Desert Riding

[Jimbo RT]

I'll be riding in the Desert this weekend. The daytime highs are expected to be around 112, with the lows dipping down to a frosty 85 at night. What are your suggestions about how to make the best out of riding in this heat: gear, hydration, food, stopping, etc.. Any tips from this knowlegeable and experienced board would be appreciated.

[edge51]

lots of critters out and about at night but that is still when I would be riding. Not very relaxing but then neither is riding with the sun baking down on me at 112.

[gottabmw]

Drink water before riding, during stops, and after riding. Keep your ATGATT stuff on. Anything above body tempeature, covering up will keep you cooler, including keeping your face shield closed. Soak your shirt under your riding jacket or get a cooling vest.

[Springer]

FWIW and I'm far from an expert: Travel early in the AM and late in the evening and avoid the heat of the day. I use to wear a wet t-shirt under my jacket and a wet bandana around my neck to help stay cool. I started drinking (water that is)as soon as a got up and kept drinking even though I may not have been thirsty. I ate very light and stopped when the t-shirt and bandana dried out or any time I felt tired. I use to carry several bottles of water with me on the bike and a hat with a brim just in case the bike broke down and I had to wait along side the road or had to hike to some assistance. I also carried some sun screen, but I pick up a burn under a strong street lamp.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

1 - drink lots of water.

2 - sunscreen and plenty of it SF 30 minimum

3 - drink lots of water.

4 - Wear reflective clothing if you have it, if not, forego the mesh. See below.

5 - drink even more water.

6 - wear an old sweat shirt or a towel around your upper torso and keep it wet. Use the venting on your outer garment to control evaporation. You can stay surprisingly comfortable utilizing evaporative cooling.

7 - If you feel dizzy or stop sweating, get out of the sun, NOW. Drink some water and then drink some more. Stay out of the sun in a cool place for awhile. Heat stroke is no joke. It can kill you.

8 - and it might could be number one. Carry plenty of water with you. A gallon is not too much.

9 - Old desert survival rule. Never pass up a chance to take a drink of water.

10 - If you don't have to pee at least evey couple of hours you are not drinking enough water. Drink more water.

 

I'm keeping this light but heat like that is no joke. In the desert, with its typically low humidity, you won't notice water loss until its too late. If you are thirsty, you are already way behind the curve. Your shirt won't get wet, the sweat dries from the air passing over you. You won't feel hot, even. Another sure sign you are starting to get into heat trouble. You should feel hot and you should be sweating enough to notice. Otherwise you are not hydryating properly.

 

Have I stressed that enough? I have suffered heat stroke and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. The desert is a beautiful place but it is very unforgiving. Enjoy.

[AZJerry]

Mesh Jacket with Cool Vest.

Yes, drink water.

Remember too much water will kill you just like not enough water.

If you are riding for more that a couple of hours drink sports drinks to replenish the losses.

Riding at speed, I find I sweat in the crouch and arms even tho I don't notice body sweat (cool vest).

[TonyS]

Ditto the above advice. In addition, a cold Gatorade and an ice cream during a mid afternoon break.

[Dances_With_Wiener_Dogs]

Remember too much water will kill you just like not enough water.

This sounds bizarre, but it's true. I did a Google search and came up with the following:

 

However, even water intake requires moderation: recent media reports have focussed on people who have drunk too much water, which can overwhelm the kidneys and lead to swelling of the brain. Water intoxication can cause symptoms of headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion and, in extreme cases, can lead to coma and death, although this is rare. Certain drugs, including illegal ones such as ecstasy, can trigger drinking excessive amounts of water. It can also be caused by health conditions that affect water balance, such as kidney failure, liver cirrhosis, and uncontrolled diabetes. Drinking excessive amounts of water can also have a psychological cause when it is known as psychogenic polydipsia.

 

Most people will come to no harm if they stick to drinking two to three litres of fluid per day. If you are concerned about your fluid intake, seek medical advice.

[Springer]

"However, even water intake requires moderation: recent media reports have focussed on people who have drunk too much water, which can ...... lead to swelling of the brain."

 

My guess is that the almost constant exposure to water in the PNW may also lead to the same condition....might account for some of the really strange behavior up here!

[BobFV1]

If you can , do your riding as early in the day as possibl e - try to get through the hot bits before about 1100 if you can. Drink a lot of water - I do this by stopping about once an hour at a gas station, having a rest and a drink, I wear mesh gear with a wet tee shirt underneath. Carry a few liters of water in tour tank bag.

