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Motorcycle Safety and Awareness
Welcome to think bike, the podcast about all things motorcycle and the voice of motorcycle safety and awareness in Alberta. Your host is Leanne Langlois.
Liane:Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of think bike, and I am thrilled to bring Rob Rides back to the Think Bike Podcast. I wanted Rob to join us because of as you know from the last episode that he was on, The Adventures with Rob, He rides in some pretty hot places and I don't mean like hot sexy hot, I mean like hot heat hot. And there's a lot of things out there about riding in the heat that I look at people and go, oh, some bad things are gonna happen and you don't understand how this works. So I thought that Rob might be a good person to have on here to talk about that and welcome back to the show.
Rob:Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
Liane:So just a reminder, who is Rob and what got you into riding?
Rob:I think like most of us, I got my first motorcycle ride on a friend's a family friend's kid's bike. It was a Honda fifty in the eighties.
Liane:We all did that.
Rob:I had one
Liane:of those at my uncle's farm.
Rob:Yeah. And that's why that bike is so popular now when you can't find one because everybody remembers them. That first ride, I was lost, maybe found, but that was that was it for me.
Liane:It doesn't take a lot. And, hey, a question I didn't ask you on the last one. Are you the only person in your family that rides?
Rob:I am.
Liane:Yeah. Me too. Isn't that weird? Yeah.
Rob:I'm good with it. My son, when he was younger, we talked about it and he came to me and then he said, Hey, I just don't think it's for me. And I said, That's okay. It's expensive and it's dangerous.
Liane:I mean, come to the decision on your own, but I'm the only one in my family that, while my immediate family, my mom has a first cousin that rides and we ended up meeting up at a family reunion at one point, which was pretty cool.
Rob:So
Liane:I I wanna jump into this. Again, you have a unique perspective. You're part of the first first responders world as well as being a rider, which gives you a unique perspective on riding in the heat. But before we fully get into it, Mexico, Thailand, which one's hotter and where's or is Moab? Like, what is the hottest place you've ever ridden?
Rob:So that comparison all depends on what month it is.
Liane:True.
Rob:Yeah. The hottest I've suffered was Thailand. The bike had an external thermometer on it, and I saw 48 degrees Celsius. That was the hottest I've ever dealt with, and it was not good.
Liane:That's like the sun.
Rob:Yeah. It was the sweat was rolling down my back. And when you're here's another thing. When you're a giant like I am, you can only get helmets in black.
Liane:Really?
Rob:Yes. Like when you need a three or a four XL helmet, they only make them in black. You don't get color choices. So I felt like my brain was boiling in my helmet.
Liane:Have you ever thought about visiting my good friend over at Just Cause Customs and having Mitch paint something for you?
Rob:How do I wanna say this? I wanna be forgettable.
Liane:You just paint it like blah blue or something, something that isn't black and attracts all the heat.
Rob:And maybe go to white. I just and when you have got too many bikes, I don't want something to match. It's yeah. And there's a rotation over here of bikes.
Liane:Yeah. And I'm a girl and I need to match, so I've got matchy helmets for my bikes. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous, especially when you put comm systems in all of them.
Rob:I have three of those.
Liane:Gets expensive. This is an expensive hobby. Kids don't get into it, although it's better than drugs. All right. So 48, you say?
Rob:Correct.
Liane:Good grief. How do you prepare for that? Or could you have because you flew to Thailand and rented a bike? Like what gear do you take and do you know to prepare for that heat?
Rob:So back then I was a little dumber. That that that trip was that trip was pre COVID to give you a a time frame.
Liane:K.
Rob:And I brought dehydration tablets with me. The ones by Nunn, n u u n, is the company. I brought those with me, and I didn't use them until the evening when I was already shot every day. What I've learned since then is to start my day with those.
Liane:Right.
Rob:If I know it's gonna be a long, hot day, I start with those. And if I don't have those because I wasn't expecting it, I will go to the first place where I felt the bike. I'll buy two liters of Gatorade, and I will pound those. And that gives me what I need to get moving. I have a couple of little tricks I use that are quite effective.
Rob:I've bought a cooling vest off Amazon. It's $60. You soak it in water in a plastic bag, open the vents on your jacket, and it's just a swamp cooler. It works wonderfully. It's I'm sure it's probably saved my life in Arizona last year.
Rob:I also always ride with a balaclava, and so I'll soak that too. And it's just just anything to take the edge off.
Liane:Hey. I'm gonna start with dehydration tablets. For those of us, meaning me, who have never heard of that before, what are they, and exactly how do they work? Because to me, it sounds like it's going to dehydrate you.
Rob:No. No. It's a little so we've actually got them on the truck at work too because we're often in really brutal environments. Yeah. It's just a little disc, a little tablet, and you break it in half, and it'll fit in the neck of a standard water bottle.
