bicycle apparel and foot health

BICYCLE APPAREL USING POLARTEC

The riders will have a choice of three different jerseys, depending on the conditions in which they are racing. In temperate conditions, they will use the Power Stretch jersey, designed to wick away moisture and offer breathability.

ALL of the fiber used by Polartec as far as I know is synthetic. Synthetic fiber is incapable of wicking. Now if they used cotton, silk, rayon or wool they would be using fiber that does wick. As for breathability I am sure some of the moisture while still a vapor will escape through the spaces between the yarns, but not enough to make a difference. Moisture is absolutely going to stay between the skin surface and the fabric.

Polartec has used its Delta fabric to create a jersey for hot conditions. It has a special knit and bi-thread construction that helps regulate the body’s natural cooling system.

There is no fabric on the planet that can help regulate the body’s natural cooling process. As a point of fact when you put a garment over your body you interfere with the natural cooling process, except when you wear a garment made from fishnet material.

The Rain Jersey features Polartec’s Power Shield Pro fabric, which repels water as well as breathing and stretching.

And of course they have a fabric which repels water; yes it can, but breathe not so. I am surprised they didn’t say waterproof and breathable.

The information I have published here comes from an online magazine named “sportstextiles”.

From what I have been observing most of the information I read in industry magazines whether they are paper or online have all of the newest and greatest information from the companies that either supply fabric as Polartec does or a company that sells finished garments is never presented to the general public in ads. Some of this information may appear on hangtags which are almost never read, just thrown away.

Years ago companies selling products to people who ventured into the outdoors could read in magazines like backpacker ads proclaiming the performance capabilities that you could expect from the various products. I distinctly remember an ad from Sierra Designs for a sleeping bag. The model in the bag was Paul Kramer who was the sales manager of the company at the time; he later started Mountain Hardwear; and sold it to Columbia Sportswear. He was in a sleeping bag that utilized the 3-M Thinsulate as its insulation. The caption read rated to “7.2 clo”. That rating is the most outrageous ever published. You could not expect the bag to do as advertised. Kansas State universities environ- mental laboratory never tested a bag to have that high a clo rating. I have I think 5 reports they did on a number of bags from all the manufacturers that existed in the 80s and 90s and the highest clo was in the 6 category. Those bags were temperature rated to -25 F. It wasn’t until several years ago that Natick tested a Wiggy’s Ultima Thule and calculated a 10 plus clo rating. This Sierra Designs bag weighed maybe 3 pounds. (I have the ad someplace in my files and if I find it I will publish it.) The reality is the bag advertised just had a fictitious clo rating applied to it. It wasn’t soon after that 3-M stopped selling the Thinsulate for use in sleeping bags, or companies stopped buying it because it did not work!!! Regardless it is no longer used and hasn’t been for some time as far as I know.

If you think that the marketing of products via false claims such as waterproof breathable is new, not so. In the early 2000’s and probably before if you looked in a Cabelas catalog at their boots you could find probably 2 dozen from different manufacturers who rated them to as low as 100 degrees F below ZERO. I took the time to call each and every company to find out where they were tested. Needless to say a couple of years later the rating for boots just disappeared from ALL of the companies. Was it me or did some of the employees actually go into the cold so they could experience cold feet just like their customers? Who knows, but the temperature rating is gone from published literature. What is here are millions who still have cold feet, except Lamilite boot owners.

What I have observed is the use of people making U-Tube videos these days, but not companies placing magazine ads. The companies rely on their friends at the magazines to review products. As an example a reader sent me a link to a fellow who works for Outside magazine who did a video about the best wet weather bags. Interesting that he was comparing water repellent treated down bags. That is how the company selling the down bags advertises. Of course he should have used a Wiggy’s bag because wet or dry it still works better than dry down bag.

As I see it whenever these companies are confronted with legitimate information they have no answer.

DIABETIC FOOT PROBLEMS

I was reading that 70,000 people with diabetes have a foot amputated each year. I believe the most effective thing that a person with diabetes can do to keep their feet in the best possible health is to keep the warm and DRY!!!

I have touched on this subject in the past since I have learned that feet sweat more than any other part of the body. 250,000 sweat glands per foot and when your feet are in socks that absorb moisture and in footwear that is lined with gore-tex you are guaranteed to have moist feet and that is not what you want. You want dry feet.

If you are wearing Lamilite socks that guarantee’s the moisture coming out of each and every pore will as a vapor migrate through the socks. If you are wearing leather shoes that do not have a film such as gore-tex in the shoe the moisture will move through the leather to the outside. In you are in a cold weather situation there is NOTHING as good as Lamilite insulated boots!!!

In the past I have published testimonials sent to me from people who suffer with diabetic foot problems that are on the web site. They all have healthier feet wearing Lamilite socks and boots. I personally am not a diabetic but as I have aged I have developed some foot problems and I sleep with Lamilite socks or booties winter and summer which has been extremely helpful. I suppose the longer one lives the more you experience the changes that take place regardless of how much you take care of yourself. The changes I am referring to are, well you know what I mean.

I read today about a company that is incorporating or wanting to incorporate monitoring systems in insoles of an electrical nature but that does not get rid of the cause of the problem sweat. It just will cost a lot of money. Is there no end to the ways people are trying to use electricity in clothing and in my opinion it is all to the detriment of the human. It all sounds good but none of it is good.

When I was sailing after a while I became more experienced I became a part of the boat, I could feel its movement, when the ocean moved me I could feel it etc. I am very sure that I am not alone with that experience. Pilots such as General Chuck Yeager sat in a plane cranked the engine and he became a part of the plane. I have friends who were fighter pilots that had the same experience. When you have a problem with your body you should pay attention to the problem and see what you can do to help the body correct the problem. Sometime intervention from a medical doctor is necessary but more often than not you can help yourself. When it comes to feet, they are very necessary to your wellbeing, therefore ONLY wear footwear that will NOT retain the moisture that comes out of them. If you start this prior to any problems you may never have any.