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July Miles: 177
Percentage of Monthly Goal: 106%
2009 Miles: 1,659
Percentage of 2009 Goal: 83%

I know it’s still July, but I’m not riding tomorrow, so whatever.

August was the month that I worried about. It’s often damn hot for three or four weeks straight in August. I love riding, but I’m not commuting in that sort of heat. Anyway, August happened in July this year. For a couple of weeks the highs were over 100, plus I had some other nonsense going on — watching the Tour, which is just about the worst excuse I can think of for not riding a bike — and I ended up not commuting at all for three weeks.

That said, I still made goal, so I’m happy about that. Credit a ride with the good people from Stan’s, a run down to the Arcadia bike path with Stephanie and a Saturday in Ventura with her and Fletcher for actually getting some miles in. Fletch and I also did a couple of evening bike runs over to Sierra Madre for ice cream. It was pretty fun to do some different types of riding.

I’m not sure how we’re going to work it, as it’s more than likely to be hot, but Stephanie and I need to start getting some serious training miles in for the Livestrong ride in October. I feel like we could both do the metric century (65 mile) option today, but we really want to be fast enough to do the 90. (There’s no way that I could make it within the time limit.) It shouldn’t take that much work to get there, so here’s to hoping that the weather cooperates. (Clearly we need to start summering in Portland or Ghent or something like that.)

June Miles: 173
Percentage of Monthly Goal: 103%
2009 Miles: 1,482
Percentage of 2009 Goal: 74%

Slow going last month. I spent a little more than a week dealing with a cold and then a few days after that traveling. Add a few “hey, wear a tie” days at work to that, and I wind up barely making my goal.

That said, June definitely had its memorable riding momemts. Most notably, Fletcher’s scout troop finished up the cycling merit badge, including a 50 mile ride from Monrovia to Seal Beach. I’m really proud of how well he and the rest of the boys did with such a long ride. The farthest I ever rode as a kid was maybe 15 miles. The bike path down there was also really great. From our house, it’s about 40 pretty easy miles down to the beach — we had to circle around Monrovia for a while to stretch it out to 50. I’d like to do the down and back some time, just for grins.

July, likely as not, will be hot. I’m not looking forward to it. Stephanie and I already had a heated stupid cyclist moment this weekend, waiting until mid day to leave for a ride. Turns out that the middle of the day is a bad time to ride. Who knew! My hope is that it stays cool enough in the mornings for me to keep riding in to work. Otherwise, I’m glad that May worked out as well as it did, otherwise I’d have no chance of keeping up.