Bicycle Commuting
For several years my main mode of transportation was a bicycle. It did not help the daily commute much that I lived 12 miles away from where I worked. It took an hour to ride into the office and an hour to get home. Sharing the road with cars and trucks was a constant source of concern. There were, however, some benefits to all this physical activity.
I got a good deal of exercise back in those days. Anyone who spends two to four hours a day on a bike gets a good deal of healthy exercise. It didn’t cost me anything for gasoline. My use of petroleum was only slight, since all I used was a few drops of lubricating oil each week. I always seemed to have a good time on my rides into work or into town for entertainment. Perhaps this is because I was always listening to my Walkman. There’s only so much loud traffic noise a person can stand.
Aside from traffic, my main problems with the bike were weather, wind, and the occasional flat tire. Because I did not carry a repair kit most times, and did not have an air pump, flat tires meant I had to walk a good long way. Luckily, flat tires are not that common with fat mountain bike tires. It was a different story when I rode the ten speed. Still, I did not spend a lot of time walking when I was on the bike.
The weather was my main enemy. A little rain means nothing to a person in a car. On a bike, it means you get wet. If you are on a dirt road and it starts raining, it means you get wet and muddy. Rain is not much of a problem in winter. In winter, the problem is the cold. You need to have warm clothes, good gloves, warm boots, a good hat or hood, and a very warm coat. Long underwear is a necessity. Cold is nothing to fool around with. Frostbite can creep up on you and do its damage and you will barely feel it. Keep covered and stay safe. One night I remember I went out and it was 17 below F. I wore a full face motorcycle helmet to keep the cold off my face, and a snowmobile suit. That ride went fairly well with no problems.
If you are using a bicycle for any kind of transportation, like getting groceries or going to school, you will need something to carry stuff in. Saddlebags, panniers, anything that attaches to your bike is useless in my opinion. This is because you can’t lock up a saddlebag. You will need a good bike lock. Bicycle theft is pretty common. Get a backpack to carry your stuff. This will isolate your goods from road shocks as well. You will not be able to carry a lot of stuff on a bike anyway, so get one that you are comfortable with and keep it in good repair. That way you can lock up your bike and carry your goods along with you wherever you go.
One thing you will not need if you commute on a bike is all those ridiculous bike clothes. Spandex shorts will get you nowhere with your boss. A yellow numbered jersey is not a fashion statement. Wear some good bluejeans so that if you fall because of some junk in the road that fell off a car you will not scrape up your legs. A pair of riding gloves also helps save your hands in a fall. Road rash is painful and takes a long time to heal. Cover up and you will avoid some potential problems.
One of the hazards of riding a bike is dogs. Dogs will chase you if you ride a bike. Usually they just run up next to you and bark. I have no idea why anyone would let their dog run around loose in the streets, but they do. If you run into a dog that’s actively trying to bite you you can do two things. You can get off your bike opposite the dog, holding off the dog with your bike and yelling “NO!”, or you can boot the dog in the head with a nice steely toed boot, right under it’s lower jaw so it bites its own tongue and thinks better than to bite you. What I usually ended up doing was just to ride fast and out-distance the dog. I once had a greyhound run alongside me for almost a mile, but he was non-aggressive and just having fun, plus he was a good distance off to the side. Even that dog finally gave up the chase. Dogs do not have the endurance of a man on a bike.
If you want to save some money on gas and don’t live too far from work, and the traffic is not too bad, and the weather is nice, and you are in reasonably good health, there is no reason you can’t commute to work on a bike. If it’s been a while since you rode, head out to the park and get some practice on the bike trails. Who knows, if the price of fuel keeps going up, maybe more people will come to rely on this more efficient mode of transportation. Someday, maybe the government will put in dedicated bike paths for people who like to ride.
