High UV Index and Cycling.

rvijay07

High UV index locally has prevented me from cycling significantly for the last few weeks. How do you deal with this ? High Heat + High Humidity+High UV Index is extremely demotivating for me.

Vijay

Julian G.

Dude, I have never, ever checked the UV index... and almost never check how hot it is...

All I care is if I've got a shot at getting fried by lighting or not and wich way the winds blowing.

Heat/Humidity= Get out there for abit and you'll "acclimate" to it. Even on the hotest days of the year, the heat doesn't bother me after the first 10-20 minutes.

High UV= Sunscreen? As I said above, I personally do not check this, do not really care. This might put me at a risk of skin cancer when I'm older, but a helluva lot less risk than the people who spend half thier time tanning etc...

Just get out there and ride... even if it's raining or just barely warm enough that I'm not getting frost bite, I always find it to be worth it...

NickInNC

Over this past week I have grappled with this issue as well. And on days when the heat index is over 105 I have decided to take the ole' car. When temps reach over 100 and you are doing streanous exresice you are at risk for a large number of different health releated problems. Especially down here i nthe south where the humidity is over 80% it is not a healthy choice. I rode 3 times this past week and drove the car twice. I just made sure that I had plenty of liquids stored up. Dehydration is the most dangerous aspect of riding in the summer. IT CAN KILL YOU. So just be smart know when to ride the bus or in your car and stay alive.

TIP: Take a wet towell and freeze it, when you leave the house place it ontop your head before you put your helmet on. This well give your body temp a nice ocre cool down.

mphew1

If you are commuting in the morning and the evening the sun is much lower in the sky and the UV has a lot more atmosphere to get through than in the middle part of the day. I wouldn't worry about UV until after 10:00AM or before 4:00PM this is when the sun is more over head and has a lot less atmosphere to absorb the nasty UV. The level of UV you'd get whilst riding, particularly if you're wearing a helmet with a visor would be more beneficial than detrimental, unless you have a really bad family history of skin cancer.

NORECUMYET

Huh! I've never worried about the UV index. I'm not even sure I know what it means. I ride all the time in heat well over 100 degrees. I used to have a place on the Colorado River and routinely went running while I was there. It goes up over 125 degrees Farenheit there. You just make sure that you're drinking lots of water all day every day. You do need to be very careful though. If you don't know the signs of dehydration and heat exhaustion you can really get yourself into trouble.

Unfortunately by the time you get symptoms you're usually already dehydrated but for me it's always been easy to tell what's up. If you stop sweating and or get chills then you've got to either slow way down or stop and get fluid into you ASAP. You should carry as much as you can. Don't worry about the weight, it's not as important as staying hydrated. Use a good sports drink with electrolytes. Preferably something with complex carbs not high fructose corn syrup (SIMPLE SUGAR). I use ULTRA FUEL by twinlab. I've never found anything that works better. It also gilves you loads of energy. If at all possible get into some shade.

However, if you stay hydrated all the time which you should not matter what, and you carry PLENTY of fluid with you, you should be just fine. You'll burn more calories the hotter it is so you won't need to ride as far. On really hot days you can also make yourself a course that's close to home. That way you can make several laps and you'll still always be pretty close to home if you need to get inside.

If you just use a little common sense then you'll never have to let heat stop you from getting your riding done. It's kind of like most other things. If you really want to do it you'll find a way.


Just remember. If you get any chills, a headache, and your sweating slows way down or stops, then you HAVE slow down or stop, get fluid in you, and get home or into some shade until you start to feel more normal. One time I let it go too far. I got very confused, I lost my balance, and at one point I think I almost blacked out. Not good.

Ever since I always carry a cell phone if I'm going to be far from home. If I have to I can call someone to come get me. Even if it's a cab.

If you're worried about sunburn (UV INDEX ???) wear long sleeves and pants and use sunscreen. The long sleeves and pants help to keep you from losing fluid as fast. Have you ever seen an Arab wearing shorts on a camel in the middle of the Sahara? There's a reason they wear the robes and keep completely covered.

NORECUMYET

I guess there's aspects to this issue that I'm not getting a handle on. I've biked and run so many times when it's over a hundred and high humidity to boot that I'm not getting why this is stopping otherwise healthy folks from getting out there. If it's really hot and 90% humidity on top of it then just slow down. You don't have to try to beat your personal best every time you exercise. Especially on a bicycle. you've got all that wind to aid in the cooling. If you've got on a sweetshirt and long pants then it'll only take a few minutes in extreme weather before your clothes are wet with sweat. Once that happens a good 10 to 15 mile an hour breeze will really do a nice job cooling you. I only recommend wearing all the clothes if you for some reason CAN NOT get an unlimited supply of fluid. Unless you're on a rural road with no stores or homes where you can get fluid then you ought to be able to drink as much as you like. I've knocked on doors of strangers to ask if could drink from their garden hose. Usually once they see your bright red face you don't even have to ask. It's not a bad way to make a new friend either.

If you're trying to keep your weight down by limiting the amount of fluid you carry then your pretty much blowin' it. I can easily carry 2, two quart water bladders with me and if I like I can have the hose sitting right in front of my mouth. It doesn't get much easier to keep hydrated and as long as you're hydrated and you don't push it too hard you should be O.K.

Now I don't normally take it easy but on the couple of occasions that I had signs of dehydration I just slowed way down and sucked up as much fluid as I could comfortably handle. Believe it or not you can get off the bike and kick it in some shade. Or if you're on a busy street you can always walk into a business and take advantage of their air conditioning. MOST business owners are pretty understanding. Only once did a guy give me a hard time about getting some water. ( I had lost the money I brought with me for emergency liquid) In that case I simply told the guy to go ahead and call the police 'cause I was gonna fill up my water bladder weather he liked it or not. (The place had a drinking fountain and he told me I couldn't use it unless I was a customer)

Yes you can get hurt bad by overheating, but speaking for myself I know that it is possible to notice the signs. They can be difficult to notice if your really good at overlooking discomfort in the name of speed, but the signs are unique. For me it's a very brief chill with some goosebumps. It only lasts a split second and it's normally accompanied by lower or discontinued sweating. My first sign that something's up is a dull headache. A loss of mental clarity and or physical coordination is another. An example would be something like having a harder time than normal clipping yourself into your pedals. Or better yet forgetting which direction is required to shift into a lower or higher gear.

I will admit that if you go too far you can be in BIG trouble, and that it can sneak up on you. But I think if you know what to look for you'll be just fine. If I would have known previously about the chills and lower sweating before hand I wouldn't have gotten myself into trouble the one time that I did. Even so, I made it home O.K. and after a few hours I felt good as new. I suppose I could credit that to the fact that I did stop at a liquor store even before I felt bad and filled my bottles with Gatorade. If I hadn't done that maybe I would have ended up in the hospital in stead of home on the couch.

I can't say it enough. DRINK, DRINK, DRINK, DRINK, DRINK, DRINK. Don't wait 'till you're thirsty. Your body tells you you're thirsty when you're already dehydrated. Get yourself a big fat camelback and the heat needn't stop you again.

Well, I gotta go. All this talk has me feeling like a ride. It's currently 100 degrees and 18% humidity. NO PROBLEM. By the way, I'm not some young kid that can get away with alot because of my youth. I'm 46.