Hottest July 2 ever

I set out today with the intention of finishing at a time which if rounded off to the nearest hour would be 10 o'clock. I did a finish at 11 yesterday and that was too hot. Today promised to be warmer, trying for 10 seemed prudent.

Here is a summary of the message being advanced in the morning newspaper by Belinda, Sven and the new guy Jerrid:

"The heat wave continues! . . . low and mid 90s this afternoon . . . combine with dew points flirting with 70 . . . heat indices into the 100 to 105 range. . . National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory. If you must be outside, make sure you're drinking lots of water and taking lots of air-conditioned breaks . . . check on the elderly . . ."

Well.

I left the house at about 8am. For those who were watching the live coverage I left right after the category 4 climb but before the feed zone. And I would have made it home on my hoped for schedule too, except that as I rode past his house on the return leg, just over two miles from home, a guy I coached both against and with (against in basketball and softball, with in softball) whose house I ride by regularly hailed me from his front yard where he was doing a little light yard work.

Very light yard work, I might add. What he was actually doing was turning off a hose that he had started running earlier on some front yard plants. Anyone want to argue that turning a hose on and off is something other than light yard work? I stopped and we had a nice chat. A guy that I coached against and with is guaranteed to have a dafter the same age as my (wonderful) dafter. We reminisced a bit, updated each other on the activities of our dafters, discussed what each of the two of us is currently doing, settled nothing, and agreed to meet again the next time I rode past his house while he was standing in the yard.

I discovered one of the benefits of taking a short stop on an extremely hot day. When you stop you lose the benefit of evaporative cooling. In hot weather a person perspires profusely but when riding a bicycle at speed the moisture is evaporating as rapidly as it appears and Gino remains relatively dry (third person nominative). When you stop the evaporation stops too. It only takes a couple of minutes to pop a really impressive sweat. When you get going again the evaporation resumes and with plenty of moisture to evaporate the cooling can be intense.

For a short period of time.

I was home at about 10:35. It was 91.

I had ridden out looking for shade, did I mention it was already hot? The shadiest lengthy stretch of pavement I have been to recently is the stretch of the river road on the Minneapolis side south from Lake Street to Minnehaha Park.

So after not being near Minnehaha Park for a couple of months I made my third visit in a bit over a week. Each visit has been earlier in the day than the last. Last time I commented on the different crowd at the park in the morning (arrives on school buses) as opposed to the early afternoon arrives mostly in SUVs retirement crowd. If you get there before 9am, which I did today by a couple of minutes, there is yet another crowd, it is a crowd that is pretty much non existent.

Hello? Is anyone here?

I am up on the footbridge over the falls for that photo. The sun angle is terrible but I was able to hide behind that foliage enough to get a shot down into the gorge.

Obviously that is NOT a place where I would go on my bicycle with the usual crowd of fellow citizens around. Today there were not any fellow citizens in the immediate area.

Soothing, no?

The big Hmong family festival was held this past weekend at McMurray Fields at Como Park. There is a gigantic crowd and an admission charge. That means that we stay away. I rode past there today to check on status of the clean up and to confirm my suspicion that the big international soccer tournament held usually in conjunction with the festival has NOT been completed. I discovered that only one of my two reasons for not attending is valid.

I am not sure that free admission will be enough to get me to attend though as the on going clean up included some unsavory bits that I prefer not to discuss in this forum.

Just think really, really excessive consumption and I don't mean of fried food.

91 by 10:30? Well it got hotter and just a bit ago I was out in my car running an errand when I discovered that a new record has been set for July 2. Our indoor/outdoor thermometer is not official but it reflects the same number that they are giving on the radio for the outdoor temperature.

Who doesn't love a record?

Tomorrow the race ceases to be the Tour de Belgium and crosses over into the home country. On this next stage the race reaches the English Channel at Boulogne. The following day, on July 4 the race will proceed along the channel down from Abbeville through Dieppe and then along the coastal highway as far as Fécamp before heading inland to Rouen. I have checked the official route map available at the official website and between Dieppe and Fécamp the race will be on the same coast side roads that I have been planning on driving with TOPWLH on probably July 19, just two weeks later. This is the Côte d'Albâtre, or the Alabaster Coast, characterized by a steep white chalk cliff running along the coast, similar to the more famous where I live white cliffs of Dover (except in France, of course).

We will be watching.