Cycling UK Forum

I'm 50 years old, male, significantly overweight - 18 stone - and ride a fairly heavy aluminium-framed mountain bike with 28/38/48 - 11 to 34 gearing and road tyres - my natural cadence is fairly low.
My commute is 9 1/2 miles a day with the odd hilly bit and I've been doing this for nearly 24 years. I always aim to reach home in a sweat.
In spite of my excess weight, I consider myself significantly fitter than the average for my age - though my DIY blood pressure readings have been a teeny bit high recently.
Towards the end of my home commute I find it's my legs that give up the ghost when foolishly racing youngsters on lightweight bikes.

A couple of years ago I started doing Sunday rides averaging 40 miles -and I generally keep up pretty well - though I find steep hills challenging and my breathing gets spectacularly loud - though I recover quickly and on a good day, even at the end of the ride I can be ahead of some others by minutes. I would place myself towards the back on the average run where I'm maybe a little over the average age and easily the most overweight, and my bike is the heaviest by a long way.

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Yesterday really caught me out. I've been on leave, but have still put some miles in and was well-rested.
We started out at 9.30 on a sunny morning and maybe I should have put my hat on, but last winter has made me a sun-lover so I didn't put it on until we sat down for tea and cakes at noon - but I felt just comfortably warm in shorts and cotton tee shirt. I didn't feel like I was dehydrating ...
In retrospect I didn't drink enough - a mug of coffee for breakfast and less than half a litre of water over the course of 20 miles... then a pot of tea at noon. I have always been a bit camel-like.

I was in very good form on the way there, with no hint of problems.

After the tea stop, we headed back by a hilly route and I suddenly had to give up on a steep hill for fear of fainting - I usually find I recover quickly, but yesterday it just got worse and worse. We stopped and I drank a whole litre of apple juice in the hope of finding some energy, but eventually I had to split off from the group and actually have a lie/sit down in the woods for half an hour, then limped home the remaining 10 miles or so.

The ride leader thought it might have been salt loss and I did start cramping even sooner than usual - on the ride rather than in the middle of the night.

When I got home I had to lie down and I definitely don't feel like a long ride today and worry about attempting one on Friday...

So is it my bike that's too heavy, or me, or was it not drinking enough, or was it salt loss ?

I had full blood tests done in 2009 for IBS, so I'm pretty sure it's not diabetes or anaemia and doubt I'm in danger of having a heart attack. I'm loathe to go to my GP and complain that I can't cycle 40 hilly miles on a hot day ! - though I was left standing by someone I suspect may have been 10 years older than me.

I'm no doctor, but have you ever had a lung function test done ?
It was a hot day, maybe you were not drinking enough and I'm not sure if apple juice is the best thing to drink, but if I were you, go and see your GP just to be on the safe side

Have you ever overheated? That is a horrible sensation. You go weak, the heart speeds up, you break out in a cold sweat and get the shakes (maybe throw up). I've had it twice, once wearing full motorcycle leathers in the south of France and once cycling the South Downs way in blazing sunshine. I felt so weak I had to lie down, on the second occasion I recognised it and crawled into a cold bath for 20 mins at the hotel. On the second day I made sure to drink a LOT more and kept my t shirt wet. On the plus side rehydration, cooling off and a good nights sleep should see you bounce back fine. On the downside it's really dangerous if it goes too far, so best avoided. Good luck..
PS. As a once heavier cyclist myself, I can say that losing 2 stone has worked wonders for my endurance and a little for my speed, particularly climbing, but it's better to be fat and fit than thin and sedentary!

When it comes to the cramps, I find I can keep them at bay using, in my case Holland and Barrett's, Iso Energy drink at about half the concentration they suggest.
It is cheaper than other cycling stuff and sugar based, like cordial crystals.
I use around every second drink bottle with half a scoop in.

Gentlegreen, I'm not quite as big as you (15st and 6ft) but am almost 62, Type 2 diabetic and hate hills that are steeper than 'one-in-hardly noticeable'. I leave the climbing to the small ones who I can out-descend, out-time trial and out-sprint. My pace is geared to the minimum of uphill effort, as I have a very fine line between good effort on uphills and completely blowing up on them. I use my old road race tactic of being at the front near the bottom of a hill and letting faster riders pass me on the ascent ... with luck, I'll be near the back rather than off the back at the summit!

Also, I'm forever not drinking enough on hot days. I've gone out with a 500ml bottle and not touched it on a 5-hour ride, relying on a cuppa before and during the run. However, I'm now disciplining myself to taking a 750ml bottle and re-filling it twice or three times along the way.

Whenever possible, I take some fluid replacement tablets like High5, as I understand that just water will dilute whatever essential minerals you have left after you've sweated.

Your symptoms (not uncommon to me) may be due to summer arriving at Easter and your body not being used to it.

Trust Lance when he says 'It's not about the bike'. I also ride quite heavy alu/steel bikes and when compared to the total weight of bike+rider, saving a few ounces of the total weight is easier by just missing a few bikkies for me.