Rob:And it basically just bumps the water up so it'll take care of the electrolytes that you're missing. One of those, if you've got to the point where you're just dehydrated, one of those in a 500 mil bottle of water will get you back to right. If you're at the point of heat stroke, it's going to help, but it's not going to bring you back up. You need to rest.
Liane:So it's like Gatorade, but not Gatorade because you're just putting it in regular water.
Rob:And Gatorade's not as good as this.
Liane:No, Gatorade that has all the like other sugars and stuff in there that I mean, aren't really like, I'm not a Gatorade fan. I think I'm Gatorade fan when I have the flu and I'm dehydrated and need electrolytes, but this sounds like it would be a better
Rob:Yeah. And the tube is probably, I mean, the size of two of my fingers through your hand. You can you can just keep it in your tank bag and or in one of your side cases and leave it there forever because you can buy a bottle of water anywhere.
Liane:Yeah. Where can you pick those up?
Rob:I usually buy them in by the case off Amazon. You do need to watch because some of them have caffeine added. Oh, yeah. I try and avoid those ones. But, and I'll be really honest, they don't taste that good.
Rob:They're Wow. They're not lovely, but when you're at that point or you know, you're getting to that point, you don't care anymore.
Liane:Just wondering if that might be something handy for when we're at the Salt Flats, because that is like, Ugh.
Rob:I've been to the Salt Flats. You should have those there.
Liane:Yeah.
Rob:Yeah.
Liane:Yeah. We all give each other hell if we're not don't if if you don't have a bottle of water in your hand, somebody else drink and you have to drink your water. And if you don't, you get in shit. Yeah. Because you will if you the other thing is, like, good good for people to know because we are talking about heat and riding in the heat.
Liane:If you have no desire to pee, you are well past the point of dehydration.
Rob:Yes. Yes. You're way gone.
Liane:Yeah. Yeah. You may feel fine, but if you're not peeing, you're you're not in a good space. Okay. Cooling fast.
Liane:Yes. Same same. Nelson in the Kootenays can get like 35 plus degrees. And I had somebody who had two with them one year at the event that I run and let me try one just for funsies. Night and day, Fully agree with you on that.
Liane:Cooling vest for the win. If you can't find it on Amazon, go to your local shop. They can order one in, but it will cost more, I think, than
Rob:I looked today. The Amazon one that I own is $60. Yeah. Like, it's why wouldn't you? Your gloves cost five times that probably.
Liane:You just need a Ziploc plastic baggie that is big enough to put it in so it can kinda set itself. I can't remember how to describe that, but it needs to charge. It's like It needs to
Rob:it needs to soak a little bit. Yeah. I've done it because I ride a lot in The States in the heat too. I just buy something from seven Eleven, and they still have plastic bags. So
Liane:Yeah. We don't do that here. There's a ban on plastic. Might be making a comeback. Who knows?
Liane:I like my straws. They don't kill turtles. I hate those
Rob:black paper straws. I hate them so much.
Liane:And then you say, Bellaclava. Now, you're probably more trained in first aid than I am, so you're going to either dispel a myth or correct something for me, however this runs. Around your neck. I have heard that if you fully wrap around your neck with something cool and wet that it can play with your brain nervous system. Like short it out.
Rob:Only in the way you want when you're cooking to death. I've never it can it can trick you. That's the fastest way to cool off.
Liane:Well, thought just the nape of your neck was like behind the fastest way to cool somebody down because I've done that a lot. But somebody said, I gave everybody cooling towels one year at this Triumph event and there was like at least five or six people are like, don't ever wrap it fully around your neck.
Rob:I think that comes back to the don't wear a full face helmet because you can't breathe. I've I've never heard anything like that or experienced it. I've done it lots.
Liane:Okay. And I mean, I trust you with your background in, you know, with what you do that, okay. So it it is okay to because you know, there's so many different tricks that you can do and tips. Like I take a cooling towel and I put it in with my cooling vest to quote unquote charge. And then I feel great for a lot of the day that I'm riding.
Liane:And then you just stop at a gas station if you had dried out and re soak it in a bathroom.
Rob:I did a ride last year from Tucson, Arizona up to Las Vegas. I store a bike in Las Vegas most winters, and I had to recharge my cooling vest four times on that ride. I'm I'm doing it in stop traffic because I'm stopped in construction. Like, I'm not waiting. Yeah.
Rob:If you get stuck out and you don't own a cooling vest or, you know, like, mine's in The States with that bike right now. If I got a hot ride here, I've taken my shirt off and just soaked it because it's not worth it. Once you have heat exhaustion and heat stroke, it's too much to recover, and your riding is impaired. You're as good as impaired. Death Valley.
