Les Alpes Maritimes Sur Flushing Bay

Last night the temperature dropped below 10F for the first time in two years.  When I left my place, it was 12F, and the wind-chill was below zero.

So I did took the most sensible route for today's commute:  the one that takes me along the water.

For a moment, I actually envisioned myself among the snow-capped peaks of the Alps.  I rode up mountains (Avoriaz, Galibier and Colle d'Agnello/Col d'Agnell) whose roads were banked by snow--and whose peaks were covered them--when the weather was warm enough to ride comfortably in shorts and a cycling jersey. 

Today's weather, of course, was nothing like that.  However, I didn't have to do any climbing.  Along the Cote d'Azur and in Liguria, the mountains tumble all the way to the sea.  People who've spent their entire lives in this part of the world probably cannot imagine such a coastline.

This is probably the closest they'll come to seeing anything like it:

 

Waking To A Heat Wave

Today the temperature reached 103 degrees F (about 40 C).  It seemed that even the places that normally seem like iceboxes--like the central building of the college, where, it seems, the air conditioning is turned on in June and kept on full-blast until September--felt soggy today.


I woke up later than I'd planned, and by the time I got outside, the air already felt as if a knife would stand up in it.  I was going to ride to work, but decided against it as soon as I stepped outside to go to the dry cleaner's.


Even people who don't normally complain about the heat were wishing that they were taking an Antarctic cruise.  


I've cycled in weather that's as hot as today's was, but couldn't see the point of riding today.  For one thing, there's an ozone alert, and while I suppose I could  wear a filter mask, I don't think that, given the sinus problems I've had, that doing any outdoor exercise in that heat and air would do me much good.


Plus, I no longer have the need I once had to prove myself to...whom?  People who didn't care?  Myself?  What, exactly, would have I proved to myself by taking a ride on a day like today.  Now, if I had to ride, that would be another story.


There were a few times when I had to ride in heat such as what I experienced today.  It was even more difficult when I wasn't expecting it, as when I was cycling through a mountainous area and found myself in a pass or valley.  The day after I had my life-changing encounter in St.Jean de Maurienne, an Alpine town a few kilometers from the Italian border, I rode down a mountain and into a valley where the thermometer on a bank in town read 40C.  I felt my skin burning, but I wasn't sweating.  That, I understand, is common at very high elevations, which tend to be drier than lower-lying areas.


But at least I knew it would be hot--if not this hot--today.  I just wish I'd awakened earlier.