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Motorcycle Wind Chill chart

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I always thought wind chill cooled you down, that seems to be the case when air temp is below 95! How do you feel hotter when riding with temps above 95F? That seems odd??

Gary
 
friction heating! the air is compressed as it hits your body and has to change direction to flow around you. the compression creates heat.
in the winter time if you go fast enough you will be warmed by the friction of the air!:rider:
 
Why does it peg out at 105degF? I've ridden at 110degF indicated on the thermometer and it felt like about 125-130 in the sun in stopped traffic... to the point where I was willing to bend some laws to keep from getting sunstroke/heat exhaustion.
 
Hmm, they stop at 100, not enough for Tejas.

Temp.jpg
 
This means my rides to work when it was in the twenties going 85, the windchill was waaay negative...
 
Thrasherg said:
I always thought wind chill cooled you down, that seems to be the case when air temp is below 95! How do you feel hotter when riding with temps above 95F? That seems odd??

Gary
Click to expand...

If the air is hotter than body temp, then it can't take heat away from you when it goes past. Instead, your body will absorb heat from the air.

The radiator in your car wouldn't work if the temp of air being pushed through it was higher than the temp of the coolant inside.
 
^^^^^^^ what he said. It's all about whether the ambient temp is above or below your body temp as to whether it's wind chill or heat index.
 
jqueen said:
If the air is hotter than body temp, then it can't take heat away from you when it goes past. Instead, your body will absorb heat from the air.

The radiator in your car wouldn't work if the temp of air being pushed through it was higher than the temp of the coolant inside.
Click to expand...

Hang on now, there is one very big difference between a car radiator and the human body and that is called evaporative cooling. Yes, air hotter than 98.6 can certainly cool you down. That is what sweating is for. Otherwise we would have fatality rates in the thousands every single day it is above 99 degrees outside.

I work in places where the temperature can peak out at 145 degrees, and in that kind of heat if there isn't something to pull heat away, then you would have less than 15 minutes before heat stroke kicked in.

That is why these things work so well:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Port-A-C...ive-Cooler-for-700-sq-ft-PAC2KCYC01/202221382
http://www.speedlifemotorsport.com/dei-intercooler-water-sprayer-kit/
http://www.uline.com/Product/ProductDetailRootItem.Aspx?modelnumber=S-17096
http://www.pattersonroofcooling.com/

In fact, the last link was tried out by our sister company last August. Inside of their trailers they registered over 110 degrees. The water system only runs for 30 seconds every 15 minutes, yet in less than two cycles the temperatures inside the trailer had dropped to 91 degrees, cooler than the ambient temperature. It worked so well that we are going to adopt the same system at our facility.

While we are on this topic, one must remember that there is a huge difference between "feeling hotter" and "not cooling". Gotta remember that.;-)
 
And then there's the heat reflection factor. Get on an urban freeway in 100+ temps, and if the ambient temperature isn't punishing you enough, there's the heat reflecting upward from the pavement. Some freeways just seem to be worse than others. I could almost believe there are heating strips buried in Hwy 360 across Arlington. That is the most face-melting pavement I've ever ridden or driven.
 
DFW_Warrior said:
Hang on now, there is one very big difference between a car radiator and the human body and that is called evaporative cooling. Yes, air hotter than 98.6 can certainly cool you down. That is what sweating is for. Otherwise we would have fatality rates in the thousands every single day it is above 99 degrees outside.

I work in places where the temperature can peak out at 145 degrees, and in that kind of heat if there isn't something to pull heat away, then you would have less than 15 minutes before heat stroke kicked in.

That is why these things work so well:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Port-A-C...ive-Cooler-for-700-sq-ft-PAC2KCYC01/202221382
http://www.speedlifemotorsport.com/dei-intercooler-water-sprayer-kit/
http://www.uline.com/Product/ProductDetailRootItem.Aspx?modelnumber=S-17096
http://www.pattersonroofcooling.com/

In fact, the last link was tried out by our sister company last August. Inside of their trailers they registered over 110 degrees. The water system only runs for 30 seconds every 15 minutes, yet in less than two cycles the temperatures inside the trailer had dropped to 91 degrees, cooler than the ambient temperature. It worked so well that we are going to adopt the same system at our facility.

While we are on this topic, one must remember that there is a huge difference between "feeling hotter" and "not cooling". Gotta remember that.;-)
Click to expand...