Also, I don't bother talking to my GP about cycling. He just doesn't understand that this is done at a slightly higher level than his cycling along the towpath with his wife.

Thanks everyone for that - just what I needed.

I will get myself a second bottle carrier and some magic pills - and/or Marmitey crackers - something I thought was a good idea to carry last summer, but somehow never got around to eating ...

It was an odd sort of ride yesterday - did another hot one a couple of weeks back, but there was a full two hour lunch stop.

I managed to get sunstroke at age 15 when I found myself on a beach in the south of France in July and had no idea how to deal with proper sunshine - though I also had the sunburn to go with it. It was 1975 too - which was a record year even in the UK.
(I was unused to alcohol too - but that's a separate and even more embarrassing story)

I too am quite heavy (17st) and sweat quite a lot. I'm fine most of the time but find that I too sometimes struggle on really hot days. Instead of plain water, I use high 5 zero tablets. i normally take one 750 ml bottle but on a hot day i'll take two and some spare tablets, so that I can get a refill of water at the lunch stop and make up some more high 5.

You can only absorb a certain amount of fluids and food. It is no good to do a few hours then wolf down a huge meal and fluids. You will run out of energy.

gentlegreen wrote:....
So is it my bike that's too heavy, or me, or was it not drinking enough, or was it salt loss ?....

Not to beat about the bush - you are about 6 stone overweight. That's an addition of half the weight of a typical male. More than a fully laden expedition tourist would carry.
It's a miracle that you can cycle at all - but the good news is - if you lost that surplus you would obviously be very strong as a cyclist. Try Weightwatchers or something.

When it comes to weight loss, cycling is better than Weightwatchers by an order of magnitude

you are about 6 stone overweight. Try Weightwatchers or something.

You make it sound so easy, take it from me, to lose 6 stone and keep it off requires a huge sustained effort of will over a year or more. I have witnessed such a transformation and my admiration knows no bounds. I'm lucky, now I have a new training partner. People who've never tried or seen it don't understand what it takes.

mill4six wrote:

you are about 6 stone overweight. Try Weightwatchers or something.

You make it sound so easy, take it from me, to lose 6 stone and keep it off requires a huge sustained effort of will over a year or more. I have witnessed such a transformation and my admiration knows no bounds. I'm lucky, now I have a new training partner. People who've never tried or seen it don't understand what it takes.

Yes it is a struggle but in the end it is easy - you just eat less. That's what all slimming regimes are about.
Bin there dunnit, but indirectly. Had to give up wheat - which means almost everything which makes you fat - bread, pastry, pasta, cakes, biscuits, puddings etc. The pies, the pies!!
Lost weight very steadily, but with great difficulty in terms of what to eat instead.
Wife is doing weightwatchers quite successfully so far (week 3)

I suppose that ultimately I do want to lose some weight and give the youngsters a run for their money again - though I will never ride a static bike, and even riding up and down the Bristol to Bath path several times a week seems much too dull - but it may come to that...

I upped my riding a lot last year and I was almost ready to put a new battery in the bathroom scale, though the grim winter we just had has set me back a bit. It's a shame the rave scene couldn't happen all over again locally - I was as skinny as a rake in my late 30s ...

My weight started to pile on when I went from vegan to pescetarian about 7 years ago - not sure why, my diet is still basically the same - I've always been vulnerable to the quick veggie savoury from an all-too-local Tesco, baked spuds and frozen peas - plus various sauces - to the extent that I like to have two microwaves ...
I will have to force myself to keep a diary for a bit.

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I may have been lulled into a false sense of security through riding this hill in the hot sunshine last week which I filmed so I could do the calculations :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kTGhe6dImw

But it wasn't after 4 hours' riding under the sun.

I was fairly knackered yesterday - though I managed maybe 15 miles over a couple of hours mucking about on local paths in the late afternoon with some decent sprints towards the end.

Friday's ride doesn't look too bad, hill-wise, so I will go on the basis that they carry on without me if it happens again, but I will be consciously hydrating in advance this time - with added salts - and I'll wear a hat right from the start.

gilesjuk wrote:You can only absorb a certain amount of fluids and food. It is no good to do a few hours then wolf down a huge meal and fluids. You will run out of energy.

Something like this was also my first thought when reading the OP. Too much fluid intake alone can actually kill your performance and result in symptoms much like described by the OP.
I would suggest making a plan for how to take in calories and liquids along the ride. That could mean distributing calories in the jersey back pockets, liquids in more than one bottle and planning ahead when to take in calories and liquids on the route.

Try adding stuff to your water bottles. I suffer badly from cramp, and also tend not to drink much. Adding salt to water both counters the loss through sweat and makes you thirstier. The trick of course is not to end up with a revolting bottle of brine - you don't want so much salt that you taste it. Yesterday I used the juice of a lime with sugar and salt, and felt better at the end, and during, than a ride of the same distance earlier in the week. Squash should work, too.

Salt water won't necessarily be the solution (ha ha) to your problem, but it's easy and cheap to try.