I am curious about dust inhalation in gravel races. Recently watched some great coverage of the Garmin Unbound 200 on YT. If you rode in a Peleton of the elite riders you could be inhaling a nasty dust cloud for 10+ hrs. Surely that’s a problem and will cause lung cancer for some of these pros who do many events a year? What am I missing?
by daggius
10 Comments
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Lung damage like that takes a long time to build up. Guys who work with concrete daily still take years to develop silicosis. So permanent damage is a possibility, but I would be more concerned about short-term irritation.
It also looks like some of these guys have dust masks too. The leader, the guy in blue on the far right, and the guy in red about halfway through the pack. My guess is they will become more common as time goes on
This is miserable riding. Dust fucking sucks and there’s nothing fun about it.
just stop trimming nose hair
Stay in first?
It’s really be for short periods of time. No way a group that big is lasting the full race. It’ll break up significantly and the amount of dust kicked up for a vast majority of the race will be way less than this.
Short answer, no.
I’m a pulmonologist (see my flair in r/askdocs). The lungs do an excellent job at clearing out junk, dust, and debris. Lung damage requires either a massive load of a dangerous material (acute silicosis, acute hypersensitivity pneumonitis, etc), or years and years and years of chronic exposure (smoking). A few hours in a dust cloud is enough to aggravate asthma, but not enough to create any long-lasting problems.
Vaping is worse
I was in this. I inhaled all this. I feel fine. I hope the pulmonologist in the comments knows his stuff!
One thing that did happen, was I started that morning with light arm warmers. As it got warm, I pulled the arm warmers down so they only covered my wrists. At the first aid station, I took them off and put them in my #1 drop bag to be picked up later. By them I was no longer riding in huge groups. My arms were covered by dust, but my wrists were not. My wrists got sunburned but the rest of my arms below my jersey sleeves did not, or not nearly as bad.
Fun day!
I think in most of the Untied States there’s not a problem with dust however, on the western side of the country Valley Fever caused by coccidioides fungi in the soil is a growing problem. This is a serious and potentially fatal infection. [https://directorsblog.health.azdhs.gov/coccidioidomycosis-dont-learn-the-spelling-just-the-symptoms-and-learn-how-to-prevent-it-this-valley-fever-awareness-week/](https://directorsblog.health.azdhs.gov/coccidioidomycosis-dont-learn-the-spelling-just-the-symptoms-and-learn-how-to-prevent-it-this-valley-fever-awareness-week/)