Today’s temperature: 60°F

OK.. Wishful thinking.  This is summer in Maryland, so 60°C is probably more like it.  But I keep a log of all my bike commutes, and as part of that, I always record the ride-time temperature.  After this past Friday’s ride, my average ride-time temperature topped 60°F for the first time in 2011.  It seems surprising that it would take until mid-July for that to happen.  I’m curious to see what the average will be over an entire year.  Both 2009 and 2010 ended up averaging around 58°-59°, but in both cases, I neglected to record the temperature for a significant number of rides, primarily during summer.  That leads me to believe that a typical yearly average is probably somewhere north of 60°.  That’s higher than the climatological average for the area, which makes sense, because overall, I tend to ride more frequently in warmer months than in colder months.

Anyhow, this is going to be a short riding week, because I’m heading to Milwaukee on Wednesday for a well-timed business trip.  I say “well-timed” because we have yet another miserable heat wave headed this way.  It’s going to be hot in Milwaukee too, but not as hot as here.  And I likely won’t miss out on the tail end of the heat wave either, as I’ll be back Friday night.  But, it’ll spare me from a couple of days of biking in likely triple-digit heat indices, almost certainly accompanied by “code orange” air quality, or worse.  Yay summer.  Just 7 weeks ’til Labor Day!