Rob:I've ridden a lot in Death Valley. And chatting with the fuel station attendants in Death Valley, they'll have riders that'll come through Death Valley from the California side. So it's really high and mountainous, and they come down into the valley. They pull up to the gas pump, and they pass out from the heat. And then the guy that runs the gas station has got to drag them into the air conditioning and call 911.
Rob:Ugh. I mean, one, you passed out. Two, you just beat your bike up.
Liane:I mean, I feel bad for the bike. Yeah,
Rob:me too.
Liane:Know, who cares if you passed out? You dropped your bike for stupid reasons. I mean, we should prepare for this, which brings us into like the misconceptions and the myths. And I mean, you probably see a lot of it when we have our hot days here. You've probably seen a lot of it in Arizona or wherever you're riding.
Liane:It's the hotter it gets, the less gear people are riding, the more exposed their skin Aside from crazy sunburns, tell me a little bit from your expertise why taking things off is not a good thing.
Rob:So, I mean, there's the first and most obvious part of the road rash that you're going to get when you dump that bike. Let's hope you never do, but I'm a big fan of wearing all of the gear all of the time. My minimum is my armor jacket, my boots, and riding jeans with armored knees and the like, my gloves, all that kind of stuff. But the wind on your bare skin will actually dehydrate you faster than if you're covered up. If you just Google people who live in the Sahara Desert, they're covered head to toe.
Rob:You can barely see their eyes. There's a reason for that. They're surviving out there and it shouldn't be any different for you. The more coverage you are, the more of your own moisture you're going to retain and you need it on those days.
Liane:Yeah. Like you have to sweat. If you're not sweating, your body is not good.
Rob:Right.
Liane:It's the same thing with if you have no desire to pee. I know, sorry, I keep bringing that up everybody, but it's a real thing.
Rob:Is okay. Are approaching 50, it's okay.
Liane:Perimenopause, yay. That's my TMI for everybody today. That also is a whole thing in brain fog and stuff and it's a whole another riding topic for women at a certain age, we really need to be aware of our things. But I mean, I see a lot of people out there in their shorts and flip flops and tank tops and like you, I wear all my gear all the time. If I don't, I'm a hypocrite because, you know, I'm a safety advocate.
Liane:But I don't do it because of that. I do it because I'm not comfortable if I'm vulnerable. Like I used to wear a half helmet, I can't do that anymore. I haven't for a long time since I got into racing. Just can't, I can't.
Liane:I tried and it's like, oh, that's really scary and I don't want to do that anymore. And that was a quote unquote claustrophobic person getting into a full face helmet. I dispelled that myth for myself. Like it's not, it's not that bad once you're in it. But it's just like, when I first started riding, I had a I got jeans, I'd wear a tank top, my half helmet.
Liane:I mean, you know, I'd always wear gloves because you always need to wear gloves. It and it's it's the stupidity that went through my head when I first got going to who I am now. There's so much different gear out there that works for all different weather. So you said your Armor jacket, what all is in your jacket that allows you to function in heat? Cooling vest?
Rob:The cooling vest? There's tons of vents. I think my current Klein jacket has it must be 12 different zippered vents on it. And I would love them a mesh jacket as well because you still got the arm, which you got the airflow.
Liane:But you're a giant.
Rob:I'm a giant and they're really hard to find. But my my climb jacket with those vents on it and my cooling vest, I can ride in plus 40. No problem. Stopping in traffic sucks. You're gonna you're gonna boil a little there.
Rob:But as soon as you're moving again, it's beautiful.
Liane:Yeah. I've got a I have a D'Nasi Kevlar mesh jacket as my hot weather jacket. Actually it's the one I take on most of my trips because I can put a raincoat over top of it for cool mornings in the mountains. And then like I layer down into my jacket, not into like nothing. And and then I'll pull out the cooling vest and put it under and you know, it's such a hot seat.
Rob:When my son lived with me and then we would see guys out on sport bikes with a girl on the back of the bike wearing the short shorts, the tank top, the flip flops, he's wearing a full leather suit. I would say to him, he doesn't like her very much.
Liane:Explain that.
Rob:If if he loved her, he would protect her. Why is she wearing that on his bike? He's out of his if he's protected, why isn't she?
Liane:I wonder how many of them are just met and I'm going to take you for a quick ride type of thing.
Rob:I take a lot of riders out on bikes as passengers, especially I've even taken riders out that have been passengers on bikes that have crashed to get them comfortable again, and I have a closet full of gear. And whatever they're stripped down to, if I don't have and I tell them come wearing jeans, come wearing closed toed shoes. My rule is that I wear what they're wearing. And so if they can't if I can't find a riding jack for them, they don't go. But if I can't find proper armored jeans, then I wear regular jeans and I tone everything down to that level.
Liane:Right. Right.
Rob:Yeah.
