30 June 2009

Tips to survive the cycling heat


It's merciless all this week in London, with temperatures well over 30 Celsius. And beware: a bicycle saddle can apparently reach 60 if left in the sun. Which is clearly twice as hot as 30.

So here's your Top Ten Tips on coping with the heat while cycling round the capital:

• When buying ice-lolly to eat while cycling along, choose safe, reflective flavour such as strawberry or lemon

• Stay cool emotionally by not shouting at car drivers whose air-conditioners will drown you out – concentrate on the open-tops

• Warmed-up fizzy drinks will spray a sticky mess everywhere if opened before they've settled – useful against pedestrians who cross on red

• Develop a taste for neat whisky to avoid transporting ice

• Car drivers stuck in jams get even more bad-tempered, so take games, quizzes etc to cheer them up

• Stick to medical guidelines of at least eight glasses of alcohol per day, and no more than three units of water

• Sunburn can be bad enough to warrant a day off work, so plan carefully

• Avoid showing embarrassing underarm wet patches by not giving hand signals

• Clear the queue for the shower on arrival at work by wearing sombrero, coughing

• Wait three days till it gets cold and windy again

4 comments:

  1. • Stick to medical guidelines of at least eight glasses of alcohol per day, and no more than three units of water

    I was wondering why I was feeling a bit ill-- I'd forgotten this important piece of advice.

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  2. A pedant writes...

    30 degrees Celsius is 303 K (237 + 30). "Twice as hot" would be 606 K, or 333 degrees Celsius (606 - 273), enough to cause some very nasty injuries if brought into sustained contact with the delicate parts of one's anatomy.

    60 degrees C is only 333 K (273 + 60) and therefore just 10% hotter.

    Funny how the number 333 occurs in both calculations - pure coincidence I think, although added together they make 666 - gulp! So that's what you were really getting at?

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  3. Er, I was being ironic - I once did a Physics S level, you know. Mind you, it's completely useless: every time I apply for a job these days it has to be done via an online form, whose drop-downs in the 'Qualifications' section never have S levels. I'm not sure I know what an S level is anyway. Probably half as good as an AS level.

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