A Cool Idea?

According to the weather reports, we have a major heat wave coming our way.  Today was warm and humid, but the weather had been either one or the other, but not both, for the past few days.


This has been one of those years "without a spring."  Or so it's seemed.  We had chilly and wet weather for much of March, April and May.  In fact, we had so much wet weather that it became difficult to open and close doors because the wood in and around them swelled.

Artist's rendition of proposed air-cooled bike path in Qatar.

I remember reading that there were plans to build an air-cooled bicycle path in Qatar.  I wonder if anything has become of them.  Can you imagine something like that along Fifth Avenue?

Air Conditioning

After riding, however briefly, on a hot day, it's refreshing or jarring or both to go into an air-conditioned space.

It's really odd when that air-conditioned space is a bicycle shop.  You see those shiny, new bicycles and they betray nary a hint of the sweaty cyclists who might be astride them one day.  Even the mustard-yellow Salsa and the cruiser in the color of moss look nearly as fluorescent as the store's lighting in the chilled air.

At least, when I ride to work, I am ready for the chill I will feel upon entering the building.  I teach in one of those places where they seem to turn on the air conditioning in June and leave it on, full-blast, until September.  Mark Twain once joked that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.  A summer class in the college where I teach might've changed his mind.

Yesterday, I had both of the experiences I've just described.  I took midday ride on Tosca, my fixie, down to Battery Park.  On the way back, I stopped at Bicycle Habitat to pick up a wheel Hal built for me. This wheel has a Phil Wood front track hub, a black Mavic Open Pro rim and DT spokes. It's on the front of Tosca, which previously had a road front wheel and has a rear wheel with the same rim and spokes and a Phil Wood "flip-flop" hub with a fixed gear on one side and a freewheel (which I have yet to use) on the other side.

Then, I rode the LeTour to my class.   In between, I changed clothes:  I was wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt for my early ride.  When I rode to class,  I wore knee-length skirt and sleeveless top that's part of a twinset . When I got to the college, I put on the cardigan from the twinset.  I find that when I feel cold, I tend to feel it more around my shoulders and chest.  I felt comfortable and rather liked the little bit of chill I felt around my legs:  It's the next best thing to a breeze by the ocean.

Back when I was Professor Nick, I didn't think as much about how I was dressed when I taught.  When I taught evening classes during the summer, as I'm teaching now, I sometimes came to class in the shorts and T-shirt I wore when I rode in.  No one seemed to mind, and since neither my department chair nor any of the administrators were there in the evening, I don't think any of them knew.  If anyone complained, I probably would have heard about it.

I never rode to class in lycra.

Although there are no official dress codes at the college, I don't think I could get away with teaching in shorts and a T-shirt, much less lycra, now.  Then again, I wouldn't do it: As Professor Justine (or simply Justine),  I am more conscious of how I dress and otherwise present myself.  Some of that may simply have to do with getting older and perhaps, in some way, more conservative.  Some of the more radical feminists and queer theorists might say that I'm taking on society's feminine gender role, or some such thing. 

But I digress.  Bicycling and air conditioning seem like the opposite poles of a summer's day.  Or are they?

Hmm....If I hook up my helmet with an air conditioner, does that violate the manufacturer's warranty?  Will it be safe if I ever decide to try to break some motor-paced speed record?