The summer months in Australia and New Zealand can offer beautiful cycling weather, but they can also be hard on bike commuters. Carting your work clothes and laptop with you on your bike while also trying to arrive looking and smelling fresh can be a challenge.

Here we go over CycleHub’s top 15 tips for beating the summer heat while bike commuting. Note that we link to some products in this article, but these are not affiliate links, we earn nothing from them, and they are just our best personal recommendations.

Get Some Ultra Cool Tech

The team behind Ultra Cool Tech are thermoregulation experts who work with pro teams and athletes. Get one of their Glacier Cooling Vests or the cooling handlebar tape. I haven’t used their products, but they are highly regarded. The tape makes sense because the hands are heat exchangers with dense blood flow. By cooling your hands, you lower your perceived whole-body heat load. This is why some endurance athletes immerse their hands in cold water.

Drink More Water

One of the biggest challenges during hot-weather cycling is staying hydrated. You will sweat more, but that sweat will evaporate quickly, so it can be hard to gauge just how much fluid you are losing. Don’t wait until you’re thirsty, but keep sipping every five to 10 minutes throughout your ride.

Experts recommend drinking one-half to one full litre per hour, numbers which you can adjust upwards in higher heat.

Manage Your Salt

I sweat a lot when cycling, which leaves white streaks of salt on my helmet straps, so I don’t find plain water to be enough on a long ride. I keep a tube of electrolyte tabs handy at all times, or more often put electrolytes in my water bottle. Replacing the salts lost during a humid morning ride helps prevent getting a 3 PM slump or a dehydration headache that could ruin your workday.

Freeze Your Water Bottles

Don’t just fill your bottles with tap water in the morning. Fill them halfway the night before and freeze them on their side. Then, top them up with water before you roll out. Even on the hottest day, this will provide a steady supply of ice-cold water for the first 30–45 minutes of your commute, helping to keep your core temperature down from the inside out.

You can keep your water cool even longer by using an insulated bottle such as this one from JetBlack at 99Bikes.

Find a Shadier Route

The shortest route isn’t always the best on a hot day. Look for routes with lots of shade, even if it means you have to cycle a bit further.

If you’re a Strava user, you can use Heatmaps to find shady routes. Open the app, go to “Maps,” and look for dense lines that pass through green corridors, parks, rivers, or reserves. If you’re riding through an urban area in the morning, choose the shady side of the street.

Stop Using Backpacks

If you are carrying a backpack, you are very familiar with the sweat chimney it creates against your spine. Switch to a pannier or a frame bag. This makes a huge difference to your comfort and means you can arrive at the office smelling less like a caveman.

Keep Some Clothes at Work

Drive or take the bus once a week to drop off a whole week’s worth of, fresh shirts, trousers, towels, and deodorant at the office, so you can ride in lightweight tech-tee fabrics without the extra weight of carrying the day’s wardrobe. In the early days, I sometimes forgot essentials like my belt or shoes. I once spent the entire workday glued to my desk chair because I had left my pants at home. I had a dress shirt on up top, but just lycra on my legs. So, learn from my example and keep all the essentials at the office.

Use a Garment Bag + Folding Board

I used to think of these as only for grandparents, but they are incredibly effective at keeping your clothes wrinkle-free when cycling. The folding board makes it easy to fold them up tightly, and the garment bag then keeps them snug and in place until you get to the office.

Here’s an example of a garment bag that comes with a folding board on Amazon. It will fit right into most pannier bags. If you’ve already got a bag, you can just buy a folding board, as well.

Some people swear by the Wingman Commuter Backpack, but I find it’s too hot on my back in midsummer. The Ortlieb Vario is widely considered one of the best pannier bags for commuting because it easily mounts and detaches and converts instantly into a backpack.

Cool Down Before Riding

On a brutally hot day, the temperature can be intense by 7:30 AM. Lower your core temperature before you leave home by drinking a large glass of ice water, taking an ice bath (if you have one), or just taking a cold shower. (Leave your hair wet.) Starting the ride "cool" gives you a longer window before your body hits its thermal limit.

Freeze Your Gear

This sounds silly until you try it. Put your cycling jersey, shorts, and socks in a zip-lock bag and stick them in the freezer for 10 minutes before you leave. Putting them on cold won’t actually affect your core body temperature. But it will provide a massive psychological boost. After all, perception is reality.

The cold-sensitive receptors in the skin will fire and create a strong psychological relief signal, even though the fabric will quickly warm back up.

Drench Yourself with Water

Spray yourself with the hose or pour a bottle of water over your head before you set out. The water will quickly evaporate and, in the process, keep you cool. If you have a longer commute, carrying an extra bottle so you can repeat the process halfway is a cheap way to beat the heat.

As I understand it, the Ultra Cool Tech gear contains a hydrophilic material that absorbs water and spreads it across a large area, then uses evaporation to pull heat from your skin. It immediately feels cool, although not cold like an ice pack. To activate the handlebar tape, just pour some water over it and start riding.

Don’t Get Changed Too Quickly

When you arrive at work, don't rush straight into the shower and then up to your desk. If you're still pulsing with heat, you'll just keep sweating into your work clothes.

Instead, run cold water over your wrists and the back of your neck for two minutes. This cools the blood passing through your major vessels and helps shut off the sweat response faster.

Also, skip the hot shower. Have a cold shower instead. You’ll cool off faster and feel much fresher. And try to avoid using a hair dryer if you can.

Slow Down

Your mid-summer commute is not the time for Strava PRs. I remember visiting Belize and being impressed with how well the locals dealt with the heat, humidity, and lack of air conditioning.

Everyone moved slowly. Riding a bicycle, they would only pedal enough to barely maintain forward motion. Try dropping two gears, gently spinning your legs, and keeping your heart rate in Zone 1 or 2.

If you can keep your internal engine from redlining, you’ll arrive at your desk looking (and smelling) fresh.

Have a Backup Plan

This piece of advice comes from a Reddit user named Kerim_Bay, and I have to admit that I hadn’t thought of it myself. He suggests keeping a mental list of air-conditioned businesses like cafes and convenience stores along your route. Stop in one for a quick chill if the heat is really getting to you.

Kerim_Bay also advises keeping in mind a public transport backup route that you can swap to if you’re not up to riding back home in the evening.

Improve Your End-of-Trip Options

If your office doesn’t offer a locker room and showers for you to get cleaned up in, find a nearby gym or recovery centre that does.

In most CBDs today, you can find an inexpensive gym or recovery centre where you can shower and change. You may have time to get an upper body workout in, too, while you’re there.

You might even do a cooling ice bath if your location offers it. RCVRI is one of the many chains of recovery centres that have popped up in Australia and New Zealand. It offers a great end-of-trip option to bike commuters.

Best of all, you can just join for the summer months, if you like, to keep from straining your budget.