Hottest day of the year

As I said to Dave this afternoon at work, it was a great day for global warming. It was the hottest day of the year.

At about 11 am I checked the weather bug found on the sidebar to the left. It asserted an actual temperature of 91F (at 11am!) with a dew point of 73 and a heat index of 99. A dew point of above 73 is described at Wikipedia as "quite uncomfortable". A heat index of 99 calls for "extreme caution". On top of that, the Pollution Control Agency was reporting an Air Quality Alert, with air quality being described as being of only "Moderate" quality.

The Weather Channel said 94 at the time I got home. But it didn't actually ever rain and days that it doesn't rain I like to ride.

I took it really, really easy. I rode in the small ring most of the time. I tried to stay in the flatter areas of Roseville. Mostly I rode along in a 39x17, 18 or 19, pretty easy gears. I did have to climb one hill in Shoreview and I got down to the 39x21 for that one climb. It did feel hard. For comparison, 39x21 is the gear used by most of the professionals to climb mountains in le Tour de France. And they were climbing those mountains at 15 mph or more. I was doing about 8 mph (and I do have 2 lower gears). I was taking it easy.

Staying in the flat areas brought me past a place which is inside the loop I usually ride but which is still a place I have not been to previously this year. Here is the beach at Lake Josephine.That is what reasonable people do on the hottest day of the year, immerse themselves in water.

But actually, by the time I stopped for the picture it wasn't really too bad. The atmosphere was in the process of turning over and both the temperature and humidity had backed off from the morning crisis levels. Mind you, it was still hot, but at least at the pace I was riding it never felt stressful or dangerous.

It was the hottest day of the year.