Riding the pollution

[askew]

It occored to me the other day, due to the now insanly muggy weather, are we risking health riding through the inner cities and commuting on busy roads though crazy amounts of road pollution.

Does anyone actually have a reasonable idea of how much crap we're breathing in everytime we ride.

Or does anyone take any weird and wonderful preventions to stop the fumes?

cheers guys!
____________________
What's ya name? What av' ya taken? Chase the lasers, safe as f*ck!

[LustyLew]

Stop breathing

Sorry someone had to say it!

I see push-cyclists wearing a kind of smog/gas mask type of thing. I should imagine you can wear them under your helmet too.

I have to ride through the old Blackwall Tunnell every day to work, it has no ventilation so I'm suffocating by the time I get through it!
____________________
Like a Yorkie - I'm not for the girls

[dainesefreak]

I don't breath for the whole journey and ride really fast so that the pollution can't catch me.

I don't really worry about pollution as I ride through country roads for most of my journey and work in an out of town business park with nice landscaped gardens.

I worry more about been knocked off by a myopic car driver more to be honest. My brain can't cope, I can only worry about so many things at once!

[Bendy]

I seem to remember some research pointing out that the people in cars with their windows up and air-con on full blast were actually getting the worst of it since the intakes for the a/c are much nearer exhaust level than the windows are.

So sitting quite high on a bike is probably a good start.

[Marc_Buck]

maybe one of those face mask things? which help stop visors fogging, won't that help too?

[stu]

Pollution is a fact of life unfortunately and no way to stop it, more and more people driving/riding now, and trucks using smaller roads to avoid tolls etc. Smoking is much worse anyway, read recently somewhere that smoking makes the body fight against itself so that's far more scary than breathing in the odd bit of exhaust fume on a short journey (i dont usually notice that much unless stuck behind a battered vehicle anyway as most cars/bikes arent too bad).

[sv_cath]

I used to go out with a guy who was a road surveyor. He said that working beside the motorway for a day was supposed to be equivalent to smoking 10 cigarettes.

[Kickstart]

Hi

Road pollution is fairly tiny really. Not something I would worry about. Even with the increasing number of vehicle miles the levels of pollution are dropping rapidly.

Air conditioning should work quite well to reduce any pollution that is brought in to the car. Much of it will be dragged out of the aiir with the water as it condenses.

As to those face masks, they are reputed to do nothing. Basically an easy way to spot a cycling fashion victim.

Ironically some of the roads with the dirtiest air are those where cars are banned and only buses are allowed. Even more ironically some of the dirtiest air in London is in the underground stations as the pollutants (ozone, particles from brakes, etc) have no easy way to escape.

Bikes are also pretty awful for generating pollution. Far worse than cars.

All the best

Keith
____________________
Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Klause]

Some of the latest A/C in cars pump it out cleaner than it came in .

[Marc_Buck]

[Kickstart]