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Mesh Tech and Body Evaporation!

Pat Carol

Ambassador
I want to first say that mesh tech gear is very nice and I can say the First Gear saved my friend's life , but there can be some misgiving's that I want all of you to be aware of when you are riding in the high temperature area's of the country right now.
I found out last year riding to Sedalia that my body had quickly evaporated much faster than I imagined. I suffered heat exhaustion four times.

Mistake #1- Do not let yourself be misled in your mind that Mesh Tech will keep you cool. I am still convinced that Mesh Tech gear is spectacular stuff, but your body will evaporate much faster as you are blasting through the curves.

Mistake #2- I use a Camel Back and only relied on straight water. Do not rely on straight water. I suggest a 50/50 mix of water and Gatorade. Keep your electrolytes plentiful.

Mistake #3- Almost passing out at the handlebar's. This became very sudden. I was riding and drinking the water and again misled myself. I slept several hour's in gas station's. A kind hearted Missouri Highway Patrol Officer even checked on me three times at one of my stop's.

It is very easy to dehydrate yourself. Do not do what I did. I should know better being a paramedic. We are our own worst patient's.
Have a safe and blessed ride to Salem!




Take Care & Ride Safe
Pat Carol
 
I would ditto Pat's comments. The takeaway is be very cautious with mesh gear going long distances. I won't do it. I wear my mesh jacket for short trips - like to town - in hot weather. For traveling I use a non-mesh jacket, an Aerostich Darian to be specific. With air flow up the sleeves and underarm vents and the vent across the back I can control the airflow and evaporation. Sure it is hot, but at anything over about 94 degrees F, the hot air blowing through the mesh is hotter than your skin and just feels plain hot anyway. At that temperature I then don an evaporative cooling vest. The moisture in the vest lasts about 10 minutes under mesh - about an hour under my Darian. Do your own math as to what is sucked out of the body without the vest under those conditions.

The risk from dehydration from mesh is too great for me to risk it for anything but very short trips.

I drink plain water - lots of it. But by controlling the air flow I can minimize moisture loss. I don't know if Pat would agree or not but I think the mesh jacket was his big culprit, at least as much if not more than what he drank.
 
I will second Mr. Carol's comments, as I too encountered my own experience with severe dehydration while riding with a mesh jacket.

A long day's ride with temp's in the upper 90's started with body cramps - legs and then hands - and concluded with me finally dismounting and staggering off to a shady spot to recuperate. I was barely able to stand unassisted when I finally threw in the towel.

You simply cannot replace the lost fluids quickly enough in extreme temperatures. My mesh is now relegated to shorter distances/ more moderate temperatures, and I have adopted the "drenched shirt" approach for really hot/long rides.
 
I am one of those who dehydrate quickly and it usually involves paramedics and hospitals with i.v. To get me back.I always have water or gatoraid with me.Having to stop and pee often is way better than not.i did buy a cooling vest at Sedalia last year as something else to try.
 
Yep, your urinary output is one of the best ways of monitoring your hydration. You know how often you would stop to go on a 60 degree day? On a hot day, drink enough water (or Gatorade blend) to maintain that output. That will be a LOT of water if it's 95 F.

I guess if we as smart as we'd like to believe, we would not be riding in temps above 90. It's heading above 90 here in MA right now; think I'll take my own advice and not ride! Bummer!

pete
 
I seem to recall from bicycling that urinary output is not an indicator of hydration. Dark urine is an indicator of potential dehydration. Water lost by perspiration doesn't get into the urinary tract. On a bicycle it was a sip every 10-15 minutes so I'd assume the same on a motorcycle.

I may be sticking my neck out here, so f anyone has better information on this, please correct me.
 
Being very aware that my mesh Olympia jacket is not the right thing to be wearing on long HOT days, I've brought my light weight rain gear to put on over it when/if the temps are above 95.

And drinking lots of water from the playpus in my tankbag. I skip the Gatoraid but eat bananas for those electroloyes.

Voni
sMiling
 
I want to first say that mesh tech gear is very nice and I can say the First Gear saved my friend's life , but there can be some misgiving's that I want all of you to be aware of when you are riding in the high temperature area's of the country right now.
I found out last year riding to Sedalia that my body had quickly evaporated much faster than I imagined. I suffered heat exhaustion four times.

Mistake #1- Do not let yourself be misled in your mind that Mesh Tech will keep you cool. I am still convinced that Mesh Tech gear is spectacular stuff, but your body will evaporate much faster as you are blasting through the curves.

Mistake #2- I use a Camel Back and only relied on straight water. Do not rely on straight water. I suggest a 50/50 mix of water and Gatorade. Keep your electrolytes plentiful.

Mistake #3- Almost passing out at the handlebar's. This became very sudden. I was riding and drinking the water and again misled myself. I slept several hour's in gas station's. A kind hearted Missouri Highway Patrol Officer even checked on me three times at one of my stop's.

It is very easy to dehydrate yourself. Do not do what I did. I should know better being a paramedic. We are our own worst patient's.
Have a safe and blessed ride to Salem!




