Sweat and Fog

My YMCA recently had a 24-hour cycle-thon to raise money for their in-house charity.  A team of at least 4 people each combined to make sure that their team bike was ridden for every hour.  I didn't participate since I heard about it too late.  However, I did see the after effects of it.  They had a bunch of yard like signs taped up to the cycling room's mirrors.  Unfortunately, my camera didn't have enough juice to capture pictures of all of them.  Only half are shown here.  The third one in the first picture says, "It's just a hill, get over it".  They are a mix of inspirational and funny signs.  I wish I could have gotten pictures of them all.

There is a reason that the signs look a bit warped and curling.  The riders put so much perspiration into the air throughout the day that the water vapor caused the signs to warp.  These are the signs in a recovered mode.  I heard they were warping a lot more than this during the event.  A spin class leader was telling us all about the event during a recovery phase.  I pretty much lost it with laughter when he told us about it.  He also said that you could smell the cycling room from the stairs 30 feet away.

On a cold day outside, and with a full spin class, there are times that just an hour-long class will completely fog over those large angled windows and the mirrors.  There is just so much effort expended that we completely overwhelm the four overhead fans running constantly.  There have been very few instances where I haven't completely covered the back of my t-shirt with sweat by the end of a class.  On good days I will cover a good portion most of my front as well.

I guess the moral of this story is that us cyclists can be a sweaty, nasty bunch when we don't have the wind wicking away our sweat and stink, so we are very grateful for the showers in the Y.