Originally Posted by DaveLeeNC

I am a high sweating kind of guy, even though I am of average size (5'10" and 155 pounds). I have mostly dealt with this by avoiding heat of the day long rides. But there are lots of folks who do stuff like the Hotter N' Hell ride soon coming up. My question is 'how do people like me take something like that on'. FWIW, I have no intention of riding this event, but trying to do longer rides here in south-central NC is a similar issue.


For me I routinely sweat 4-5 pounds an hour in hot weather. I have run more carefully controlled experiments in the past, but today's (miserable) ride is a good example. It was only 90 minutes and no water as my brand new bike's water cages do not get here until tomorrow (just didn't bother taking the old cages off - only 90 minutes so). It was hard at the end but nothing surprising or anything that presented symptoms other than being more tired than the pace says I should have been.

When I got up this morning I weighed 156.5 pounds (immediately after a quick stop at the toilet). I drank a couple cups of coffee while doing some home admin work and then off on the ride. Nothing else went in or out, as I recall (OK - I did not hold my breath the whole time). When I got back I stripped and got back on the scales. I weighed 148.6 pounds. I seemed to have lost 8 pounds of water in 90 minutes. And the temp during the ride was between 86 and 90 degrees. This is consistent with 'better' experiments that I have done in the past.

From what I have read of water absorption rates, 1.5 pounds an hour is probably the best that you can do. So if I were to take on Hotter N' Hell at an easy 5.5 hour pace, I lose around 27 pounds of water. During this time I could absorb maybe 8-9 pounds of water, probably leaving me comatose if I actually did this.

How do folks like me deal with such rides?

Thanks.

dave