matt@absolut.UUCP (06/01/85)
Has anybody out there experienced "Highway hypnosis"?
Recently, while riding back from work, I daydreamed myself right into
the back of a car. This is my first accident with a car in my three
years of serious cycling. While the speed was low, I did some mechanical
damage to my bike and irritated an old knee injury.
While I frequently tout the superior safety of cycling, I have noticed
that it the cyclical, high effort nature of cycling lends itself to
a dangerous loss of attention. Several factors seem to have been involved.
1) Fatigue:
The accident occured on the way back from work, the day after I
had both lifted weights and rode my first vigorous 40 mile or so
ride of the season.
2) Temperature: warm.
3) Riding technique:
I commute on an ATB in winter. My sport tourer has the bars adjusted
rather low, so I was looking at the ground instead of ahead. My hands
were on the break hoods, not on the drops where they belonged.
4) Terrain: gradual uphill.
I am making some changes to my body position to improve my vision. Any other
suggestions?rogerh@bocklin.UUCP (06/04/85)
(original poster rode into back of a car -- uphill, after first hard ride of the season. Question was how to avoid repeating the incident?) Build up more gradually. It sounds like you were cooked and hanging your head. You can't expect to ride safely if your brain has shut down due to lack of oxygen -- not unless you're used to riding like that. If you're going to go out and thrash yourself, build up to it gradually. Build up to it on recreational rides, with company, on terrain you've chosen. I love riding hard, but I plan on being essentially brainless for an hour after a hard ride. I mean, that's the whole joy of it, no? To turn off the ratiocination that plagues our working lives?
brooks@lll-crg.ARPA (Eugene D. Brooks III) (06/04/85)
> I am making some changes to my body position to improve my vision. Any other > suggestions? I would say that that should do it, the best way to not run into the back end of a car is to see that its there! (half a :-))
fish@ihlpg.UUCP (Bob Fishell) (06/07/85)
> (original poster rode into back of a car -- uphill, after first hard > ride of the season. Question was how to avoid repeating the incident?) > > Build up more gradually. It sounds like you were cooked and hanging > your head. You can't expect to ride safely if your brain has shut down > due to lack of oxygen -- not unless you're used to riding like that. *** AC T YOUR AGE *** This has happened to me when I've tried to do too much, too fast. However, I suspect that O2 is not what's in short supply; rather, it's blood sugar. I get light-headed if I ride long distances when I've been trying to lose weight by dieting. If I have a hearty lunch before a long ride, there's no problem. Your blood sugar is at its lowest late in the day, after work and before dinner, especially if you skimp on lunch and drink a lot of coffee. Next time, slurp down some O.J. before heading out, or even take along a water bottle full of the stuff. It will keep your blood sugar up and your brain fueled. __ / \ \__/ Bob Fishell ihnp4!ihlpg!fish
kehoe@reed.UUCP (Dave Kehoe) (06/07/85)
Hard exercise definetly affects one's mental processes. I asked Lon Haldeman about this, he described some rather weird things going on in his head after several days and thousands of miles with almost no sleep. Mountain climbers often hallucinate at high altitudes. I've occasionally "spaced out", though I've never hit anything because of it. It seems to me that I space out when I'm riding slowly, not when I'm riding at high speeds. Maybe adrenalin prevents spacing out. I also only space out when I'm riding alone. I'm inclined to think that being in shape or not doesn't have much to do with spacing out.
