Dragon Cycling

I've come to learn that many people think I am brave/nuts because I enjoy cycling year-round.  Largely the exclamations of shock/admiration/horror occur when it is cold, but rain is another major factor.

A springtime commute selfie

I had a realization this year though:

• It is a thousand times crazier* to cycling when the sun is beating down and it is 90+ degrees**.  A bajillion times.

Someone left me this rock painted like candy corn while I was donating blood this summer.  

Cycling when it is 40 degrees can easily be made tolerable, heck even enjoyable.  Same with a drizzly day.  I create my own heat just from the act of cycling and I've built up a stash of dependable all-season gear.  Like those flannel-lined ice fishing pants I got at the thrift shop.  Or those killer rain pants from my dad which render me downright impervious to water.  I am cozy and dry even on a mid-winter day--if anything I struggle not to layer so well as to be too hot.

There is little to be done when it is 100 degrees though.   So I just pant and breathe like a dragon, breathing fire from my a parched little mouth all the way home.

Yesterday was the third time since 1950 that it hit 100 degrees in September here.  I rode 10+ miles.  Like a lunatic.

*or braver, if you're being charitable.
**I walk or ride the bus when the snow accumulates on the bike lane because I find that to be actually dangerous, not just cold.  I haven't yet gone full bore and gotten studded snow tires or chains for my bike.