Five Tips on Keeping Cool
Jul 7th, 2009 by Leo
NY is squid central (biker terminology for unsafe under-dressed riders) during the summer months. What fair-weather riders don’t realize is July and August are actually NOT great months for riding. It’s too hot to ride with gear in the summer. On top of that there are even MORE cars on the road, and drivers in hot weather traffic are somewhat less courteous… All this adds up to: “let’s sit around the pool with the kids and leave the bike at home.”
But when you just have to get out, make sure to gear up for the heat. Take a look at these Five tips and give us your own in the comments section:
1. Hydrate hydrate hydrate. You know that feeling when the heat starts to get to you and it becomes hard to focus? Yeah, you shouldn’t be riding when you feel that way. Chances are you are dehydrated. And the thing is, you need more than just water, you need electrolytes…which is a fancy word for salts… If you don’t do something about it you’ll start to get a headache. The water hydrates, but the salts help the cells in your body hold and use the liquids. Salty foods are great (I know a great ramen place on 4th Ave), sports drinks will do the trick sometimes, but if neither of these are handy, a small amount of table salt can do the trick. If you have health conditions (or you’re on a low sodium diet), talk to your doctor about this before you take my advice…
2. Under Armour. When you go to a track day, what does everyone wear under their leathers? Chances are everyone around you is wearing Under Armour “heat gear.” It wicks the moisture off your skin and lets it evaporate so that your skin feels cooler. You can even get UA in white and wear it under your dress shirt for work.
When I’m out riding for fun in hot weather I wear the UA with a perforated leather jacket and the jacket unzipped. Most people think a short sleeve shirt would keep you cooler, but it’s really a tradeoff. Take a look at desert nomads and you don’t see a lot of short sleeve shirts. Instead they cover every inch of their skin from the sun. Give the UA a try with your summer gear; you’ll still be hot when standing in the sun but when you’re moving you’ll feel cool enough that you won’t feel like you need to skimp too much on safety.
3. Ice ice baby. Put freezer packs in your pocket. It won’t last a whole day, but it’ll get you across town and out of the city onto more open roads.
4. Tinted visor. These are actually not legal in many places… but for the most part the police don’t care as long as it’s bright out. Bring your clear visor with you because you never know, and you don’t want to be like Cinderella having to ride home before the strike of sunset. Many people report that it’s much easier to maintain focus and stay sharp when they’re not fighting the glare of a hot sunny day.
5. Sit up and keep moving. Perforated leather, even full leather suits, are fine and comfy as long as you keep moving. The problem is the stop and go traffic around the city. Choose routes that will keep you moving, because moving even slowly is better than standing at a stop. If traffic allows, hang back and cruise up to the stop light the way lazy drivers do. Meanwhile stay upright to get as much of the breeze as you can.
What do you do to keep cool? Let us know.
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#5 is my solution for hot SoCal summers (and similar conditions for most of fall). Since I commute by bike, I avoid the hottest times of the day even though it can be in the 90s on the way home on the hottest of days. Still, perf, leather, top to bottom (check out Kushitani perf. leather jeans) is the best solution I’ve found for riding in the hot; even better than textile mesh. I find that polyester based textiles tend to absorb and retain hear more than leather. That’s not based on science as much as it is on anecdotal/personal experience. You’re correct about baking at a stop or at slow speeds, but then again, I’d rather sweat some of the time than potentially bleed or worse. Thank gods we can filter through traffic around here.
I live in Georgia and I wear an Aerostich suit for my longer trips. I find the best thing to do is wet my under armor down every fifty miles or so. I am sure this would be equally effective with perforated gear.
It’s really only effective when moving, but it is so effective that the occasional stop light isn’t that big a deal.
Great tips!
Re: tip #2, especially for the ladies: if UA heat gear doesn’t work for you, pretty much any “wicking/breathable” underlayers will do. REI makes some nice long sleeve and long underwear layers, as does Patagucci (ahem, I mean Patagonia.) Buy the lightest weight fabric, and you’ll stay cooler and keep that sweaty feeling away.
I like the UA idea but I’ve found that any clothing under your leathers will help keep you cool. The hottest part of my body tends to the the part that is exposed to my jacket/pants and start sweating profusely. I ride in LA and it gets well over 100 here…so it makes a difference to have jeans and a long sleeve shirt on underneath rather than a t-shirt and shorts.
That said, I think your suggestion of wearing your jacket unzipped is a bad one. A jacket is a second layer of skin and it does you no good if you go down, a side catches the pavement and rips it right off your body…easy to do. Not safe.
Thanks for chiming in everyone! And did you notice the two bloggers here (Bolty and Life) both ride SV650s?
LifeOn2Whls, if you mean that an unzipped jacket offers less protection than a zipped up jacket, then I agree with you!!
But if you mean an open jacket is the same thing as no jacket at all, or close, then I’d disagree with that… The arms and shoulders hit the ground first so you really need to have some kind of armor there, and even an open jacket will do the trick.
Having said that, the more gear the better – but in NY 85 degrees with humidity feels like 100 in CA. And for people around the city (around NY), you don’t get to move fast enough to make full leathers comfortable. The down side is no one wears full leathers around town. The up side, you’re really not going so fast that you need to…
So we try to make a case for CityBikers with a reasonable level of protection… Need boots (if you fall with the bike on top of your ankle, you’ll thank me), need gloves (fingers are nice to have), and need a jacket w. armor… and a full face helmet. Not ATGATT, but CityGAT