Looking for Diabetic Adventure Bikers!
 

Hi all,

I'm a final year design engineering student at Bournemouth University, and currently working on my main dissertation/project.

For the project, I'm working towards designing a "Shock-Mounted Insulin Refrigerator for Overland Travel". I rode my GS to the Sahara this summer, spending days at a time wild camping away from civilisation through both Europe and Morocco, having an incredible time. This made me realise that it must be incredibly difficult, if not impossible for riders with type-1 diabetes to be able to do a similar kind of trip, due to needing to keep their insulin refrigerated, especially in very hot conditions.

Therefore, I'd love to hear from any of you that have type-1 and your experiences with dealing with your insulin on long trips. At this point, I'm also looking to gain some form of market scope, as obviously it will be a fairly specialist product and not just a cool box strapped to a bike!

I hope to hear from some of you soon!

Fergus

Refrigerating Humira and other Biologics
 

I read your post with great interest since it's a problem that I've wrestled with. I'm not diabetic but I do use Humira (Adalimubab), an injectable which requires refrigeration at a temperature between 2 - 8 degrees Celsius (36 - 46 degrees Fahrenheit). I believe that this is the same temperature range required by Insulin.

In terms of your potential market I suggest you think way beyond Insulin using diabetics. Humira is probably the best known of a newish category of drugs known as TNF inhibitors (also known as biologics because they are manufactured using tissue rather than being chemically synthesized). They are used to treat auto immune diseases and their use is expanding hugely. Humira was initially developed to treat rheumatoid arthritis and has subsequently been approved for the treatment of a number of other inflammatory illnesses such as Crohn's and Psoriasis. It's been joined by a number of other Biologics and I assume that refrigeration is an issue for them as well.

I've travelled by air often with Humira. A decent insulated cooler bag with enough ice packs will do the trick for a fairly long trip, say 12 hours door to door all in. But I've always ended up staying somewhere that has a refrigerator. And the cooler bag was never outdoors for very long.

Travelling by road in a hot climate by bike or even by car, as you have correctly observed, is a whole other problem, one I haven't solved. I was going to do a ride around central British Columbia but the daytime temperatures were in the 35 - 38 Celsius range. Right, Canada can get pretty hot. I was looking into one of those Royal Enfield tours in an area in India and faced the same situation.

Ice packs melt and in many places you certainly can't get them refrozen overnight or even find ice.

I found a 16 litre, soft sided, thermo-electric cooler which can plug into a 12 volt system. Sized at about 1x1x1 feet it could certainly be carried on my V-Strom without a problem. All other choices I found were too big and heavy.

But...it claims to cool to only 12 degrees Celsius below the surrounding temperature. Even assuming optimistically it can actually do this, that's nowhere near enough. You'd get from 35 down to 23 degrees when you need to be down to no more than 8 degrees.

Humira (like Insulin I believe) can still be used after you stop refrigerating it. But, in the case of Humira, you can only do that for 14 days and only if it is kept below 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit). This can still be a problem in a hot environment. The powered cooler I mentioned above would probably not achieve this on a very hot day out in the sun. And when you're off the bike...?

So, it appears that you've set yourself a worthy design challenge. Ideally, you need serious cooling, both 12 volt and mains capability and perhaps some solar thrown in as well. Best of luck. When you start your Kickstarter campaign, I'll be first in line.

I use a small peltier cooler, holds about 6 tins of beer, so is internally small but has thick insulation - maybe 50mm all round. I've rigged up another battery 10aH that gets recharged from the bike.
Its not ideal and I only use it for a weekend away as I can survive without insulin for 12 to 20 hours - I'm Type II.
There are some cryocoolers using stirling cycle motors that are more efficient than peltiers.
I have a campervan for longer trips - Waeco compressor fridge which can freeze water in about 2 hours so no problem there.
In an ideal world it would be nice to have a little (minute) 2 way fridge/gas/12V.

There is a Spanish guy with type-1 diabetes trying to participate in the Dakar Rally: Un diabético en el Dakar

I would try to contact him via facebook for instance :).

Hi Norm, thank you very much for your brilliant response and I apologise for my late reply! Your post has changed the course of the project and I'm now aiming it at overland bikers needing to keep any form of medicine refrigerated, so thank you for the direction! Kickstarter could certainly be an option in late 2018, so I''ll keep in touch with you should I find a way to feasibly manufacture the product. Thanks again! Fergus

Thanks for the pointers Choutos, I'm getting in contact with the chap in question before he gets too busy with Dakar prep!

I am an Insulin Diabetic for 30 years now. Lots of Wilderness travel by canoe, motorcycle, hiking ect. I have tried every product but most take some kind of ice or cool pack. I found a product called Frio. It is a double envelope system. The first envelope has a moisture absorbing gel in it. You place it in water to allow it to absorb. You then place your Insulin or other meds in the envelope and then slide the first envelope into the second which kind of keeps the outside dry. So this system works on evaporation which in turn keeps your meds cool. Now the moisture works it's way to the outside so you can't store it in a sealed container. I keep mine in my Hydration system on my back. (knapsack). This has been working for me so far.

RR

That's a very worthwhile and worthy project. Remember to do it wrong for the dissertation and keep the "right" solution to yourself, as I think the rights to products developed in undergrad projects belong to the university (at least they did when I was in engineering at Newcastle upon Tyne)
Best of luck with the course and the project.

I've had that in the back of my mind recently haha! The lady that invented the pop-up tent did so in her final year as a student at my university....and is a lecturer here now, so somehow I feel she didn't make much money from it!

Thank you very much for the good wishes, I'll try to keep the feed updated when the time is right!