Top tips for riding your mountain bike in a heat wave

Are some days too hot for riding?

Words, photo and video: Randy King

Temperatures in the eastern U.S. shot past 100° F (38° C) last week and have been cooking in the nineties for a month. Mountain bikers are forced to cope with this heat wave. Over the weekend, the Big Mountain Riding crew hit the trails in Danville, VA, for 2.5-hours of riding on one of the hottest days yet this summer. Between sweating gallons, drinking more than 120 ounces (3.5 L) of water each, and hating every climb, we hammered out a few hot weather riding tips … and survived the ride!

The bottom line: Be cool … or as cool as possible. The warmer the weather, the more challenging it becomes to adequately cool your body. Cooling is vitally important, because heat kills. “People don’t realize the severity of heat on health,” said George Luber, an expert on heat at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the Washington Post. “It’s the number one weather-related killer in the United States.”

1. Drink enough water / fluids. Obvious, right? Um, more on that later. Start upping your water intake several days ahead if you have a hot ride planned. On ride day start drinking water early so that you’re fully-hydrated when you clip in. Water alone is OK for rides of less than 45 minutes. On longer rides in hot weather, add sport drinks to your fluid intake. Jenny Hadfield, author of Marathoning for Mortals, recommends about 8 ounces (.25 L) of sport drink every 15-20 minutes during prolonged hot weather exercise.

Believe it or not, how much water you should drink during prolonged exercise is an ongoing debate. While the word used to be to drink a certain amount per hour, whether you were thirsty or not, your own body seems to be the best indicator of how much you should drink. Your body will tell you if you’re drinking enough, either through thirst or by slowing down.

“[Thirst] is the only system used by all other creatures on this earth. Why should it not also be ideal for humans?” says Timothy D. Noakes, M.D., a professor of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town, and author of The Lore of Running.  Recently Dr. Noakes and his colleagues researched cycling performance during an 80 kilometer time trial, finding that drinking less than thirst called for negatively affected performance slightly and drinking more than thirst dictated had no effect.

Your body also lets you know it needs fluid by loss of power or speed. Riding hard, you will sweat 1 to 2 quarts an hour. If you lose more fluid by sweat or urine than you take in, you will experience dehydration.

“Body weight losses in the 3 to 4 percent range impair the body’s ability to efficiently utilize oxygen. When dehydration causes more than 4 to 5 percent weight loss, your power will deteriorate tremendously,” says Active.com expert Edmund R. Burke, Ph.D.

Your bathroom scale can clue you in. “If you gain any weight [exercising], you’re taking in too many fluids, but if you lose more than two percent of your body weight on a single outing, you probably need to drink more,” says Sally Wadyka in Runners World.

A random video that has nothing to do with this article, except it was very hot on that ride!

2. Get acclimated: It takes about 14 days for your body to adapt to summer heat and cool itself more efficiently. In the meantime, slow your pace and intensity and get your ride in rather than pushing it and risking injury. Listen up, weekend warriors: Riding hard one day a week is a bad idea in the summer, unless you are used to the heat. If you have a race or an important ride coming up, plan ahead and put in the training time.

3. Timing is everything … work with the heat. Good news for the early birds: 4-7 am is coolest time of day. The heat increases later and air quality diminishes. Early morning may be more humid, but you should try to be off the trail and indoors by the time the afternoon rays really heat up. Consider switching your group rides to the hours right after dawn. Additionally, stay cooler by riding in the woods and on trails that are frequently breezy. The temperature difference between shaded areas and sunny areas can swing greatly – think double digits – and wind further cools down b0dy temps. Finally, build cool down breaks into your ride, where you slow your pace for a few minutes.

4. Ride smart: Know the signs of heat-related health problems. The Red Cross shares the following

- Heat cramps: muscular pains and spasms. They are an early warning signal. Take heed.

- Heat exhaustion: a form of mild shock. Signals include cool, moist, pale flushed or red skin; heavy sweating; headache; nausea or vomiting; dizziness; and exhaustion. Cool person off, get them to a cooler place.

- Heat stroke: the temperature control system, which sweats to cool the body, stops working. Signals include hot, red and dry skin; changes in consciousness; rapid, weak pulse; and rapid, shallow breathing. Call 911. Quickly cool person off any way you can.

5. Get a little help from your friends. Ride with a buddy – watch each other for heat problems and hold each other accountable for calling time for cooling down. Let someone know how to contact you / where to find you and your expected return time. This is always a good idea, and even more so in extreme temperatures.

Resources:

Red Cross Heat Safety Tips

Active.com’s cycling heat tips

© 2010 Big Mountain Riding

Se llama "flow," mis amigos

“When facing a single tree, if you look at a single one of its red leaves, you will not see the others. When the eye is not set on any one leaf, and you face the tree with nothing at all in  mind, any number of leaves are visible to the eye without limit.” Takuan Sōhō, The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom.

