I think I'm probably about to contradict some of what I said earlier in this thread, but after a 10-day heat wave with one more day to go, I have absolutely no desire to go out and ride my bike, at any hour, regardless of the temperature. My experience in the past has been that it's more uncomfortable, and dangerous, after so many days of high temps, because the roads and ground have absorbed so much heat.

Last weekend, at the start of the heat wave, my routine was so thrown off by the storm and and loss of electricity, and there were so many trees down and traffic lights not working, that I decided to just not do any bike ride at all. On Wednesday, I went for a 15-mile/90 minute hilly ride in the morning, and it was okay, but I did find that I had to ride slower than usual. When I stopped for a minute in the shade, my heart was beating pretty fast and it stayed fast longer than normal after stopping, so I could tell my body was working hard to try to keep cool. (So I took my helmet off and took a nice long break, and poured some water onto my Coolwings.)

I will probably set the alarm very early tomorrow, and maybe I'll go for an hour ride here in my neighborhood. But then again I might just look at the thermometer and decide to stay indoors and work on cleaning out a closet instead. And hope that the giant thunderstorm that arrives with the approaching cold front doesn't knock out anyone's electricity...