hypothermia--
Seems like a good number of riders were/are battling this. As a potential 2015 racer, I'm VERY curious how to avoid it, or to deal with it once it's begun. All advice would be appreciated! Thanks!!
I've been pretty surprised at the number of hypothermic riders this year. I don't know if it has been common in the past and we just didn't hear about it, or if this year is unusual and there really are more this year.
I do mostly short winter events where I can underdress and just warm up afterwards. But I'm usually outside for 6-8 hours every weekend in the winter, mostly sitting and standing, and I've got some strong beliefs about keeping warm.
1. Drink warm fluids. I think this is more important than any other thing. I can't tell you how many cold drinks I've drunk without realizing that **If you're kinda cold anyway, drinking a cold drink makes you really cold**. I finally figured it out, and it needs to be shouted from rooftops. If you're feeling okay and you drink something cold, it can put you over the edge. I really question the decision to not have any stove, even a tablet stove (e.g., Esbit) or an alcohol stove (e.g., pop can / Trangia) to just boil a cup of water for tea, coffee, ramen (even just the flavor packet), or even a bouillon cube. If you're desperate, just drink the hot water. It doesn't need to be boiling. Hot enough to drink fast. One of the small propane/butane stoves might actually be the fastest way to stop, heat water, and be back on the bike. Definitely worth experimenting. When you lean over a stove in the cold, and it lights, there is a blast of heat that hits your face. Sure you can catch yourself on fire. But if everything is wet, it's pretty hard.
2. The 99% percentile worst thing is rain near freezing. If you are packing light, you're basically screwed. There just isn't a lot that can keep you warm if everything is wet and you've only got a thin layer of insulation. (I do think the worst thing, the 99-100% worst thing is just extreme bitter cold, like a polar vortex from last winter.) Your only hope is drinking enough warm fluids or starting a fire.
3. Fleece under a shell. I'm not so certain about this one. I don't trust down if I know it could get wet (but it's so nice in camp). When I'm out at 32F and it's raining, I wear fleece with or without a shell. The shell really helps if you're moving fast (wind), but if you are climbing, it really doesn't seem to matter. But fleece is heavy for TD. Maybe a nano-puff-type jacket with a synthetic fill rather than down. Maybe someone else has experience with this. I tend to go for fleece because it's extremely durable---briars, branches, crashes. I also really like thicker polypro type gear. Capilene, Underarmour Cold Gear, some mil-surplus stuff. Might be good dual-purpose stuff for warmer days as a single layer.
4. Membranes. For TD, people seem reluctant to carry a lot. But experiment with the idea of items that let wind through, like normal fleece and polypro and tech shirts, and contrast that with items that are wind and waterproof, like goretex, windstopper, and other "membrane" items. The problem, again, is 32F and raining. If you're sweating inside that shell, it's staying. So you need enough "airy thickness" that can be soaking wet and yet still keep you warm. You need to test it, because (a) everyone says their stuff is awesome, and yet (b) not everything is awesome.
4. Shock cooling. Shock cooling is an aviation term. It applies to cycling when you climb and get really hot, and then immediately descend while you're still sweaty and unzipped and *boom*, you've dropped your core temp. It seems like you need a strategy for this, especially in really bad conditions. At some point you need to realize, "I've gone over the edge, I need to warm up," and you need to have a plan to make that happen.
One final comment. I'm not a doctor. But I've read a lot about hypothermia. Warming up someone who is really cold has a few really scary issues. Probably the scariest is called "peripheral vasodilation." Say you see someone who is really cold, and their hands and feet are visibly cold. Q: What you do you? A:You ignore the hands and feet and you heat up their core, and only then do you worry about their hands and legs. The body has shut down blood flow to the arms and legs to prevent further core temperature loss. If you warm up the arms and legs, the blood vessels (the "peripheral" (arms and legs) blood vessels) vasodilate (open up) and dump cold blood into the core. **This is really bad**. It can cause drastic blood pressure drops and lead to fatal heart beat arrhythmia. Search "peripheral vasodilation" in this article:
http://www.hypothermia.org/weinberg.htm It's in there twice. Luckily, this is much less an issue for someone who is not severely hypothermic. But if you're not sure, and they're *really* cold, be careful. And if you're a rider, don't let yourself get there. You could die. Have a plan.
Here's a story. When I was a kid, my grandmother would always say, "Put on a coat, or you'll catch a chill." I had heard that literally a hundred times, but nothing ever happened. Years later, I was in my twenties. I was alone at a house in the country. I wasn't feeling well. I was inside, 70F (21C), but I was cold. It wasn't even particularly cold out; probably it was freezing. I ran out to my car for a second, and can you guess what happened? Yes. I caught a chill. I got in bed under a ton of blankets, shivering, with my teeth chattering violently. I didn't warm up for an entire day. Now, admittedly, I was young and stupid. Today I would have made warm drinks and soup. I even keep an electric blanket now for when I have the flu. Now imagine being 40 miles from anything, in ice-cold rain, and having that happen to you.