By: Randy King

Photos: Doug King & Randy King

Yesterday I experienced one of those signature moments in a mountain biking year. Descending LU’s ruff-n-tuff Pscycle Pathe in duo, I rode the rough line most of the way. Bouncing over exposed bedrock and dicing through eroded leftovers, I railed the thing. This alone is a great sensation. However, as I hit the run-out at the bottom, my rear wheel struck a loose rock at high speed. The back end vaulted up, swung right and came forward fast. In the split second interval before a spectacular crash, I realized what had happened, evaluated what was to come, and changed my fate. Slamming my chest down to the handlebars, I twisted the grips to the left slightly and leaned into the carving front wheel. The back wheel landed almost perpendicular to my front wheel and miraculously, the bike straightened out and I rode it out.  I shouted out a great “Whoa!” and heard my companion yell “nice save.”

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” Newton’s third law of motion.

Bridge work

At the bottom, waiting for our third amigo, I basked in the thudding-heart glow of having created art-in-motion – a glimpse of greatness. A glimpse of the Zen state No-Thought-No-Mind.

I believe it is why we, grown adults, ride bikes in the woods. It is for moments like these, and for the spontaneous mash-up of skills, luck and improbable execution that can carry the day when all seems lost.

“When you elevate your gaze, you literally elevate your perception of the trail. Instead of noticing individual objects – little round rock, big pointy rock, huge wet rock – you sense the overall flow of the trail – left, right, up and down.” Brian Lopes, Mastering Mountain Bike Skills

Don’t miss – Of Zen and Mountain Biking Part II & Part III (Coming Soon)

For Stanley, Christa, Darren and Dig, who tolerated my early bike-borne Zen ravings.

© Big Mountain Riding

“Single speeds make you work smarter. Even if you’re a geared rider at heart, riding a single-speed occasionally makes you a better, more efficient rider. Being efficient is key to single-speed and why I’ve been able to compete with geared riders.”

- Fuzzy Mylne, Single Speed champion

Setting up for Single Speed Success

- Excerpts from the Mountain Bike Action interview with 29er’s John “Fuzzy” Mylne

Vic Armijo interviews Fuzzy Mylne, a single-speed racer who has been posting some impressive finishes out west in the epic race scene. Taking 6th place overall at the 2008 Sierra-Tahoe 100 pitted him against such epic race champions as Jeremiah Bishop, Chris Eatough, Tinker Juarez and Josh Tostado. The man knows a few things about racing single-speeds, and he shares his top tips to help you become a better rider.

Fuzzy rides single-speeds fast ... So can you!

1. Work your way up to being a single-speed maestro. “Take it easy in the beginning and avoid steep or long hills until you get the rhythm of it and learn how to climb without overdoing yourself every time,” advised Fuzzy. This will help you prevent the much-discussed strain on your knees that can come along with single-speeding.

2. Get the most out of your guns. “Strong arms and overall upper body strength is a definite advantage for getting a little extra power for getting up a hill by working the bike back and forth like a sprinter out of the seat, but in slow motion. Wide riser bars will give you more leverage for working the bike. And I’m big on bar-ends—just pull on those as hard as you can to help leverage the cranks around.”

3. Keep the front end weighted. Yanking on the bars and lunging with each pedal stroke while climbing can make it challenging to keep the front wheel planted. Fuzzy counteracts that by using a lower front end, “I put fewer headset spacers and a flatter stem to help me to keep my weight forward when I’m climbing and standing.”

4. Momentum is your amigo. With gears, many riders make speed by powering into corners, scrub speed late and forcefully, roll the corner and then put the power down to speed out of the corner. However, Fuzzy observes, “On a single-speed you might find that your gear is too low to really accelerate out, so instead keep your speed up and stay off the brakes.” He adds, “Momentum’s key for a single-speeder in other ways; keep your momentum on the rolling hills, especially the short steep ones. And truly I’m only working half the time compared to the geared guys. I work on climbs, but every where else I’m drafting off of them and recovering.”

5. Spin more, bonk less. Many elite SS riders push big gears, but Fuzzy, a former roadie, chooses lower ones comparably. “I like to keep a higher cadence. You’ve got to put the miles in at a high cadence for your body to get used to that.” And he gears down even more for real epics, “I want to be able to sit and climb as much as I can to save energy.” He generally makes his gearing variations on the rear, “I use the same chain-ring, a 32 tooth on my 29er, and I used 34 when I was riding 26-inch wheels, then use anything from 17 tooth cog to maybe a 21 or even a 22 if the course is really, really steep.”

Read the whole interview with Fuzzy Mylne at Mountain Bike Action online.

© 2009 Big Mountain Riding