Dealing with the heat on ROAM

The heat and strength of the sun is our main enemy at the moment. It is every day 34degr C (93Fahrenheit) and in the valleys there is no wind to cool us. The riders each have their own strategies to deal with it. I will mention my own only, because other riders have their own blogs. What I have found so far to work best is to do no overpowering at any time, unless really necessary in an uphill climb. Then there is the cap from SinnerBikes or the one from Walz. This cap is featured in the bicycle comic "Yehuda Moon" and it really works very well. It keeps the sun out of the eyes and the wind. Important thing, it doesn't blow off, because the cap is short and downward. Just check out Yehuda Moon and you'll see.
Hydration:  No real headaches so far for me, so it seems I manage to keep hydrated. This means 7 liters of fluids during the ride and a lot to boot before and after.
 I use a spraybottle to keep my head cool. Great invention. I just spray water on my cap, neck and shirt. The water evaporates and cools me for a while. This is probably the most important thing to keep me cool. I use only half a litre a day for that, as cold as I can get it. I saw fellow rider Bram throwing water over his head and copied that. But that takes a lot of water and I already have so much to carry. That's when I thought off the spray bottle. It saves me 1,5kg. Being a bit of weight-weenie, I can appreciate the psychological factor ;-)
We sometimes can use the cooling water of the rivers on our route. We once stayed in there for some 5 minutes and then we were ready for many hot miles to come. There was no need to dry the clothes, it dried on our bodies! I only took off the socks, because I feared that wet feet was going to hurt.

 cooling down in the Clearwater river

swollen sunburnt lips

 At a stop, two caps to protect face and neck

Tomorrow I will try my modified Flevobike roof, because sunburn is a continuous threat. My lips are swollen and a bit cracked, but now I have lipstick with factor 50 to protect me. We learn as we go along and sometimes there are painful lessons.