Evening Folks,

I will be cycling to work when the light nights are here, but really dont want to inhale all the carbon monoxide. I was checking out the ones available on CRC…..all look good, but to be honest have no real idea which are better than others so i’m throwing it to you guys!

Can you suggest any? Any to avoid? Any comments?

Bring on those light nights!!!

Cheers!

inhale all the carbon monoxide.

I see you’ve researched this one well.

Unless its properly face fitted, a tiny bit of activated carbon won’t make any difference except possibly to the larger particulates.

If it was properly face fitted with enough activated carbon to actually scrub anything properly, you’d not get enough air through to breath properly under any kind of exertion.

By all means buy one if you want to feel ‘protected’.

+1 they are really just dust masks, if you want full protection you need something more akin to a spraying mask.

+2 and CO, Carbon Monoxide surely isn’t going to be stopped by a mask. (I should know this, will check up)

What carbon monoxide? Unless you’re going to sit in a car in a garage with the doors closed and the engine running it’s not an issue, and you’re need a mask with an oxygen tank to protect against gasses. Large particulates from dirty diesels, on the other hand, might be filtered, but I’m sure I saw a test once that concluded that they’re really only for the paranoid, they make no significant difference.
[edit]It was a while back:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/109656.stm
Some apparently work reasonably well, and things may have improved since 1998…
[/edit]

Take it you mean the Respro masks, if so, No.

Tried one of these years ago, and the design doesn’t look to have changed, all it did was make it harder to breath (resistance), and I sweated a lot more.

Best bet is to stay away from vehicles (mainly Deisel) pumping out black smoke, esp buses & trucks, but the newer the vehicle, the less they seem to put out.

I was bought one a few years ago and thought I’d give it a try. Struggled to breathe, sweaty horrible thing that I took off before I got half way to work.

What carbon monoxide? Unless you’re going to sit in a car in a garage with the doors closed and the engine running it’s not an issue,

I beg to differ. I believe the main reason smoking cigarettes increases your chances of developing heart disease, is because of the amount of carbon monoxide in a cigarette (clogs up arteries etc) it has little or nothing to do with nicotine.

Someone in the presence of heavy slow traffic can absorb carbon monoxide approaching the levels of a smoker…….I’ve seen the tests being carried out, including on myself. Carbon monoxide is bad for you at any level. IMHO

Ernie, its an inflammatory response in your ateries and fat deposits (primarily LDL) that causes clogging.

Carbon Monoxide, which IS present in traffic fumes at a low level, binds to your hemoglobin more strongly than oxygen and doesn’t release readily. This reduces your capacity to take up and carry O2 in the blood. The only way for your body to deal with it is to wait for apoptosis of the affected cells and production of new ones.

We have to do this test at work;
fit test. My mask ended up costing firm £75 !!

Should be good for hay fever suffers?

The size of holes in the filter bit of the mask are miles bigger than a carbon monoxide (CO) molecule (for scale think grain of rice getting in through a set of triple garage doors)

A big percentage of the air you breath in and out is CO2 (and is therefore larger than CO molecules) you’d be scrubbing the air intake down to just the Oxygen (although this is a similar size to CO) and Nitrogen.

So ultimately no mask will ever stop CO

A mask might remove some of the larger particulate carbon (soot in other words) from the air but as people above have said, they aren’t great and its easier to just avoid big busses and lorries.

Badger

IIRC CO isn’t what you should be worried about. micron scale particles which you breathe in are much more of a problem.

there is little point in just buying a mask for these. When we had proper fittings done at work everyone needed different types and sizes of mask to get a good seal on the face. Any stubble also destroyed the seal as well. If there is not a good fit, you will just pull in particles around the mask.

trekster, you were rippped off. BOC did us with a new machine (No smelly stuff!) for ~ £25 a head.

£75 for a bitrex test!!! Christ thats outrageous.