Evap cooling is important. Just like heavy nylon ballistic gear, though, some motorcycle gear can prevent that from happening to any effective degree. That's why vents are so necessary.
 
tshelfer said:
And then there's the heat reflection factor. Get on an urban freeway in 100+ temps, and if the ambient temperature isn't punishing you enough, there's the heat reflecting upward from the pavement. Some freeways just seem to be worse than others. I could almost believe there are heating strips buried in Hwy 360 across Arlington. That is the most face-melting pavement I've ever ridden or driven.
Click to expand...

360 is awful. Bleh.
 
YoDoc said:
Evap cooling is important. Just like heavy nylon ballistic gear, though, some motorcycle gear can prevent that from happening to any effective degree. That's why vents are so necessary.
Click to expand...

But also why well-designed vented gear is better than mesh in temps over 95-98. You dry too fast, and the cooled air is pulled away from your body too fast, in mesh. I use my regular Columbia if it's really hot, and get the right combination of vents open (usually all, depending on the bike and wind protection level tho). I carry a water bottle and shoot water in the vents and neckline of the jacket every twenty or thirty minutes. In this way I survived riding in ambient temps to 115 F in the Texas Panhandle a couple years ago. Those of you who know me know I'm pretty hefty now, and I was a long way from scrawny then. The air was so hot, above about 106 ambient, that is was more uncomfortable to open the visor in towns, as the external air was hotter than my breath inside the helmet.
 
That chart is way off.

First of all, Wind chill and heat index are not just functions of windspeed and temperature, but they are very heavily dependent on relative humidity.

The moisture in the air has a significant cooling effect on wind chill and heat index.

Example... I road from Albuquerque to Andrews Texas one day... 100 degrees in ABQ and 117 when I got to Andrews. Relative Humidity never got above 20%. Like riding through a blast furnace!

used to ride my bike to work all the time when I worked around DFW... 110 degrees... no problem... as long as you have the wind on you and plenty of humidity. Now... stop at a traffic signal and it's a different story.

Same with wind chill. in dry, thin air, it's not too bad to ride down to 20 degrees with decent gear. On the other hand, try 30 degrees on a foggy morning... that's a lot colder...

There are some good wind chill and heat index calculators out there, but the single humidity table isn't going to work... and it's obviously based on very low humidity for the higher temps at least...
 
We use these products in the fire department. The do-rags work great if the helmet is ventilated like a fire helmet but not so great on a motorcycle helmet (I've tried it) where your head and helmet actually touch. They have to have constant ventilation.

http://www.koolin.net/products.html

I rigged up one of these to my shop fan for about $40. Much cheaper than the above ^^^ links but after awhile the whole shop is dripping wet. :lol2: It works though, I just point it down wind out the door and stand in front of it as needed.

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_..._sku=SPM6457627407&sid=IDx20131030xMPLGxCPA17
 
DFW_Warrior said:
Hang on now, there is one very big difference between a car radiator and the human body and that is called evaporative cooling. Yes, air hotter than 98.6 can certainly cool you down. That is what sweating is for. Otherwise we would have fatality rates in the thousands every single day it is above 99 degrees outside.

I work in places where the temperature can peak out at 145 degrees, and in that kind of heat if there isn't something to pull heat away, then you would have less than 15 minutes before heat stroke kicked in.

That is why these things work so well:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Port-A-C...ive-Cooler-for-700-sq-ft-PAC2KCYC01/202221382
http://www.speedlifemotorsport.com/dei-intercooler-water-sprayer-kit/
http://www.uline.com/Product/ProductDetailRootItem.Aspx?modelnumber=S-17096
http://www.pattersonroofcooling.com/

In fact, the last link was tried out by our sister company last August. Inside of their trailers they registered over 110 degrees. The water system only runs for 30 seconds every 15 minutes, yet in less than two cycles the temperatures inside the trailer had dropped to 91 degrees, cooler than the ambient temperature. It worked so well that we are going to adopt the same system at our facility.

While we are on this topic, one must remember that there is a huge difference between "feeling hotter" and "not cooling". Gotta remember that.;-)
Click to expand...

the water on the roof thing is awesome. I've often thought of trying something similar to help col the house in the summer. If you could lower the attic temp 20 degrees, that would make a big difference on the comfort a of the inside and how hard the AC has to work.
 
poser said:
the water on the roof thing is awesome. I've often thought of trying something similar to help col the house in the summer. If you could lower the attic temp 20 degrees, that would make a big difference on the comfort a of the inside and how hard the AC has to work.
Click to expand...

On most summer days you can find live aboards at the marina wetting down the decks of their boats for just this reason.
 
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