Scorching Heat Wave!

We're in the midst of our first heat wave of the summer with several days of temps in the 90's.  It hasn't hit 100 F yet but the heat index has surpassed that.  I took my bike in for a shifting problem after my ride last week with a pair of friends.  On Thursday we went to the Edward Hines Park trail for a nice outing.  The ride was great but not without issues.  A bit over six and a half miles into it my friend Debs husband had a flat, we were unable to get the wheel off the bike to repair the tube so Deb and I double-timed it back to the cars and drove back to pick up Tim.  I had problems of my own with gears slipping and mystery shifting.

 There are some climbs to contend with on the trail, this particular section did not have too many, mostly rolling hills but there were a handful of sudden sharp spikes to run up.  I lost my footing on one and banged up the back of my leg a tad bit and on another one I had my bike suddenly shift the front chain-rings into the hardest gear midway up.  It was too short of a spike to do anything but mash and grind the pedals, that one burned the legs!  It also took out a lot of my oomph since we were traveling at higher speeds back than our ride out was.  It was still a great outing and a BBQ at Debs later was a cap off to a great day.

I wasn't too disappointing to have to take my bike in because I'd ridden for six days straight and the beginnings of the heat wave were just getting started.  Turns out my bike needed new shifter cables  Now six days later I am longing for a bike ride.  I got my bike back late on Monday but the searing heat has not abated yet.  No matter, I'm going out for a ride today even if I need to take it slow and easy.

Yesterday was a great day for a cool and refreshing tube ride down the Cascades at Argo, which is a man-man series of drops in a stretch of the Huron River in downtown Ann Arbor.  I went with my niece Mary-Ann and her son Andrew who is my Godson and outdoor companion for adventures.  Since we were tubing and there was no place dry for a camera I've included a video clip from YouTube put out by the City of Ann Arbor.  The tubes we used were larger and more of the sitting in variety than those pictured.  It was a cool way to spend the afternoon with just enough thrill to make it extra fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiTxucfONf8

Blogger is giving me fits and I'm not able to embed the video into this post but I see that in revisiting the You Tube site I've found a way to bring it onto this blog in the post above.

Heat Returns

It's early morning or late evening riding for the foreseeable week, the mercury is rising right along with the humidity.  I got to Kensington at 9:36 and made the 9.1 mile loop in 58 min.  Total time on the bike was 1 hr and 11 min so I had some rest periods in there.  An hour earlier would have been ideal and had me back before it started heating up but it was still early enough to beat the real heat of the day.  At places where the path takes you into open meadows with no cover is where the heat will get you, at that time of day the wooded areas provided cooler shade still and it was georgous along the lake.  Beautiful park to ride in.

Here is a link to the route Kensington ride for some reason the mapping site missed the last section of my ride so there is some mileage variation. 

Hot and Hotter!

It's only Tuesday and it's been a really hot week starting with the weekend.  The middle section of the US is steaming.  Saturday and Sunday were a case of get up early and out the door or don't think about it.  I got out and got some miles under my belt before it steamed up.  The matching high humidity only made matters worse.  We hit 100 and with the heat index it was well over that.  Monday was another scorcher however we had a rain storm blow in and it cooled them temps off enough to sneak in a decent ride.  Today was another never mind day with the heat turned up on high. 

Tomorrow we are supposed to get relief.  I might just have to re-arrange my work day schedule and take advantage of the cooler temps and lower humidity on the forecast.  On tap for the morning is the low 60's.  Yay!