I had lab in the morning, so my departure was delayed about an hour and a half. I decided to head up to the Alpine Forest. Trying to get in some quality miles, hopefully leading up to the Spooktacular ride in October, health permitting. I felt pretty good from the start. The weather is hot. In the upper 80's with hot wind conditions. It took a while to acclimate. I had to adjust my tempo to keep the core temperature down. I made it to the summit of OTR in good average time (all things considered). The Banducci Wall had some traffic mitigation. I was keeping the tempo steady in low gears. The Alpine Forest went quick. I had stuff to think about, so the minutes went fast. I zipped around the backside and then to the summit of Banducci. RideWithGPS shows that I made it there in 53:02 minutes. (I forgot to check the GPS when I reached the summit). So, I gave up about 4 to 5 minutes just because of the hot weather conditions. From there, I relaxed a few moments and then headed back down the mountain. I didn't want to stand under the hot sun. The descent was fun. After making my way back to OTR, I was able to cruise my way down to Mariposa. I did the grind up Mariposa. After reaching the top of Weston, I shut it down for cooldown. Concentration was good. The morale felt good. I was having to remind myself to step the tempo down a bit due to the hot weather. Balance and form was good. Gear worked perfect. I raised my saddle by about half an inch. I think it was an improvement. Ailments, some hints of right upper knee soreness towards the end of the ride. Perhaps I need to raise the saddle a bit more, or the knee needs a day to recover. Nutrition was good. No hunger signs. I went through most of my Gatorade. Other notes, no other cyclists today. I saw 2 Cmaxes.