Liane:Or there's also the option of, just because we're on this, like there's gear and you should wear gear even when it's hot out and if you can't afford it, there are options. We're also both part of the New Riders Edmonton group and the lady who runs that group, Denise, has the lending library which is full of gear that has been maintained or cared for to bring it back to full life by her who she's very good as a seamstress. There's options out there.
Rob:I gave her a whole bunch of stuff out of my closet this spring. Yeah. Worn this, haven't worn this. Yeah. I would much rather see someone wearing it than hanging in my closet.
Liane:But are there any other giants in the world that
Rob:could There are lots of
Liane:us. You'd be surprised.
Rob:I have to tell you one guy. I was in an elevator two days ago, and someone on the elevator was taller than me. And it happens about once a year, and it freaks me out. So I now know how you feel.
Liane:Not really, but I mean, you're clear more than a foot taller than me. Okay. So let's recap the most important parts of riding in the heat.
Rob:Stay covered.
Liane:Stay covered.
Rob:Keep your skin covered and whatever you can do to keep cool and hydrated.
Liane:Yeah. I stop at gas stations, and the first thing I do, I'll down a bottle of water just to keep that hydration going. And I I stop every couple of hours for a stretch and and fill up my tank and down a bottle of water. I always have a bottle of water in my bag that's accessible and the cooling vest. But really I think the important thing is the keeping your skin covered part of it for me for so many reasons.
Liane:Like you said, the wind on your skin is gonna dehydrate you fast. You're not sweating like you need to for your body to be proper. But that sunburn is gonna that's gonna kill you too. Like, what are the after effects of a sunburn?
Rob:Just the pain. The the dehydration, the pain, the misery. It's just misery. I would rather have a sunburn than have heat exhaustion or heat stroke.
Liane:Yeah. Why?
Rob:The headache.
Liane:Oh, yeah.
Rob:A sunburn, I'm still with it. When I get to heat exhaustion or heat stroke, I I do believe I'm impaired and I shouldn't be on the machine anymore.
Liane:Yeah. I I would agree. You're you're not your faculties are not all there and and you still may have to get home.
Rob:Right.
Liane:You know? So best thing. Any last minute tips on today's topic or anything else you wanna chime in with?
Rob:No, I think we're good.
Liane:That's awesome. I knew this one is like, I wanted to do this and it's not like a long topic, but it's such an important topic to really kind of drill down and drill home. Hydrate, stay covered. Hydrate, stay covered, stay cool. Those cooling vests, everybody out there, I swear to God, it is night and day.
Liane:You need to trust both of us on this one. I was converted real quick, almost as quick as I was converted into, I used to tell people there are pansies for having heated gear till I got caught in the rain in a not great, very cold valley. And I'm like, I need heated gear. So do what makes you be fully aware when you're on a bike. And having your body at the right temperature is gonna do that.
Liane:Rob, thank you so much for joining me again. I appreciate it. We should do it again sometime.
Rob:Well, you know where to find me.
Liane:I do. And we'll find another topic and bring you back on because it's great chatting with you. For everybody else, stay tuned for the mixed bag.
Rob:Hey. This is Leroy with another helpful tip from Moto Instincts. I wanna put speed into perspective. Riding day after day, we grow accustomed to the speeds our motorcycles can travel. I don't wish this lesson on any rider, but until you have crashed, you will be ignorant of the impacts motorcycles can cause.
Rob:During a crash, we hope for a gradual deceleration over a long distance, but instant deceleration can be caused by immovable objects such as cars or trees. I'm going to use an analogy to bring this danger into focus. Humans are intuitively fearful of heights as falls can easily result in serious injuries or worse. Remember the last time you were up somewhere high, looking off a balcony or over a cliff, for instance. If you jumped, gravity would have accelerated you to a maximum speed right before smashing into the ground.
Rob:I'm going to relate jumping from specific heights to impacts at the corresponding speed. So if you're traveling at 40 kilometers an hour, it'd be the same as jumping from a two storey house. If you're traveling at 60 kilometers an hour, it's the same as jumping from a five storey building. If you're traveling at a 25 kilometers an hour, it's the same as jumping from a 20 storey building. And 200 kilometers an hour, well, that's the same as jumping from an airplane with no parachute.
Rob:These numbers might seem crazy, but physics doesn't lie. Always be mindful of your speed and if your environment contains any objects that can cause instant deceleration. That's it for this week. Make sure you visit us at motoinstincts.com for more information. Ride smart.
Rob:Ride safe.
Liane:And that's our show for today. To make sure that you don't miss out on any of our upcoming podcasts or listen to previous ones, make sure you click on subscribe or follow wherever you get yours. If there's a topic you'd like us to cover or a guest you think would be great on the show or even a question for the mailbag, let us know. You can connect with us on all the socials. Email us at info@ab-amss.org or reach out through the website at a b dash amss dot org.
Liane:Thanks for listening to Think Bike. From us, always remember to ride smart, ride safe, and Think Bike. See you out on the road.