The motorcycle rider didnt go from zero to high way speeds in the time you took to stick your head out the window. The rapid change in everything is what makes your body freak out and cant breathe. Ease into it like a motorcyclist would and your breathing will adjust.
Observation: When you stick your head out of a car window at speed, you’re going from almost no wind to a lot of it very quickly, and that’s bound to take your senses by surprise, regardless of whether you’re consciously expecting it or not.
Helmet-less motorcycle riders - inadvisable as their choice may be - have the advantage of being able to ease into it from standing to moving at whatever their cruising speed is over the course of a reasonable acceleration.
… though I note that other posters have given reasons why it’s still not entirely pleasant for the motorcyclist.
Bikers don’t ride around with their mouths open
I used to go riding with my dad, and he had this incredible talent to, while actively riding at like 30mph, grab his pack of cigarettes, take one out with his teeth, and then light it with his zippo. Then just smoke as we rode. I was impressed 100% of the time.
He told me he’s definitely gotten some bugs in his mouth. Extra protein, he’d say.
I tried that once a long time ago, cigarette just burned up in the wind in 20 second, wouldn’t have recommended.
If they want to filter feed on bugs they smile.
At least not for long.
or do they
I can personally tell you that riding a motorcycle without fairing or helmet at high speeds is also not pleasant. The wind gets annoying quickly, there is an ear defending noise and getting a mosquito in your eyes at 100 miles per hour is definitely painful.
I used to giggle at the riders with their snoods in the middle of summer.
“Who needs a scarf in summer” I’d chortle.
Then I hit a bee with my throat at, we’ll say the speed limit. Now I ride with a snood even in the middle of summer. I’m ‘vizor up’ till at least 50mph, still haven’t learned that lesson.
They’ve got grit.
It’s the same as being unable to breathe the first few seconds of submerging yourself in water while wearing SCUBA gear. Your brain is overriding your normal action of breathing but doing this multiple times teaches your brain that it’s not unsafe so that involuntary response diminishes over time until it simply doesn’t occur.
What is this called? You can’t breathe through the regulator at first?
It’s called the “diving reflex”. There’s a small area right between your upper lip and nose, that, when getting wet, triggers your body to stop breathing and slows down your heartbeat. IIRC it’s something all mammals have, but you can ‘override’ it. It’s pretty uncomfortable at first, especially the first breath, but you can train yourself to ignore it after a while.
Thanks! would this reflex trigger when swimming laps and turning your head to the side, or snorkeling with your face submerged?
When kids learn to “bob” down into the water and back up for air, are they fine tuning this reflex?
I’m definitely going to do more research
Re: Swimming Strong maybe. During the face down portion definitely, but when they turn their head the skin’s still wet, however your brain definitely knows that there’s air to breathe, probably automatically overriding that reflex.
RE: bobbing Kinda. Especially small children and toddlers are incapable of overriding that reflex, meaning they can and will “drown” when that part is submerged.
The bobbing motion is just more efficient (for 99% of untrained swimmers).
You’ll do the same when exhausted while swimming.
Your body generally isn’t buoyant enough in a normal swimming position. Which means you’ll want to keep your lungs as full as possible, resulting in quick exhale, inhale, and then recouping (and sinking) while being lighter, requiring less force to resurface.If you have a strong reflex, you can kinda try it out yourself at home, get a glass of cold water, pretend to drink with a closed mouth and slowly tip the glass back without breathing. When the water is almost touching the “base” of your nose, try inhaling. Most people feel some sort of internal “resistance” and don’t want to inhale, that’s that reflex.
(Disclaimer: Obviously people are different, and this reflex naturally gets weaker the older you get.)
Another interesting fact is, it slows your heartbeat significantly. If you have someone there with you, or have a watch that can record your pulse, fill a large bowl with ice-cold water, submerge your face in it, and you’ll immediately lower your pulse.
(Don’t do this with any sort of heart related issues, and maybe try just cold water first)
Typically the type of rider who rides without a helmet has some sort of other protection from the wind in the form of a windscreen or fairings on the motorcycle to deflect wind away from their face. It’s mostly a comfort thing though because it’s not impossible to ride without a helmet even without wind protection especially if you’re just cruising around town at lower speeds.
Even people who do wear helmets appreciate these features on their motorcycles because having the wind blasting against your helmet can be very loud and tire out your neck muscles.
Same thing (wind in face) applies to people skydiving though. Some skydivers use full helmets, but a lot don’t, and they’re typically falling at 100+ km/h. I think the “lose your breath from strong wind”-response is just an initial response that disappears once your body adjusts after a couple seconds. I went skydiving once (tandem), and can’t remember getting the same feeling as I do if I stick my head out of a moving car.
There are simply no car windows on a motorcycle…
Of course not. Those are motorcycle windows.
One thing that might be a factor is the Bernoulli effect (moving air has lower pressure than still air). When your head is in moving air but your chest is in relatively still air, that would create a pressure differential that makes it harder to draw air into your lungs. On a motorcycle, your whole body is in moving air so the pressure differential wouldn’t exist.
That’s a misunderstanding of the bernoulli effect. It does not say moving fluid has lower pressure as some universal law. It applies to when fluid is moving through the same exact route, as in, inside a pipe or around an object. It does not have anything to do with pressure inside the car vs outside., as it’s a massive, chaotic ball of turbulence where you get both inbound and outbound airflow at the same window or can do tricks to make one window inbound (rear windows) and one window outbound (front). If it were that simple, it’d still be hard to breathe on a motorcycle because your torso is somewhat shielded by the aerodynamics of the headlight/gauge area on a naked. Sport bikes often shield your torso as well, throwing air all at your head, which would cause the same “pressure differential” as the car example. But it doesn’t, because that’s not how it works.
The classic example of this misunderstanding is things like pump pressure/flow rate charts. Flow rate goes up, pressure goes down in the chart. Nothing to do with this principle, everything to do with the pump being a fixed-power device putting out a certain amount of work. It’s more of a power vs torque thing than a fluid principle.
And no, air does not move around a wing/airfoil, speed up on the longer side, and reunute its former molecular siblings at the tail of the airfoil. That’s a mythunderstanding, too. Nothing makes them meet up again.
Side note: beards cut down wind noise in your ears.
