Summer.

It's synonymous with group rides, races, fondos, picnics, beers and burgers with your riding buddies and….sun.  Lots and lots of sun.

Of course, with sun comes the ever present worries of sunburn, skin damage, melanoma, and general misery that goes along with the “lobster burn.”  The typical course of action involves slathering yourself with a shot glass or more of sunscreen, wearing “sun sleeves” or finding some other way to keep those UV rays from touching your skin.

Sadly, we as human beings need some of those UV rays.  Truly, around three quarters of the US population is deficient in Vitamin D3, which can cause anything from increased risk of cancer to insufficient secretion of insulin in Type 2 diabetes. This can partially be blamed on the fact that we generally work inside, and that the UVB radiation we need to produce D3 naturally doesn't pass through glass.  We also don't get much exposure if we slather ourselves or our families with sunscreen all summer long, either.

So what can you do?  We don't want to be burned up, we don't want to peel, we don't want to get skin cancer.  Well, a couple of easy biohacks can reduce your risk of sunburn, skin cancer and reduce the use of those greasy sunscreens, while leaving you nicely golden brown after your ride.

Read on to find out this easy recipe after the jump:

Cycling sunburn

Vitamin D3 (35IU/pound)

What happens to our body when we're out in the sun?  Our body converts cholesterol into cholecalciferol, which is vitamin D D3 is a further “refined” variety of this compound.) And it goes without saying that D3 is critically important to our bodies.  If we look at the uses of vitamin D3, we find a large variety of things.  D3 regulates calcium and phosphate levels in serum, and promotes bone mineralization.  This function is synergistic with calcium, vitamin A and vitamin K2.  It plays a significant role in immune responses by activating T-cells (those are the cells that kill things like bacteria and other infectious agents.) Perhaps the two largest effects we're looking at in terms of sun exposure:  D3 also controls the expression of some genes that regulate cell growth, death and differentiation.  Some studies have looked at this link in terms of cancers, and found that there are correlations between low vitamin D3 levels and most cancers.  It also reduces chronic systemic inflammation in general.