 

If you are travelling straight through the desert on the interestate, that's about all you need. If you are off the beaten track, carry more water, more repair gear, Let people know where you are. Good luck.

[Hodad3]

I took a desert ride last weekend - about 500 miles around Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, San Bernadino Forest. It definitely was warm by the early afternoon (110 deg), but I had no problems - only concur in the water intake comments - i had packed 4 1 liter bottles and almost finished them off.

 

No one else commented, but beware of the winds - not sure if there's a way to accurately predict these zones, but the wind totally kicked my *ss heading into palm springs from the north in the early afternoon. all i could do to keep the thing on the road.

 

BTW, any suggestions for handling extremely windy conditions, more or less from the side?

[KMG_365]

Good advice here so far. I'd just like to add a few clarifications.

 

Yes, you can drink too much water in normal situations, but riding through the desert when the temp is above 110*F at 70-90mph when the humidity is <20%RH is NOT a normal situation. As was mentioned, when the humidity is that low and the temps that high with the wind is whipping across your skin at 80mph, the sweat will evaporate so quickly you will probably not notice. You will probably only notice how much you're sweating by the salty crust left behind. And this brings up a point which MUST be stressed: THAT SALTY CRUST MUST BE REPLACED, NOT JUST THE WATER!

 

Water is the carrier, which is necessary for the system to work, but the Sodium and the Potassium (that salty crust) are the vital electrolytes that make your "Human Battery" function. You would not try to run your bikes "lead-acid" battery on just plain water instead of the electolytes present in the acid--your body functions similarly. Yes, drink plenty of water (you probably can't drink too much in this situation), but ALSO drink about 30-50% Gatorade/Powerade/Gookinade, or other electrolyte containing sports drink as well. If you just drink plain water, your sweating mechanism might continue to function efficiently (right up until you collapse), but you'll be losing electrolytes even faster. Without both parts of the puzzle, you can die of metabolic imbalances while still being fully hydrated. I don't recommend drinking JUST Gatorade, though. It contains a LOT of sugar as well, and if you're just riding and not running or cycling, you're not likely to need all those extra sugar-calories to get the salts you need. For balance, I like to add a few salty snacks into the mix (like nuts or fritos).

 

Use your urine as a guage: you should be voiding regularly (whatever normal is for you) and the color should stay fairly light. If you find that you haven't voided in 6-8 hours and when you do it is a dark yellow you are in danger if you stay in those conditions. Try to stay ahead of the curve and you'll stay safer as well as be more comfortable. All of this is even more critical if you are not already acclimated to a desert climate. Otherwise, your body's cooling system is quite effective if you give it what it needs to function properly. Remember caffeine (coffee, black/green tea, cola, Mountain Dew, "energy" drinks), and alcohol are diuretics and will cause you to lose more water. Read the labels. You might be surprized what drinks contain caffeine.

 

The additional evaporative measures mentioned above are great as well. They will reduce some of the work load of your body's cooling system and will also make you more comfortable. But: be very careful with mesh gear in the desert extremes! As was mentioned, in any ambient temperature above body temperature you want to insulate your skin from the heated air. Your body produces its own heat (we're warm blooded animals--well at least MOST of us are! ) and it normally cools itself by: radiation (directly into the air like heat from a fireplace or the sun), convection (carried away in air currents), conduction (direct contact with a cooler surface) and evaporative cooling. Remember, your skin's temperature is roughly 95*F, but the air two-four feet above the hot asphalt can easily be 120+*F (plus the additional radiant heat). When it's over ~95*F, the other three methods of heat transfer are actually ADDING heat to your body and you are placing additional cooling load (burden) on your body by riding unshielded through the blast furnace. It takes over 1000 BTU's from your body to evaporate one pound of water/sweat at skin temperature (580 calories per gram), but you can only cool yourself so fast by sweating, and you only need a certain amount of airflow to accomplish this. Any more airflow than that and you're not just "wasting sweat", you're adding BTU's to your body that then must be shed requiring yet more cooling energy.

