I’ve been using a mesh base layer, then soaking with a cold water bottle. Instant cooling from the water, and then helps evaporation with my fans. I soak my shoulders, upper chest, and entire back… all which have fans blowing on them (3 total). Works good with a bit of splashing if I pour too much.
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This thread is making me pretty thankful I have a finished basement lol…trainer right behind the couch…temp is always below 70F 
I am still actually thinking about getting one of those lasko blower fans…more because I think theyre much more quiet than my big rotary fan, which does a ‘decent’ job…but is awfully loud. Annoying even woth earbuds in.
Im in the Houston area and my trainer is in the garage. It’s fantastic in December and January but not so much at the moment. I generally train in the morning when the outside temp is around 75-80 degrees outside with 90%+ humidity. The way our garage is setup there’s not really an effective way for me to use an a/c - mini split or portable.
The first thing I do is open the main garage door and turn on a large fan I have mounted on the wall directly behind me. I do this 30-60 mins before my ride and coincides with when I leave to take the dog for a walk. The main purpose of this is to let some of the hot air that’s built up overnight to out of the garage, i.e. exhaust the room. After I return from the walk, I turn on pedestal fan that point directly at my face and torso while on the bike. Both of these fans are set to high but I have a remote for the pedestal fan to change if necessary. My final fan is a Wahoo Headwind on the ground in front of me that’s sync to my HR strap. The last thing that I do is open the small garage door which is behind me off my shoulder as it helps to create a draft or airflow through the garage.
It’s not a perfect setup but it makes it tolerable. Still not fun though.
I can’t train in my garage past a certain time of day in the Summer. My garage gets hot during summer days and I’ve seen it hit 90+ before… I either move inside to the A/C or do the workout early in the AM.
Started at 8:45 this morning and garage was already 80 degrees! Tried a bunch of the suggestions here but still cooked. Think I’m going to throw in the towel and move my setup inside for my next couple workouts. Supposed to cool off next week so hopefully only needs to be a temporary solution.
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If heat is an issue, nothing will work better than a PROPERLY SIZED mini split for the garage. I have a 9000BTU unit in mine, with an insulated garage door, and a little air sealing around the door as I have my office out there as well. I have no exterior insulation in the walls, which I plan to remedy this fall with some ZIP R, and my garage easily stays at 70 degrees year round. I get constant sun on the exterior wall after noon daily, so that wall (which is where the interior unit is mounted) does warm up. I plan to put a screen wall in front of it for both aesthetics and temp improvement.
My minisplit cost 600.00, I did the work myself, including electrical (you can too, its not rocket science), and I have seen ZERO change on my electric bill through both a summer and a winter of use.
I cant recommend it enough.
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Specialized SWAT bibs could potentially work well for something like that too. Wouldn’t get the upper part of the torso, but I bet you could put ice packs in the back pockets pretty easily.
I’m fortunate to be able to work out in our basement and our house has central AC, but before we moved, I worked out in the living room of our condo that routinely got up to 90 degrees in the summertime, so I sympathize with the trouble of cooling during hot workouts. I got very good at carefully dousing myself with water during rest intervals while avoiding getting it everywhere and nuking my electronics.
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Impressive. With 78F/70% humidity in the room and two fans, my HR during 15 min threshold went higher than during 3x7 VO2 max in 68F. Recently with 73F inside and nice 60F/95% humidity from the window +3 fans my HR was almost normal… so I am definitely not heat acclimated…and I hate heat inside and outside.
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Good point, those bibs are a good option. I considered just grabbing an old jersey and loading the rear pockets with ice packs. It’s an easy start and could be expanded with a minimal amount of sewing (or even safety pins) to add more pockets. I need to get to a prototype and just try it out soon.
Nice work on the soaking. I did ok, but got a bit on the floor that I needed to clean up after. I even thought about getting one of those rubber trays to set under the bike and trainer to catch my overflow, if I stick with the soaking option. I do find that it works really well, and you can even get chilled if you overdo the water temp, soak and fans. So it is an effective way to help, at least in our low-ish relative humidity in Montana. Probably won’t work as well in really humid areas.
I’m a polar bear - hate the heat - but in 2016 a Kona age-grouper (#teamTina) convinced me to HTFU and deal. So around this time of year I’m doing slow hot afternoon spins into a headwind (making it even slower):
(check out those awesome IF values 
)
and 3 weeks later you come out the other side able to do sweet spot intervals in the heat. The mental anguish of slowly riding z1/z2 into a headwind is harder than the heat acclimatization. Two days ago I had a 10mph recovery interval at 95F / 35C into a strong headwind 
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Thanks for the tip. I will introduce more Z2 outside in the heat and inside with slow blade fan - maybe it will help because I need some threshold workouts to keep me sane and not seeing my FTP plummeting (yes, I am one of those persons that self-evaluate with numbers.) 
And about IFs - looking at training rides from Kolie Moore he also prescribes the rides with such low IF so you are doing it right 
yeah I don’t worry about the IFs, just laughing about how going slow can make you fast
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Where did you get a Lasko fan in the uk?
Ditto on the mini split. Install wasn’t that bad at all, just had to buy a cheap vacuum pump to evacuate the lines. The systems come with refrigerant and oil already in them. I installed mine for less than half what the local AC company wanted. It also has a heat pump for the winter, very efficient system. I’m in TX and had my garage and garage door insulated when we built the house. Put in a nice epoxy flake floor and it’s like any other room in the house. I work from the house these days and most of the time I’m in the garage.
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This is THE reason i am now waking at 0430 to feed the dogs then get on the bike. My trainer is under an outside awning but afternoons are just too much for me with the heat (also Norcal). Even with morning temps in the high 50s, low 60s I still have two fans running.
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I did last summer in a Texas garage. I had two Laskos facing me and this Vornado aimed at my back. Made it bearable.
Worked for me until the shirt dried out, which only took the warmup unfortunately. Resoaking it while riding was a bit of a nightmare.
The wet cap (HeadSweats) kind of helped in that it cooled my head for a while but not for long and then felt loke insulation. For brief relief in between intervals it worked best as a way to wet my whole head without dripping water everywhere, then remove it to evapourate before the cap heated up.
Best of all was waiting until 9pm to start the ride. You might think it hard to sleep after vo2max intervals, but I was exhausted and out pretty quickly.
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where about? Orlando…