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Heat-related things I am thinking about these days:
-Reminiscing about starting the Summer Solstice Swimsuit Ride in Arizona in 2010. I started the ride for two reasons. Reason 1 was because there wasn't a local edition of the World Naked Bike Ride in Arizona, but I was worried if we went for the full thing, there would be too much backlash. Swimsuits seemed like a safer bet. Reason 2 was because people always speak disparagingly of the heat in Arizona. During grad school, I typically needed to stay in the state through the hot summers, so I needed to figure out ways to cope with the heat.
So my answer to the Fremont Solstice Parade was to make the summer solstice the day when I would do my own personal Hottest Ride of the Year: an hour out to the Downtown Phoenix Library to observe the lighting of the pillars at solar noon, then riding home again. Some of those pilgrimages were brutal, but they always meant that I was fine for any other summer bike ride I did after that. The Summer Solstice Swimsuit Ride just shifted the celebration to include more people.
-The "hot" Paris-Brest-Paris last summer, when I finally realized a couple of things: it was warm enough during the day that it was pointless to stop and try to nap during the daytime. The only thing I would accomplish by trying to nap would be to get even more uncomfortable and dehydrated. But that also meant that the best time to get in some high-quality riding was at night, after things cooled down. Therefore, I just wasn't going to get all that much sleep. It was just interesting to observe how my thoughts and memories of how to cope with warm temperatures unfolded over the course of the ride. I really do not miss living in places with hotter climates.
-Hopefully I will remember enough about how to deal with the heat that arriving in Arizona won't be too brutal this summer. Hopefully. Last summer sounded pretty awful, and this summer is likely to be similarly terrible.
-Reminiscing about starting the Summer Solstice Swimsuit Ride in Arizona in 2010. I started the ride for two reasons. Reason 1 was because there wasn't a local edition of the World Naked Bike Ride in Arizona, but I was worried if we went for the full thing, there would be too much backlash. Swimsuits seemed like a safer bet. Reason 2 was because people always speak disparagingly of the heat in Arizona. During grad school, I typically needed to stay in the state through the hot summers, so I needed to figure out ways to cope with the heat.
So my answer to the Fremont Solstice Parade was to make the summer solstice the day when I would do my own personal Hottest Ride of the Year: an hour out to the Downtown Phoenix Library to observe the lighting of the pillars at solar noon, then riding home again. Some of those pilgrimages were brutal, but they always meant that I was fine for any other summer bike ride I did after that. The Summer Solstice Swimsuit Ride just shifted the celebration to include more people.
-The "hot" Paris-Brest-Paris last summer, when I finally realized a couple of things: it was warm enough during the day that it was pointless to stop and try to nap during the daytime. The only thing I would accomplish by trying to nap would be to get even more uncomfortable and dehydrated. But that also meant that the best time to get in some high-quality riding was at night, after things cooled down. Therefore, I just wasn't going to get all that much sleep. It was just interesting to observe how my thoughts and memories of how to cope with warm temperatures unfolded over the course of the ride. I really do not miss living in places with hotter climates.
-Hopefully I will remember enough about how to deal with the heat that arriving in Arizona won't be too brutal this summer. Hopefully. Last summer sounded pretty awful, and this summer is likely to be similarly terrible.