Take Care & Ride Safe
Pat Carol

A lot of studies have been done on dehydration as related to Wildland Firefighters. Hard work, in hot temperatures, for long periods of time. A number of deaths have been associated with this problem and was the reason for the numerous studies. The reason for dehydration may be different for Firefighters compared to riding your motorcycle on a hot day? The outcome is the same. It can be deadly. Pat hit it right on the head above. If I could throw in a couple of more suggestions?
1. Start drinking your water early in the morning on the suspected hot day. Get ahead of the curve and stay ahead by drinking often.
2. The electrolytes in sport drinks (Gatorade) are more quickly absorbed. However, too much of a good thing can be bad. That is why you mix 50/50 with water. 10 years ago they use to push for us to drink Gatorade and found out that we were overloading on electrolytes. The 50/50 works good. Or, drink a bottle of water and the next bottle Gatorade.
3. Lastly, Pat's example of what happened to him on his ride are classic signs of a heat emergency. Not feeling good, nauseated, tired. If your not sweating any more and have hot dry skin, you have made it to the top of the heat emergencies which is heat stroke. Just below heat stroke is heat exhaustion and the main difference is some moist skin signs. Still serious!!! Mostly if your still trying to push it down the road to your next stop. Makes you wonder if some of the accidents that occur in the summer with motorcycles may be related to the problem?

Reading Pat's story made me think about what I have seen for myself in the Firefighting business. Riding in the heat is an area of concern for me since I am acclimated to a mild climate on the coast of CA. Salem Oregon will be my longest ride by far. Thank you all for sharing your experiences with riding in heat. I have learned a lot. I'm taking the Coast Route and cutting inland at Lincoln City. Hope it stays cool and foggy!!!!

John
 
Good to keep up with technology ...

The latest version of BMW's Airflow suit, i.e. Airflow 4, no longer has big vents in the chest area but instead the vents are limited to underarm area. Probably some of the lesser manufacturers will go this way eventually as well.

The discussion really should also include use of "cool vests" underneath an outer jacket, as some sort of cooling is going to lessen body fluid loss, too. Also, I'd think general fatigue.

Some ventilation, then, to facilitate an evaporative cooling system actually working isn't all bad.

Yes, in the old days evaporative systems lost effectiveness quickly, but new tech now exists that keeps them going longer.

As noted in previous post regarding BMW's new "Cool Down" vest.

Generalizations about all this ought to be combined with discussion of latest technology and it's for sure not a given that it's always "don't do it." Comparison testing is in order.
 
heat

I'm no expert but I've read a lot from the experts as well as conducted some tests of my own. Based on what I've learned, I'll wear mesh around town at slower speeds because it offers some protection in the event of an accident. For the longer trips, I'll wear my Aerostich Darien Light over LD Comfort long sleeved mock with the sleeves soaked in water. I'll also wear LD Comfort tights under my riding pants. I also have a water bladder that fits in my tank bag that I sip from frequently. I'll be attempting a Bun Burner Gold (IBA ride of more than 1500 miles in less than 24 hours) next week. In preparation, I will be drinking a lot of water this week to make sure I'm as hydrated as possible before the trip in addition to drinking as much as I can during the ride.
I got close to heat stroke last year while standing in the sun all day helping run a shooting match and the previous posters are correct, it's too late to hydrate when you reach that point. We've been pretty lucky in OK this year when it comes to brutally hot weather but I know it's coming. It's either park the bike or dress for it and hydrate. I'm not parking the bike.
 
When I rode to Redmond, I wore a 2L Camelback. Filled full of ice at Micky D's in the morning then added water. Sipped every few minutes. Lasted 4 hours at a time.

Drank every chance I could. No caffeine. Makes a big difference.

I wore mesh and never felt close to any of the symptoms listed above.

Just bought a one piece Roadcrafter. Vents seem to work well. Haven't worn it in anything over 85 degrees so far.

Eat a banana every day. Don't know if it helps,but i doesn't hurt either.

Looking for a way to mount a cooler on my RT for longer trips so I don't have to wear water on my back.

Anyone done that? Pics appreciated.
 
I too experienced dehydration with mesh gear, so I got rid of it. In its place I got some of the transition gear from Olympia. It has mesh panels that are covered by cordura panels that unzip (also have a vent zipper in the middle of the panel). For short trips, back and forth to work etc, sure, unzip the panes and go free and breezy. But long hot trips (just did 4800+ miles from Oregon to Arkansas and back) keep them shut. Once very hot, put on cooling vest and open just the zipper vents, as vest starts to wear out (dry out) open up larger panels. My experience in doing this is that you will arrive a lot better off and not dehydrated. We also normally only ran 2 hours (1/2 tank) and then stopped for a break, water, Gatorade, etc, then rode another 2 and then a stop for gas, food, drink etc and then normally the final push to hotel for the night, 2-3 hours down the road. Temps were normally in the high 80s, low 90s for most of the 15 day trip. A nice long soak in a cold pool at the end of the day also helped.
 
Hydration Timer

Ride extensively in very high "real" temps (heat+humidity)...Kevlar mesh usually, with LD LONG sleeves (dampened), long pants liners....AND a Hydration timer mounted on my instrument panel (dash). Simple kitchen timer......take a long cool swig from Camelback every 15 minutes....do NOT wait until you think you're thirsty!!!!:hungover
 
When I rode to Redmond, I wore a 2L Camelback. Filled full of ice at Micky D's in the morning then added water. Sipped every few minutes. Lasted 4 hours at a time.

Drank every chance I could. No caffeine. Makes a big difference.

I wore mesh and never felt close to any of the symptoms listed above.

Just bought a one piece Roadcrafter. Vents seem to work well. Haven't worn it in anything over 85 degrees so far.

Eat a banana every day. Don't know if it helps,but i doesn't hurt either.

Looking for a way to mount a cooler on my RT for longer trips so I don't have to wear water on my back.

Anyone done that? Pics appreciated.
Same here. Mesh to Sedalia last year, mesh to WV this year. No major symptoms. No camelback but I stopped every 1.5 and drank water from my cooler.
 
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