Summer is an exciting period to engage in one recreational activity or the other. By reason of this, Cycling is one of the activities many people like to do during the Summer.

Without a doubt, summer heat can frustrate your cycling experience especially if you would be riding for prolonged hours. But if you’d like to avoid this heat and make way for a comfortable summer ride, below are the 7 tips you should consider.

Keep Yourself Hydrated

Needless to say, cycling during the hot hours of summer often results in the loss of fluids. In order to restore the fluids, you may have lost during your prolonged summer rides, ensure you take a sports drink with high potassium and sodium content.

While it’s important to restore enough fluids after a summer ride, it’s also important to keep your body hydrated during a ride. Depending on your taste for consumption and how hot the summer weather is, you may have to consume 20 or more ounces of your favorite sports drink while taking a summer ride.

Ride along Shady Routes

If you’d be embarking on Summer Rides mostly during the day, you’ll have to consider taking a route that will probably limit the sun rays getting to you or prevent you from getting sunburned. You’re very unlikely to stay hydrated if your cycling route is extremely exposed to the sun.

In deciding a shady route, you may consider city areas with tall trees and buildings. Provided the buildings and trees have sufficient shade, you’re very likely to avoid sunburns and excess dehydration.

Choose Suitable Riding Wear and Stuff

The things you’re wearing during your summer rides can impact significantly on your comfort level and overall riding experience. Wearing lightweight materials –such as sportswear made with soft fabrics –during summer rides can have an interesting impact on your performance and comfort. To avoid excess heat especially while riding at lower speeds along an upward slope, try to wear a full-zip jersey.

In an instance, you’d like to wear an aero helmet, make sure you choose the one with a considerable number of vents to avoid overheating your head. If you otherwise go for an aero helmet with a lesser number of vents, you may find it difficult to release heat or keep your head cool.

Don’t Ride too Fast

Unlike other periods of the year, summer is often characterized by heat and when you ride too fast during a summer day, you could be expending more energy than you would on a cooler day. Whether you’re on a leisurely ride or training for a cycling race, ensure you’re riding at a moderate speed.

Use a Waterproof Sunblock

If your summer rides often last between the hours of 11: AM and 4: PM, you’re very likely to have sunburns. While some people would suggest you don’t keep your summer rides within these hours, you may still have the cause to go cycling during the hot hours of the summer period. If you would be cycling for a considerably long period in the sunny weather of summer, ensure you’re wearing your waterproof sunblock to avoid having your skin scalded by severe UV rays.

Set Out Early

You might not find it exciting to stick to this idea particularly if you haven’t got any knack for riding during the earliest hours of the day. Nonetheless, setting out as early as possible is the best way to avoid the hotness of a typical summer day. If you’re trying this out and would like to embark on a 4-hour ride, you could wake up as early as 5 AM. Not only will this give you a pleasurable riding experience, it will also prevent you from the risk of severe UV rays.

Keep Your Body Cool

The summer days are often characterized by hot weather and to have a pleasurable cycling experience during summer, you may need to cool yourself with some water. If you’d be riding for quite a long time during the summer days, try to cool your head with some water. Not only will this lower your body temperature, it will also make way for the sweat on your body to evaporate. By sprinkling some water over your chest, shoulders, and neck, you’ll find it easy to quicken the evaporation process.

Conclusion

More than anything else, you need to ensure you have a quality bike to ride and all the accessories that make a ride comfortable. You can choose from custom bikes available online or even customize your bike yourself. If you are a man, you can choose from these cool men’s bicycles as well. Select a biking route, and enjoy riding your bike with your friends this summer following the above-mentioned tips.

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