occurs are on the parts of my body that have more superficial bodyfat and are not directly over the hard-working cycling muscles that create heat. Abdomen, inner thighs, rump, upper arms.
My theory: the core heat and the heat generated by cycling muscles is insulated from reaching the skin by the layer of bodyfat, which cools the skin and results in even more constriction of the surface blood vessels.

I've had this happen in temperatures in the low-40s (Fahrenheit), no winds, sunshine.
Sweating makes it worse.

As far as I can tell, as long as the cold skin regains normal color and feeling pretty soon, there isn't any long-term damage.

Have you tried jackets with windproof front layers and breathable back? There are plenty available on the market.

30 degrees? I take it that's a bit below freezing.
I'd be in shorts!

30F is around -1C, so just a bit below freezing.

I have had exactly the same problem, stomach and thighs, the skins is cold and core is warm (sweating). It's the wind load on the front faces of the body. Like @Bat56, I ride straight through the Minneapolis winters. My solutions:
* A very old Pearl Izumi jacket with the sleeves zipped off (vest) it has a wind-block on the front and vent in the back. (edit - this is used with wool base-layer and under the snowboard jacket)
* I use a snowboard jacket with a waist-gater, when temps are below 0F I snap the waist-gater to minimize cold air flowing up the jacket.
* Standard compression shorts under Pearl Izumi tights and Chrome knickers over the top, and for -10F and colder, add a wind-breaker layer (O2 rain pants)

It is really about the right layers, good wind-blocking materials that still breathe. Or just some straight-up plastic bubble wrap around you man-bits :thumb:.

My skin always feels cold on my stomach, but I'm never cold there. No matter what I'm wearing, or if it's 13F or just 32F, it's always the same feeling. There is a big group of muscles, that are not used much during the ride...My guess is that they don't produce enough heat, and that's why it gets cold.
Not a biggie IMO, unless you feel some kind of pain.

Tightly fitting clothing can actually be a contributor here. If you're commuting, and, I'm assuming, less worried about speed, I would invest in a pair of good pants instead of tights. My winter pants, for commuting and fat biking, are Hagloffs Rugged Mountain pants. I don't even wear longies under them unless it's sub zero. No cold thighs or crotch. Up top I wear a thin merino T neck and Hagloffs windshell 10 degrees and above. Between 0 and 10 I'll put a light shortsleeve merino over the T. Below 0 i'll put a light longsleeve merino under the T. I stay pleny warm without overheating. Only lasting thing post ride (30 minutes to three hours on the bike) is that my nipples are rock hard for 30 minutes or so, but everything else is fine. I attribute this in large part to top layers that are windproof and loose.

I have similar issues. When I was in shape not so much, but now that I'm fatter, the clothes are a little tighter and fat gets cold damaged easier. If you're overheating, you're sweating. And then when you stop, or wind chill, that sweat is super bad news. You need to experiment with shifting layers around and with more wind protection.