The world’s climate is changing, with significant impacts on human and animal well-being. Many people will be climate refugees and need to find new homes in cooler parts of the world.
Other parts of the world, now habitable and arable, will be under water. Everywhere, the weather is becoming increasingly unpredictable. It’s a horrible mess for which humans are responsible, even though more than humans will suffer.
And here I am, starting a blog post about riding my bike. 🚲
On the one hand, my riding my bike feels so trivial in the grand scheme of things. Yet on the other hand, it feels like it’s all connected because one of the many reasons I started riding a bike was my worry about the carbon impact of automobiles.
Riding a bike is something I do for fun, for relaxation, for fitness, as a means of getting to work and getting around town, but I’ve also made that choice as part of rejecting, as much as I can, car culture. And then there’s the emotional wellbeing aspect of cycling in my life.
Increasingly though the intense weather has made me nervous about riding. Could I really end up riding my trainer indoors on the weekends in the summer? I really really hope not. 😨
I love being outside in the summer and I love moving my body. The combination is my favorite thing.
Over the past few years, I’ve worried about the heat that makes riding nearly impossible. I’ve had heat stroke and pretty severe cramping after long, hot rides. And when it’s not too hot, the weather breaks, and we have severe storms.
I’ve learned some new words too, like Gracilis cramps and Derecho.
A gracilis cranp is cramp in the gracilis muscle, located in the inner thigh, is a painful, involuntary contraction or spasm of the muscle. It can occur due to various factors, including overuse, dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, or even underlying conditions like nerve compression.
And “a derecho (pronounced similar to “deh-REY-cho”) is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms. Although a derecho can produce destruction similar to the strength of tornadoes, the damage typically is directed in one direction along a relatively straight swath. As a result, the term “straight-line wind damage” sometimes is used to describe derecho damage. By definition, if the wind damage swath extends more than 240 miles (about 400 kilometers) and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph (93 km/h) or greater along most of its length, then the event may be classified as a derecho.”
This past week, in my part of Canada, our weather forecast got a new symbol that represents air too smoky to breathe safely. It came as smoky air from forest fires raging out of control, north and west of us, moved south and east. It looked the regular wind symbol but with lines through it.
In the headlines this week was this one, Wildfire smoke could create health risks for Toronto residents this summer.
Along with Extremely Dangerous Heat Wave Set to Hit Toronto.
So between smoky air, heat, and storms, summer is feeling much less bike-friendly these days.
Sarah and I encountered our first derecho three years ago. You can read about it here, Sam’s stormy scary bike ride. We weren’t hurt but we were frightened.
Later that same summer I learned about heat and the effect heat can have on aging muscles. See Heat cramps and Aging.
I’ve started to think that maybe autumn, not summer, should be my big bike season. The weather is certainly better. But weekday riding is tricky in the fall because it starts to get dark before my workday ends. If I were a regular faculty member, I might swap things around a bit and ride during the autumn days and write, grade, and class prep in the dark evenings. The Dean’s job is very 9-5 and not at all flexible. So fall riding is a later in my career option, I think.
How about you? Is the summer heat and our unstable weather affecting your workout routines at all?
How a changing climate is changing our exercise habits
Bike rally reflections: Heat exhaustion and global warming