 

I wear full leathers all the time, and when crossing the desert I used to open up the leg zippers from the bottom partway and down from the top as well unzip my jacket front all the way down. I found that I was actually more comfortable and dried out less if I kept the leg zippers closed almost all the way and my jacket all the way up. The jacket has numerous zippered vents as well and I do open those, but that still gives me relatively minimal airflow (behind the RT with CeeBailey's #2, +3.5") compared to riding a more naked R-bike or K-RS/GT with mesh gear. Mesh is fine until you get into the extremes of temperature, wind and low humidity--and then it becomes dangerous. The trick to hot riding is a good wicking layer under your gear. It should be a long sleeved shirt and long tights/leggings which lay tight against the skin and carry the moisture away from the skin's surface. You don't need much airspace. Try materials like silk, polypropelene or Capilene (from REI or other sports/camping goods outlets).

 

I also wear insulated boots (leather with thinsulate) which shield my feet from the even hotter air right above the road. And I've even put on my Hoon Gloves (heavy elkskin winter gloves insulated on the backs only) and it helps to keep my hands more comfortable. Leather gloves breathe a bit (more in the heat as the pores open up), and if you've ever been riding in the desert and have to keep checking to see if your heated grips have inadvertanly been switched on 'cause your hands are burning, you know what I'm talking about!

 

If you have something like a HoonCooler that can keep your shirt wet, then you might be fine with mesh. Otherwise with a mesh jacket and extremes of temperature it'll dry out too quickly and you'll have to stop to frequently to re-wet it and you'll end up spending more time in the heat and less time in your air-conditioned hotel room at the end of the ride! Another great tool is a CamelBack/Platypus or other drinking bladder so that you can slowly and continually hydrate underway without having to stop. It is hard to pound 32+ ounces of water/electrolyte in one sitting. If you're trying to just get across the desert as quickly as possible, you can save time drinking underway, save gas stop time for peeing (you ARE peeing, right?! ), and it's a more comfortable way to stay hydrated than chugging and being bloated for the first 20 miles or so after a stop. Leslie also fills her CamelBack with ice at gas stops, and I keep mine in a cooler that rides behind me.

 

I've probably logged over 50,000 miles in temps over 95*F and I think I'm finally getting things figured out. I find now that I don't dread crossing the desert nearly as much as I used to as I'm MUCH more comfortable than I ever used to be. I also arrive at the end of the day not nearly so shagged out as before. I'm sure there are more things I've forgotten ( ), but I'll spare you for now!

[Kenny2]

Well put, Jamie.

 

Thanks.

[Jimbo RT]

Thanks for all of the helpful posts.

 

On Saturday I left at 0530 from Los Angeles to San Diego. Then took the 8 to El Centro, it's very warm now. Then headed north to the 111, eventually ending up in La Quinta. I wore a full face helmet, and keeping the visor closed really helped. It really is cooler at speed. I wore leather insulated boots, and my feet got a little toasty, but bearable. The mesh jacket with the cool vest was great. I put it on in El Centro and noticed a huge improvement. I stopped often to pour water on my head, drink water and gatorade. I ate fritos, and had a wonderful Date Shake at the Oasis Date Garden in Thermal. So, my point is, I took the advice from these posts and it worked. Thanks again.

[KMG_365]

So glad you had a great trip, Jimbo!!

 

The desert has a special beauty all its own and if you come prepared and try to meet it on its own terms you can have a beautifully transcending experience!

 

(Oh, and umm, yeah . . . sorry about the diatribe up above there, but I help folks suffering from dehydration and/or electrolyte depletion regularly and I only work on the coast! Just last week I had a couple of teenage sisters vomiting and passing out on the street--in Coronado! ( ) Just respect the fact that people die in the desert every year when they don't come prepared with some knowledge and some good common sense and you'll have an awesome time. )

[Vagabond]

I suffered from washing all the electrolytes out of my system once in the middle of a hundred mile backpacking trip.

 

Believe me, you don't want to do that. It put me down with extreme illness for 1.5 days and three days to feel normal again.

 

Now it's "Accelerade" mix for me (buy it at any bicycle store)whenever I do anything strenous. It even has a little protien in it so it extends my riding time further (less hunger).

 

 

[Jimbo RT]

Yes, good point. As has been said above, you've got to replace the salt. I'm a believer in Fritos and Gatorade, and plenty of water.

 

My cool vest, a fieldsheer, really helped in the heat. I wore it under a Vanson Vent jacket. Dowsing my head with water, everytime I stopped helped too. Plus, keeping the visor on the full face helmet closed, really was cooler than open.

 

I'm preparing to go to Sturgis in a couple weeks. Last year the desert kicked my butt. I cringe at the name "Mesquite Nevada". Hopefully, I'll be better prepared this year.