July means one thing (after the Tour de France): hot days.
As cyclists, days like these climbing gives us a sensation only experienced during summer: eyes that sting. They sting from sweat and salt. They sting from efforts that turn our temples into pulsing displays of amazing blood circulation. The first sting of summer takes you back to last summer and its incredible rides. You’re awareness is immediately heightened. And you look forward to making more memories on the bike.
When we’re climbing that Hors Catégorie stretch of high-altitude asphalt in the California Sierras, or the gentle freeway overpass for the 20th time during repeats in the pancake-flat Midwest, we welcome a little sting to the eyes. It sparks us and whispers in our ear that we’re in the peak season for riding bikes a long ways — and possibly past 8 p.m., if we’re lucky. That sensation is our body’s way of rewarding us with one-of-kind elixir born from hard work, hours in the saddle, and miles/kilometers covered during cooler months.
Eyes that sting.
Precisely what I crave on a Saturday before the final week of the Tour de France, complete with the Alps and a mountain called Ventoux. Hope you do, too.
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