mupmalis@watarts.UUCP (M. A. Upmalis) (06/09/85)
In article <568@ihlpg.UUCP> fish@ihlpg.UUCP (Bob Fishell) writes: >This has happened to me when I've tried to do too much, too fast. >However, I suspect that O2 is not what's in short supply; rather, >it's blood sugar. I get light-headed if I ride long distances >when I've been trying to lose weight by dieting. If I have >a hearty lunch before a long ride, there's no problem. > >Your blood sugar is at its lowest late in the day, after work and >before dinner, especially if you skimp on lunch and drink a lot >of coffee. Next time, slurp down some O.J. before heading out, >or even take along a water bottle full of the stuff. It will >keep your blood sugar up and your brain fueled. Some slight suggestions, a lot of energy/concentration problems can be pointed back to a lack of water not sugar... Biking is a fairly eficient form of transportation and people usually deplete of H2O before sugar... Drink OJ before if you want, however water ( slightly cool) is the quickest absorbed back in and anything else OJ, Milk, Pop and especially Gatorade (blech, tastes bad and is bad..) comes backin slower.. load up on water.. also take sugar directly is the sledge hammer approach to energy, starches, espceially from complex carbohydrates that the body can break down into sugars or in long term glycogen (muscle fuel) is the key to distance... A note about sugar, game shows (Let's make a deal in particular) would feed contestants *sugar* donuts and coffee just before the show, they would peak and boy would they crash.... Sugar is ok, just not usefull for distance/touring work.. -- ~~ Mike Upmalis (mupmalis@watarts)<University of Waterloo>
wagner@uw-june (Dave Wagner) (06/11/85)
> Hard exercise definetly affects one's mental processes. > I asked Lon Haldeman about this, he described some > rather weird things going on in his head after several > days and thousands of miles with almost no sleep. > Mountain climbers often hallucinate at high altitudes. I would be wary of attributing Haldeman's hallucinations to "hard exercise". I think that if you were deprived of sleep to that extent, you would start to hallucinate no matter what you were doing. Hallucinations experienced by mountain climbers just MIGHT have something to do with the reduced oxygen available to them. All I am saying is, the evidence available is not enough to support your claim; at least, not in a scientifically meaningful way. Dave Wagner University of Washington Comp Sci Department wagner@washington.arpa {ihnp4,decvax,ucbvax}!uw-beaver!uw-june!wagner "The surest thing there is is we are riders, And though none too successful at it, guiders, Through everything presented, land and tide And now the very air, of what we ride." - Frost
fred@varian.UUCP (Fred Klink) (06/13/85)
> > Hard exercise definetly affects one's mental processes. Not to mention one's spelling -:)
fred@varian.UUCP (Fred Klink) (06/14/85)
> Your blood sugar is at its lowest late in the day, after work and > before dinner, especially if you skimp on lunch and drink a lot > of coffee. Next time, slurp down some O.J. before heading out, > or even take along a water bottle full of the stuff. It will > keep your blood sugar up and your brain fueled. > __ Be careful taking sugar right before you ride. This is inviting hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar right off. In short, the feedback system your body has for regulating blood glucose is easily fooled by a dose of sugar followed by heavy exercise which puts it right into your blood. This slows down the mobilization of glucose from its stores in the muscle cells. Well, you soon run out of the blood sugar you got from eating, but by now the feedback system is telling the glucose mobilizing mechanism it can take a break. The upshot is, no glucose coming in when you need it most. Taking a water bottle full of sugar-containing fluid is OK as long as you take it once you've gotten going for 10-15 minutes. This gives your muscle glycogen (glucose precursor) a chance to get mobilized and oral glucose will help supplement it. I disagree that hypoglycemia will affect judgement and alertness. Doing dumb things is usually an effect of hypoxia (low oxygen), which is not caused by nor related to hypoglycemia. More likely, the writer who said riding into the car was a result of simple fatigue and "hanging your head" was most on target.
seifert@hammer.UUCP (Snoopy) (06/23/85)
In article <327@varian.UUCP> fred@varian.UUCP (Fred Klink) writes: >I disagree that hypoglycemia will affect judgement and alertness. It sure does! The brain needs energy too, not just muscles. The list of symptoms of hypoglycemia is seemingly endless. Ingesting huge quantities of sugar is very hard on the system. Don't. Snoopy (give ya one guess how I know this) tektronix!hammer!seifert