- South African riding summers are long and very warm, which creates a lot of dehydration risk for riders.
- Whether you are training indoors or outside, managing that heat threshold is important.
- This new riding baselayer, can help you stay cooler, during the hottest of training sessions.
Few global riding geographies have the same heat exposure for as many months each year, as South Africa.
Whether you are rolling huge mileages on the road or linking
off-road routes on your mountain bike, summer riding can be brutal. No matter
how many water bottles you carry, there is a point where you want to feel a
cooling sensation on your skin.
Since the pandemic, one of the most noticeable training trends has been the popularity of indoor riding. Better stationary bikes and virtual riding simulators have enticed many more cyclists to ride a lot of their training distance in the living room.
Riding outside in soaring temperatures or spinning in your living room on that indoor trainer, the heat impact remains the same: staying cooler improves performance.
Indoor training is particularly challenging when it comes to staying cool. Riders on a trainer or stationary bike don’t benefit from the natural airflow they would experience rolling along at speed outside.
Add ice to have a nicer ride
VeloToze has a new solution called the Cooling Vest. And it
does what it says. The Cooling Vest has a mesh structure and four pockets,
shaped like a traditional cycling baselayer (which you’d use in winter).
Instead of using those pockets to store Harribos or spares, the Cooling Vest’s pockets are strategically placed to carry ice packs. The largest ice pack pocket is on the upper back, with a medium-sized pocket lower down. Its two other ice pack pockets are stitched to the sides.
Filled with ice packs, the Cooling Vest should keep you cooler and improve indoor riding performance. It can also be used for normal riding outside, when you know that temperatures will peak way beyond 30-degrees Celsius.
According to VeloToze the ice packs should be suitable for reuse after only six hours in the freezer.
