The Acts of Stupidity Clause
The people who run this event reserve the right to pull you from the event if you engage in Acts of Stupidity. This is usually demonstrated by failure to follow the Basics and the Rules of Engagement but not limited to them. A general lack of common sense is cause for us to invoke the Acts of Stupidity Clause.
Acts of Stupidity that lead to Common Medical Issues
There are two medical issues that have consistently plagued the “Death Ride”. The first is an old friend. A lot of people always have problems with dehydration, and it's corresponding heavy hammer, Heat Stroke. Now campers, we would like to think that most of you know that you have to drink lots of water all the time. In fact, the folks who do well on this event have a “hydration schedule” that they use. They drink a lot of water a day or two before the event. They do NOT drink coffee, beer, or anything else that serves as a diuretic. Then during the event, they drink constantly, not waiting for their bodies to trigger a thirst response. The bottom line here is, if you wait until you are thirsty, you are already behind the curve and you are going to have problems. The key problem here is that you can lose body moisture faster than your body can process it. By the time your body figures out it is thirsty, you will have a very hard time making up for the lost time.
Also, many of you do not recognize certain symptoms of heat injury. Muscle cramps are pretty well recognized, but some other symptoms are not. If you are having a headache out here, it is not just because it is bright and hot. A headache is a good warning sign that you have let your body fluid level drop too low. The nausea you might be experiencing is probably not a result of the power bar you ate or the oranges at the rest stop. Nausea is like the oil light on the dashboard of your car. When it comes on, you can still keep on driving but you know something bad could happen! After you start having the cramps, get the headache, and possibly vomit, you might start to feel better. The only problem is that it is about the time when you stop sweating, and that is when you start on that steep decline toward serious heat injury.
So how bad can you get? In 1997, a rider was hospitalized and they put 5 liters of fluid into him. That's a fair chunk of anybody's body weight. The bottom line is that you can die from heat stroke. So, when you do the ride and start feeling the hammer of dehydration, take a break, drink some fluids and start thinking about the short cut or taking a ride back in.