I thought this was interesting. I clipped this from my RoadBikeRiders.com newsletter.
[font=Arial]Moo Juice
Sorry to ruin your lunch, but here's a tidbit we just picked up at bike racing's top site, Cyclingnews.com. It helps explain why riders suffer stomach problems when racing in Europe's spring classics. It's not from being rattled by the rough roads, it's from what's on the roads.
T-Mobile team doctor Stefan Voigt explains:
"Last year in late March, Flanders experienced a spell of mild weather, prompting many farmers to spread manure on their fields. However, the good weather didn't hold and heavy rainfall caused the manure to run off the fields and onto a few hundred meters of the race route.
"When the riders sped through these stretches, the excrement sprayed out in all directions -- onto the riders' faces and onto the mouthpieces of their water bottles. Consequently, when a rider took a swig from his bottle, he also unwittingly swallowed millions of E-coli bacteria. Within 12 hours of the E-coli contamination, the riders suffered severe upset stomachs with vomiting and diarrhea."
The Rx? "Let's hope for cool and dry weather [this year] so that the farmers 'dangerous brew' is frozen, or at least doesn't run off onto the race route."
For those of us who ride on farm roads adorned by drips from manure spreaders and the occasional cattle crossing, it's something to think about.
This happened a few years ago when the Tour started in Belgium also... and there were more than a few casualties. :o If you recall, the following year water bottles with little clear plastic caps were all the rage in the pro peloton... 🙄
This happened a few years ago when the Tour started in Belgium also... and there were more than a few casualties. :o If you recall, the following year water bottles with little clear plastic caps were all the rage in the pro peloton... 🙄
I know my water bottle gets pretty dirty just going out by myself. I can imagine what a peloton full of wet tires would do to water bottles.
Pooo strikes again in the world of sport. I had a local triathlon, for which I was registered, cancelled because the lake where the swim was to be showed pooo levels that were unsafe for swimming. They cancelled that race and instituted a policy that prohibits children under the age of 5 from swimming in the lake. I always thought the poo got there dumped from the houses that ring the lake and not little swimmers but that's beside the point. The point is..... if the lake showed an unsafe level of pooo in the water that closed the lake, what was considered a safe amount of poooo in the lake for the six other triathlons I did in that lake???
I will think twice about sucking on a road gritty water bottle next time.
