Bicycle Commuting
Gear to Wear
One very nice benefit of committed bicycle commuting is that it pays for itself. These days the average car costs more than 50 cents per mile to drive. Calculations include purchase, repairs, insurance, gas, etc. Drive the car 10,000 miles per year and your costs are $5000 or more. That’s far more than you will spend on bicycles and bicycle gear unless what you like about biking is being stylish. Bicycle commuters tend to be the nerds of biking—looking good is not really the object.
In my case, I calculated savings based on bus travel. At seven rides per week at $1.80 per ride, times 50 weeks, I saved $630 per year in travel costs. If I bought a new bike every 6 years, that would still leave me with $550 per year for other gear. Assume another $100 per year for tires and tubes, that leaves you with $450 per year for repairs, clothes, and gear for the bike. Because of this, I always felt that if there was a hat or a jacket or a pair of shorts that I thought would be helpful, I would just buy it. It was never my objective to have the coolest bike gear but sometimes the cool gear was the best gear. After a few years I had a wardrobe of nice gear that kept me safe and comfortable in a wide range of weather conditions. I never had to feel guilty about the money I spent because the gear kept me biking.
Wear a helmet. I’ve never hit my head hard in a bike crash but I have crashed hard probably a dozen times. Every hard crash serves as a reminder of human frailty. If you think the helmet is for dorks, forget it. The added safety is important, and it helps you to relax when your on the road.
I’m not convinced there’s a significant safety difference between helmets. They’re all made out of styrofoam, which is supposed to compress and break if you ever whack your head hard on something. The helmet is supposed to blow up so your head doesn’t. Don’t buy one of the more expensive helmets. Make sure you understand how to adjust the straps so the helmet covers your forehead and the helmet is held snugly on your head. There are many colors to choose from. I recommend something highly visible. When you are on a bike you want to be seen. Being seen is a huge factor in avoiding crashes.
I also recommend that you wear biking gloves. Biking gloves, by design, cover the palm area of the hand and not much of the fingers. The freed fingers give you better control of the brakes, shift levers, and the handlebars. The gloves are padded, which absorbs some of the shock from riding. Gloves are also handy, so to speak, when you crash. Careful riding will make your crashes rare, and will reduce the severity of your crashes, but crashes happen. Gloves come in many styles and colors. The market sells primarily black gloves. I recommend you wear gloves that are highly visible. When you think about visibility, think both day and night. Standard red is good for day visibility but not so at night. I like white best, but yellow is good, as are the many phosphorescent-like colors. Often gloves and other gear come with reflective swatches. Get that reflectivity if you can.
Biking shorts are worth buying. Biking shorts are padded, making life easier on your seat bones. As an aside, my experience is, if I ever stop riding for an extended period, when I get back on the bike I get sore seat bones. Once I am riding routinely again the soreness goes away. The point is, don’t be discouraged by the soreness—it’s normal and it will go away in a few days. Some bikers prefer baggy shorts, some prefer the skin tight shorts. The type of shorts doesn’t matter greatly. However, tight shorts keep the wind, the rain, and gritty dirt from working up your legs, so they have become my preference. Most tight shorts on the market are black, but you can shop around and find brighter colors, or buy black shorts with bright accents.
Then there are biking shoes. If you plan to ride on flat pedals the biking shoes you need will be stiff-soled and a little grippy to keep them from sliding on the pedals. The stiffness is valuable, to reduce fatigue and discomfort to your feet, and to provide good energy transfer from the engine (you) to the pedals. For more advanced riding use clip-on shoes. These shoes actually click into the pedals. There are a number of different kinds of clips. Most biking shoes will adapt to various kinds of clips. The important thing is to make sure you buy shoe clips that match the pedals.
I do wear clips for commuting. I recommend a couple of things, though, for commuters. Buy shoes you can walk in. This means the clip part has to recess into the sole of the shoe. There will be times when something on your bike breaks and you will need to walk. Some biking shoes are difficult to walk in. These are fine for racers, but commuters need to be more practical-minded. The other thing is that some pedals are easier to get in and out of than others. I recommend pedals that clip on two or even four sides rather than just one. Commuters have to deal with traffic and traffic lights. This means a foot is going to have to come out of the pedal occasionally. You will be happier if it’s easy to get your foot clipped back into the pedal.
After these items, additional gear is about staying comfortable in different weather and light conditions. I like to wear a cap under my helmet. The caps I like are made entirely of cloth, which makes them good for absorbing sweat. Additionally, they can be thrown into the the wash—something you will want to do frequently. The bill on the cap shields the eyes from the sun, from the rain and, to a small extend, the wind. I wear the cap whenever I ride.
For rain or for cold, a helmet cover is a great help. Covers are designed to fit on the outside of helmets. Most of the covers I’ve seen are black but, surprise, I recommend something bright, if you can find one.
You must have a wind jacket. Bike-specific wind jackets have long tails. The extra tail length reduces drafts and rain up your back. Size the jacket a little large. This allows you to add layers underneath. There are jackets designed for colder weather and they are really nice, but if you can add layers under your wind jacket, this will get you by in temperatures down to 20 degrees F. Find a bright jacket. The torso is the most important area of your body to make visible. If you can avoid close calls and/or accidents because you were seen early by a car, or by a biker, or by a runner, or by a pedestrian, it’s all to the good. You’re out for the fun and the exercise and for getting where you want to go. Being safe keeps you on the road.
Other clothing I have found useful for cold and/or wet conditions include: full leggings or sports pants. I go with one layer in chilly weather and then a second layer in cold weather. Full gloves are important for cold weather. I recommend gloves that are long-wristed, to make sure there is no gap between the gloves and the jacket. Shoe covers are nice. I like to use toe covers in cool weather and then full shoe covers for the cold weather. I also strongly recommend using a balaclava. I use a light balaclava in chilly weather and then a heavy one in cold weather.
You also will need some way to carry gear. I like to use a backpack but a bike rack with straps can do the same thing. It’s good to be flexible on the road. Sometimes weather conditions change as you ride. Weather conditions are normally different morning-to-evening. But, as a bicyclist you want to be comfortable no matter what the weather conditions. You can tough out being miserable once in awhile, but if riding routinely makes you miserable, you’re going to stop riding until the pleasant weather returns. This will put a huge dent in the amount of riding you do. Riding in all kinds of weather conditions is not really about being tough—it’s about being prepared.
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