Clean Air...

As you may have guessed from the decreased activity, work has kept me busy lately.  However, it hasn't kept me from riding, which brings up the topic of our recent weather.  It's not the cold or the snowy days that bother me....it's the period in between the weather systems.  During these times home heaters are cranking, cars are idling at stop lights and grinding the sand and salt laid down to keep the roads clean, and cold heavy air sits stagnant in the valleys.  Otherwise known as an inversion. 

This means that all those pollutants and particulates get trapped in the valley air and it quickly becomes unhealthy.

Notice you couldn't even see across the valley through the haze as recently as 2 days ago! 

Fortunately, when we get a weather system moving through the area, the winds pick up and the inversion is broken, filling our little valley back up with clean air! 

So the question is, when the burn code turns to red and air quality is bad....do you still get out there and ride (or exercise in general) or stay home and "protect" your health?  I clearly vote for the ride.  I figure I'd rather breath a little suspect air than ride the couch (and car) and add my personal pollution to the mix.  In fact perhaps if a few more people took this approach the air wouldn't be quite so bad. 

So get out and enjoy the clean air and blue skies!