Ed's Rumble Mapping Ride - July 1, 2010 LifeTrek.Eroe.com

We had another beautiful day here in the Heartland with low humidity, temperatures in the 80's, and lots of sunshine.  I have been trying to map a new route for the Quivira Park Bike Group to Spring Hill and Gardner, Kansas and decided this afternoon would be a great time to take a fast paced ride by myself to get the job done.

The new route goes from Quivira Park out to Spring Hill, up through Gardner, then around the east side of Gardner Lake turning on 159th Street to Moonlight Road to a new section of 143rd Street that has been recently paved.  From there it goes back over 143rd, which we use for other routes because it has nice bike lanes, over to Pflumm Road then to Quivira Road back to the park.

Total distance for the new ride is just over 72K and there are some moderate hills all which I think will be a nice addition to the many routes we have for the group.  A map of the new route I am calling the Spring Hill and Gardner Lake Route is available on GPSies.  My next mapping project will be for a route to the County Club Plaza area in Kansas City.

For the ride today I tested out a new theory on keeping my core temperature down.  While it was not a hot and sticky day it was still hot enough to try. Allen Lim, who is the director of sports science and training for Team RadioShack has done research in this area.  Lim's primary principle is that you want to keep your core temperature down. The June 2010 issue of Bicycling Magazine had an article about Lim (picture to the left) which I recently read and his suggestions for staying cool are the following:

1. Drink cold fluids (as cold as possible)
2. Wear ice - some of the pro cycling teams actually wear special ice vests/jerseys
3. Dump water over yourself if possible
4. Recover right - the sooner you reduce your core temp, the sooner the body recognizes that the recovery effort can begin

I purchased the new Camelbak Podium Ice water bottle to help keep my Hammer HEED High Energy Electrolyte Drink cold and the bottles work much better than a normal one without insulation or ones with older technology thermo properties.  See my post from June 4, 2010. I put ice into the bottles before leaving on the ride and when filling up during the ride.  I figured I had Lim's point one taken care off.

I have used point 3 especially when it is hot and humid and I am on a longer century type ride and for point 4 I always have ice cold water as soon as I am finished with a ride so these points were covered too.  Point 3, wearing ice however, I had not done and that is what I tested today.  I used a heavy duty freezer bag and filled it with ice cubes then placed it in the middle pocket of my cycling jersey.  I thought it was going to be too cold on my lower back but I actually hardly noticed it until it had turned to water and sloshed around a bit.  At my SAG stop in Gardner I re-filled it with ice at a convenience store.  While I can't say that this definitively lowered my core temperature during the ride it did feel good on my lower back not only from the coolness but also for mitigating the sometimes lower back ache I get from long rides.  I will keep testing and report more in future posts.  If any readers have also tested keeping your core temperature down please write to me or comment on this post.

As you can see from the picture on the left and on the first picture of this post I obtained new vanity plates with LFTREK when I renewed my Kansas plates this year.  I have always liked vanity plates and usually always had them with my work name rather than something I am doing personally.  I had a number of ideas but decided on LFTREK because I cover sports and other things in my life.  Read my first post on why I have chosen Life Trek as the name of this blog.

A map of the ride from my house can be uploaded from my Garmin.  Total distance was just over 77K and average speed was about 26.2 KPH.  The temperature readings are overstated as the Garmin Edge 500, will give false readings in direct sunlight.