Originally posted by purple hayes
LBM - Since you and I live in the same city, do you know how far away you have to get from downtown to be safe(r) from the smog alerts. This is my first your cycling but last two years I've run at lunch and never had a problem with lung burn.
I live in Grayson and work in Norcross if that helps.
PH
You can look up hourly air pollutant levels for your area of the city
at
www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/amp/
To avoid smoggy areas, you have to avoid heavy motor traffic. Downtown is often no worse than suburbs, because all these areas have heavy traffic. Some areas of town are worse than others.
As you can tell by the graphs, smog levels are usually safe at lunchtime and in the morning. Except for really bad days, the ozone levels don't get bad until about 4 pm, then they rise sharply until about 10 pm. But everyday is different.
I leave work ASAP and head for the shady neighborhood streets. I don't know how much I'm avoiding ozone, but the car exhaust is a lot less.
And yet, I think car drivers may be getting the worst exposure of all, sitting in the middle of their own poison.
Rain is our buddy, here. It cleans the air like nothing else.
