Riding in the heat
 

Two things I've run into. I have 2 gas tanks. The bike is an 800gs with the Camel tank. It operates by vaccume. In the extreme heat, the vaccume does not work and I start to suck air into my gas line, so the bike kinda hesitates, burps, or whatever, almost stalls. Why? What in the heat is altering the vaccume?

Second. It was 42 degrees Celsius. I got really hot and had to get off the bike, BUT its my face that was burning. I have a sun visor AND a front visor on my helmet - but in this heat, it felt like my face was burning off - and yes I have been putting sun screen on often.

How does one cool down the face in these conditions? I'm in the Mojave Desert.

Thanks.

I have a T7 with a Camel Adv tank. The issue is that in the fuel transfer hose from the aux tank to the main tank the heat turns the liquid gasoline into fuel vapour. In the installation instructions for my aux tank this is explained. For my setup the fuel hose that came with the kit has a larger diameter, greatly reducing the problem.


As for your own body heat do the basics:
Drink water, lots and lots of water, until you are sick of drinking water.
Don't drive in the hottest part of the day. I don't like McDonald's but they have A/C, clean bathrooms and good WiFi, hang out in places with A/C for a few hours, get your "core temp" back down.
Wet down your riding gear/helmet, this will help to cool you.
There are people with more expertise on this forum that might have better ideas, please chime in.

Get out of the Mojave, gain altitude, head back North, etc.



These are just suggestions, please look after yourself.
I'm currently in Panama (on the way further South) here its the heat and humidity that makes riding tough. 34C and 90% makes wearing ATGATT dangerous,
A heat injury generally creeps up on a person. I tend to make poorer decisions when heat stressed, I now recognize this in myself and try to make adjustments to my ride/life when a potentially dangerous heat effect is happening to me.



Best of luck
Mike

What type of sunscreen do you use? Get 50 and get the one marketed for swimming. Most likely what you had got washed with sweat and burning sensation is sunburn.

The only other comment on riding in dry heat is to put wet towel on your neck. It helps good luck

Sent from my BV4900Pro which I haven't managed to drown yet

This question has been exhaustively addressed in relation to every activity known to humankind, including but certainly not limited to motorcycling. A site search might be helpful, but so would a general Google inquiry.

First, get out of the heat. That means don’t schedule rides on the Mohave during hot times of day or year. Ride early, ride late, ride during summer monsoons or only during cooler times of year: whatever it takes.

Second, quit riding before you start to overheat. I don’t know whether your face hurt because you were sunburned or because that’s how you registered an overheated core, but whatever the case it indicated you were already well past personal safety limits.

Third, in a dry climate wear permeable clothing, wet it down, and keep moving. Evaporative cooling is powerful stuff (although note this won’t work very well in humid places), and it’s vastly enhanced by air movement. Light colors also help.

Fourth, yes of course hydrate fully—not excessively—while bearing in mind that this alone will not be enough for serious heat.

I can’t resist sermonizing that there are people actually working in that same heat—highway crews, roofers, the people who harvest our food, etc.—and that they deserve our sympathy and respect.

Hope that’s helpful.

Mark

Plenty of good advice above. What works for me:
1. Ride early in the morning and stop before the hottest part of the day. You may be able to notch a few more miles in the evening when it's a bit cooler, subject to the universal advice given to overlanders: don't ride at night.
2. Hydrate. More than you think you need.
3. Wet yourself down, evaporating water in your clothes will help cool you.

In *dry* heat I've had success with the wet thing around the neck (though I used an oversize bandana rather than a towel) and also getting my underlayer of clothes wet and then closing up all the vents in my jacket helped for 20 mins or so when things were really toasty. If your sunvisor provides UV protection then apart from a sunburnt nose the problem might be with too much airflow, over 40º you're basically blasting yourself with hot air by riding.

In humid weather I ditch the safety gear and just wear light-coloured skin-covering breathable clothes, since crashing the bike from sunstroke is a larger risk.

For both conditions I have a little cheap pop-up half-tent so I can make my own shade (and shelter from the wind) and siesta through the hottest part of the day. It weighs about 1.5Kg and takes up about the same space as a spare rolled-up t-shirt. Another general tip is that when off-roading I sit down as much as possible and conserve energy where possible ... standing on the pegs and working the bike hard generates a HUGE amount of heat.

Everyones different, some experimentation is needed to find what's best for you, just be careful because it's easy to die from overheating

Thanks for the great responses. This little part of the trip caught me by surprise. I knew the desert was coming up. But not how isolated the roads would be. All tiny towns. Most with out gas stations and no shade. All part of the learning curve. But I have to be more careful as I get into areas with extreme weather. I have lots of water with me. And I am going to replace that hose to the second tank with a larger one in a few days. Being Canadian, no experience with deserts. So I have to learn quickly.

Peace all.

The Great Basin desert extends into Canada.. Osoyoos.. and farther north

Sent from my BV4900Pro which I haven't managed to drown yet

You may be missing a key piece here: desert heat (low humidity) is relatively easy to deal with, by any and all techniques listed above. It’s when you’re riding in places with both high heat and high humidity that cooling is difficult, sometimes impossible. Keep that in mind, and some day you’ll look back fondly on the very conditions you found so intolerable on the Mojave.

If the above doesn’t apply to your recent situation—by atmospheric or other anomaly—please feel free to ignore.

Heatstroke is seriously bad news .I got it pretty badly once.....started making poor gear changes, getting irked at other drivers........just about got to a hotel . Straight into a lukewarm bath to get my temp down and promptly lost control of my bowels . Good that you recognised something was wrong and did something about it . It can definitely kill you no doubt about that

First time I ever did a long European ride in the summer I suffered the same. But I didn't know what it was and spent three days lying in a tent trying to recover. Even after that the next two days of riding are a blank in my memory. So yes, very dangerous. Fortunately there's enough info about recognising the symptoms and what to do that I'm unlikely to suffer a repeat but there will be others for whom the issue doesn't feature in their planning and may not recognise what's happening to them.

Even now with global warming the UK rarely gets days hot enough to cause serious dehydration or heat exhaustion on a bike but head south and it can quickly become a problem. The prospect of riding wearing an 'armoured shell' of protective clothing more suited to a UK winter in over 40C heat and significant humidity is not one I would want to embrace. Dehydration in particular can creep up on you and you don't start to notice it until you're well down the path. By then you'll need more than a mouthful of water to put things right. Every single long distance running race I've done I've ended up dehydrated despite there usually being ample water stops en route. It's hard to recognise the symptoms despite knowing it's going to happen and easy to ignore until some other consequential issue slows you down.

I've had that happen on entirely stock bikes. I think it happens when your fuel lines are hot enough for the fuel to turn into vapor inside them, enough to cause some kind of vapor lock. Usually letting the bike cool down for a while will help.

Do you have a buff/tubesock sort of thing? I use it as a helmet sock, pull it over my head and if necessary, up onto my nose like a bandana. You could soak that in water, so the evaporation would cool you down.

Perhaps your bike is trying to tell you something when it vapour locks - get off the bike and cool down somewhere and let the bike do the same.

As for the vapor lock check the key o-ring on the fuel tank cap. It was giving hard time on my G650XCo, which has the same setup as your 800GS.

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