AntonioGG

Walnut is very wet. At least three idiots have ridden in the trails and left deep ruts and tracked mud onto the paved path. i let one know it was too wet to ride.

LCRA shows there was very little rain in the last 48 hours: 24 hours: I know temps have been cool. What are the chances it's dry?

Your posting of special neck cloths got me searching for phase change cooling for sports and I ran into this http://www.mscooling.com/athletes which reminded me of another experiment. I have a https://www.coolshirt.com from my racing days. I had a custom one made where they put the tubing on a technical tee instead of the usual cotton or Nomex. After a failure of trying to cool my garage with a roll-around AC unit, I thought about deploying my cool-shirt system when using the trainer in the summer. I didn't last 5 minutes. Where the coolshirt was perfect under 3 layers of Nomex in a hot race car, it did not have enough cooling power (pure conductive in this case) for doing intervals on the trainer. Nothing beats air volume so I switched to two massive fans to replace my window box fans.

I got what you were saying Cody. I do some long rides and long races, but when I'm off the bike for a few weeks and I re-start, there's always a bit of soreness for the first week or two. I won't go do a 6 hour or 12 hour ride in the first couple of weeks. In fact, I probably only do 1hr rides and if I push that, I'll be needing the Boudreaux. I talked to Nelo once about saddles and he told me if you find one you like, buy 3-4. He also had a favorite discontinued saddle and when he found out they had stopped selling it, he scoured e-bay for more. My last in-store purchase was a Selle Italia for my road bike from Music City Cycles. Dave had loaner saddles. You paid a deposit and you could take saddles out for extended tests (like a week, and a long ride on the weekend, etc.). I tested 4-5 saddles that way. I wish more shops had this program. My last saddle for myself was an online Ergon purchase (love that saddle.) My last purchase for my family were saddles from the take-off box at Bucks. $12 saddles including a women's model for my wife's hybrid which she seems to like (and several saddles b/c my 12yo seems to go through 2 a year).

I call it Wookie Way

Not a lady..but I got my wife a Specialized BG Mimic and she loves it. She should go to the LBS and try different ones. Go to a shop (if there is one around these days that loans out saddles) and try different saddles for extended rides. At the very least get the sit bone measurement.

I just read @cxagent's link on dry bulb, wet bulb, and dew point. Thanks! I'm definitely saving that link. So to summarize my above post, what I'd like to know is if the material choice in the wet bulb would make a difference. Would wet bulb temp with muslin be higher than wet bulb temp with a tech fabric?

Is the Wunder Pig opening this Tuesday? Their normal schedule has them closed Monday and Tuesday.

@CBaron I think I've told you this story. In 2011 I did the Cohutta 100 in Georgia. By then 29ers were already a common bike in Austin. But in Georgia they seemed to be rare. I remember a pack of 26er guys watching me fly through a root garden yelling "look at those big wheels go!". @JRA , your first impression of 29ers is exactly my impression. They are a big advantage in most situations.

The reviews are hilarious!

It's for the slow children:

@cxagent take a look at my ride from yesterday https://www.strava.com/activities/2475474003 in the hottest part of the day. It was a bit of an experiment (stupid one) after following this thread. I wore my Pearl Izumi sun sleeves and a club jersey. The sleeves were drying even though I was sweating. The jersey and my skin (other than my arms) stayed moist. It mostly felt OK except for the 620 climbs (with some tail wind) and some of the 360 climbs where the south headwind was being blocked by the hills. The worst was the climb from the dam to past Marshal Ford (and the two stupid super long lights in a row there) the Garmin-indicated temp at the dam wad 93°F and at the top it was 100°F. The sleeves definitely did their job but the "technical" fabric of the jersey did not work as well as the sleeves. I had to stop 3 times to get water even with 3 bottles when normally I could do the whole thing without stopping. The best was the Chevron on 2244 that had sprinklers running on the bit of grass with a picnic table. The sleeves I think help pull moisture off the skin, and increase the surface area for evaporation. What I don't know is if it's possible for a material to increase the rate of phase change of the water. I know they make nano-materials that increase condensation or make it possible when it isn't condensing anywhere else. My sleeves are a few years old, but when they were new, the amount of cooling was freaky. I mostly got them to block the sun since I hate putting on sunblock, but now I wish I could get a whole kit made out of this material. I'm not sure what the dew point was yesterday, but I'm curious what my experience says about evaporation cooling based on the conditions.

Candid camera?

Nice that they come with the tapered head tube now. Mine is 1 1/8" all the way which really limits the fork choices these days.

^^^^This. I also tend to flatten out my road rides more.

I have to admit that Rocky Hill for some reason feels extra hot to me compared to almost any other trail. I don't know what it is...maybe those red pebbles or something. I've ridden there at 99°F and it felt awful! CJB, I agree. To me, by August (and even now already this year) 92°F feels cool to me, especially in the afternoons.

Thanks for the clarification re: conduction/convection Ridenfool. I'm about to go push my cooling sleeves and beanie to the limit on a hilly road ride:

I love the Trainerroad podcasts! FJ, I'm at 205-210lbs and I find that simulated climbs (Rouvvy, Zwift) end up with my CycleOps Hammer overheating and decreasing the resistance. It's a combination of my comfortable pace not spinning the wheel/fan fast enough, and my weight + simulation = higher Watts when doing anything that gets beyond 5-6%. So I stick to TrainerRoad (if I absolutely have to) for that reason and hill repeats outside. It was the same problem with my Computrainer even when pointing a fan right at it.

+1. Also on steep climbs or when you have a tailwind! Feels like my shoes will melt. I love the headwinds in the summer.

Most of the cooling in humans is not convective though, it's evaporative. (Dogs only have convective cooling, except for through their mouths, so keep your dogs home in this heat--especially the brachycephalic (pugs, bulldogs, boxers, etc.).) One of the things I remember the most about HS Chemistry was the experiment to measure calories for evaporation vs convection. Basically, it was measuring how much heat you could extract by adding ice, vs evaporating. It wasn't even close! Layers that promote evaporation make a difference as well. The key is to make sure you're sweating. Once you stop sweating they act like warmers. If it's extremely humid where water doesn't evaporate, then that's a problem as well. For me, I can ride in the dry heat better than in cooler more humid temps, as long as I have plenty of fluids. I'll ride in the afternoon rather than in the morning for this reason.

The interesting thing is to see what each one had as a target to finish. Sofiane's target was 15 days vs Wilcox and Kato's target of 14 days. There are some 16 day people ahead of Wilcox. Did some burn some matches too early? Or are they just feeling pretty good? Seems like the 2nd half southbound is the hardest by looking at the elevation profile, but I don't know for sure.

You nailed it. I had a "background" headache for 5 days. It went away the day of the race. I somehow still managed to enjoy myself riding some of the local trails (it was really hard not to go too hard) and I pre-rode a few of the climbs just to get used to what was coming. I had gone a month earlier to pre-ride some more as well. Same story. I want to go back and do this race again (even though I hated pretty much everything about it) just to apply what I know now.

I think the tricky part of that spot and a couple of other spots on 1/4 is that maybe your front and rear tires hit a step (or step and root) at the same time. If you're tired that makes it seem harder.

Cody nailed it, especially the happy zone point. I'll add one thing. I found that coming from Austin, at 10k the happy zone was not hard to find and it was comfortable, but if you have to punch it to pass people, it was hard to get back to that happy zone for me. I got there 6 days before the event which is about the worst thing I could have done. Sounds like you'll have some more time to get used to the altitude. I've heard the other alternative is to get there the day before.