Bin nach 4 Tagen “Rock im Park-Festival” aus der Sauna in Nürnberg wieder zurück!!!

Klickt unten bei Tags auf Kühlweste, Kühlkappe und Blumenspritze, ohne diese hätte ich die 35°C im Schatten nicht ausgehalten.

Es war ein grandioses Festival mit einem überragenden Sound im Getümmel.

Die Rollifahrertribühne am linken Ende des Geländes war super gebaut, aber “Mono” brauch ich ned…!!!

Due to the rather tropical outside temperatures I would like to call your attention like every year to two older blogposts!

One is about a

Cooling Vest

(click here)

and the other one about a

Cooling Cap

(click here)

Since the summer 2013 has found us as well I have the prototype of a cooling shirt, also from the company E-cooline in permanent test mode, and I am happy.

Read the comments to the blogposts, there are some tips of other readers!!!

Translator BL

Brought some nice weather back home.

38° C in the shade

Click on Tags “COOLING CAP”

Translator BL

I got persuaded to travel to the “near abroad” last week for a hand cycle boot camp

Oberstdorf im Allgäu (Bavaria).

I have been to many countries already and was able to communicate with the respective inhabitants in English or French quite well.

Apart from the language barrier, the weather has disturbed my whole training schedule.

My since months proven and tested training schedule with several rides in the rain per day was ruined totally by one week of everlasting sunshine. In London (Paralympics 2012) it rains the whole year, as everybody knows, so you have to be prepared.

My equipment had to be converted rapidly from high speed rain jacket to strongly braking cooling cap and vest.

Due to the beautiful sunsets every day the coaches got so melancholic that there was nothing to do with them any more. They were occupied with writing post cards and painting by numbers.

The signage of the race track must have been the result of

Fools at work.

signs in both directions meaning: all trails

Meanwhile I had completely lost my way, so that I ended up on the

Nebelhorn

middle sign meaning: panorama trail – wheelchair and stroller accessible

and finally on the

Way of St James

(in German: Jakobsweg)

OK, this was driven back quickly .

Back in Frankfurt at last.
Last night I was finally able to exercise reasonably again with 16°C and 20 litres of rain/m²!

Translator BL

I have extensively described my enthusiasm about a cooling vest (see older blogpost).

Yesterday evening I have tested a

cooling baseball cap from the company Cooline

www.e-cooline.de

Actually unbelievable, but you are sitting with a black cap in the sun at 28°C in the shade with your head being cooled.

“Only” water is put on this cap, like on the vest, about 0,3 liter. The fleece on the inside of the cap absorbs the water, and the cap virtually sweats and cools.

Ingenious!!!

Unfortunately my match was cancelled, I forgot my tennis shoes.

Translator BL

Ingenious: A cooling vest which only needs water!

My spinal cord has decided in 2007 that sweating is stupid.
Since then my skin is quite dry

This phenomenon is nothing unusual with para- or quadriplegia.

As a consequence my body temperature rises and rises when it is above 25° C and sun.

This can lead until fainting at approximately 40° C.

A water sprayer for flowers can work miracles (see older blog post), but is not the best solution either.

There are special cooling vests, with thermal packs or fans, well… I think it is too complicated, and you are depending on thermal packs and refrigerators. So I prefer hiding at home and waiting for the winter.

In May I met Sepp Jakober on a technical aids trade fair, the chief engineer of the wheelchair tractive Swisstrac who gave me tuning tips for my Minitrac.

He gave me a vest from the company E-Cooline and said that I would absolutely have to try it. He borrowed it from another booth.

The vest would cool you, you just have to put water on it, the water would not flow out, hard to believe!!!
The vest would absorb the water, virtually sweat and thus cool you.
It was invented for fire fighters.

The cooling vest was working!!!

A quantum leap for quality of live.

I underwent a two-week stress test with the cooling vest in Crete.

The E-Cooline vest is really cooling, ingenious!!!

It doesn’t get wet, the body feeling can be described as cooling-clammy, but it is not unpleasant.

Be careful with filling water in it as 4 liters fit inside, and then you would have to wait approximately 3 days until you are able to wear this “lead vest” again. There is no water dripping off. 0,5 liters are more than enough for approximately 4 hours at 30°C in the shade.

The Cooline vests are available in a simple design with velcro tape, see picture above, or two rows of snap fasteners and additional removable lower part.

From the same material there are scarfs and caps available which I would like to test as well.

I was able to stroll around at the beach promenade with my wife in the afternoons at 30° C in the shade without water sprayer or wet towel.
The cooling vest made a great holiday possible, and I have just ordered a black vest and cap.

The price of approximately 300 € is not low, but if you bear in mind what you have to pay for good winter clothing or trivial cotton jeans I consider the price justifiable for a vest out of such a high tech material.

This vest opens so many possibilities for me, I don’t have to hide any more in summer!!!

The only disadvantage is that the vest weighs around 4 kg after washing and you have to wait 3-4 days until it has dried again.

You can purchase these vests from E-Cooline
Unfortunately these vests don’t have a medical device number. With an adequate prescription and statement from the doctor some health insurances would bear the expenses.

For question as usual: rollinator@eigude.de

With all this verbiage Karl Lagerfeld would probably be proud of me!
PG-13 prohibits to show my “six-pack” stomach!

Translator BL

Many wheelchair drivers with a spinal cord injury are only able to sweat a little bit, or not at all anymore. This sounds rather nice for one moment.
No wet clothes any more, garlic as much as you like, and the deodorant stick dries from non-using in the bathroom cabinet. I also belong to the tribe of the

Antiperspirantians (Non-sweaters).

There is just one hitch:
If it is more than 25° C and I am physically active, or just standing around meaningless in the sun, my body temperature rises constantly.
From 40° C my body decides to leave the wheelchair with a floor transfer.
To counteract this we arm ourselves with a customary

water sprayer for flowers.

I was absolutely convinced that each wheelchair driver concerned would know this, thus I had never mentioned it before, but unfortunately this is not the case!

At the last World Cup pedestrians have constantly borrowed my

thermo sprayer.

It was possibly due to the fact that we covered the roof and the sides of the roofing with black plastic sheets in order to better see the beamer picture.
There were perceived 80° C, but maximum 58°C!
If you have a belt out of Velcro tape you can fix the sprayer to it.

Such a water sprayer is great, but I am warning it’s highly addictive!

Addendum, an ingenious aid: Click on tag “cooling vest and cooling cap“

Translator BL