01 Riding hot or cold
Balmy sunny evenings are here, which means short-sleeved shirts, bib shorts and fizzing bottles of electrolytes. But does it mean more speed on the bike? That was the premise of a recent study led by Pedro Valenzuela that featured in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance.
Anecdotally, cyclists perceive to ride faster in the heat, an idea supported by controlled efforts such as Sir Bradley Wiggins' 2015 hour record, where the team at the Lee Valley Velodrome cranked the temperature up to 30°C. It made empirical sense, too - warmer air is less dense than cooler air and so provides less resistance. The pay-off is the greater physiological pressure exerted.
To quantify the impact of hot and cold air on cycling performance, Valenzuela and his team gathered power data from 74 professional cyclists (48 men; 26 women) over an eight-year period. The researchers also investigated whether there was a gender-specific reaction to the ambient temperature.
MAX SPEED
If you're thinking of trying to beat the hour record, you'll want favourable humidity and air pressure as well as temperature...
Each of the riders' bike computers included a builtin temperature sensor, so the team could divide the power data in 5°C increments starting from -5°C to above 35°C. Within each temperature segment, they categorised average power generated over four different durations: 5secs, 30secs, 5mins and 20mins.
What did they find? Perhaps expectedly, when temperatures were over 30°C, performance started to drop off. Why that happens is down to myriad reasons including impaired nervous and heart function, plus dehydration.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Summer 2022 من Cycling Plus UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Summer 2022 من Cycling Plus UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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The toxic effects of pollution have been known about for years. 'Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!' sang 1960s satirist Tom Lehrer.Over recent decades, though, pollution has dropped down our list of things to worry about, thanks to ominously capitalised concerns such as Climate Change, AI, Global Conflict, Species Collapse, etc. That doesn't, unfortunately, mean the problem has expired. Air quality often exceeds safe limits, with far-reaching and crippling effects on our health.
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