Weather Out There

Today I’m going to follow up on my previous “Carrying Things” post by talking about big, bulky items. You know, the kind that don’t fit in yours, or anyone else’s bag, such as two weeks of laundry, a CSA share, another bike, or large packages of paper towels. These are the kinds of things I move with alarming frequency with the bike. The only practical way I’ve found to do it is with a front rack (I use a Cetma rack). Other methods, such as a back rack (a device created solely to eject cargo from your bike), or balancing on your handlebars (hard to steer when your arms are busy with other things) aren’t up to snuff. Good alternative I haven’t tried are a bucket bike (bakfiet), basket, or a trailer. Is anyone else moving moderately sized things with their bike?

Weather Today

It was a little warm today, beautifully sunny, but actually shockingly comfortable.

Temperature: 35 degrees

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, Timberland shoes, messenger bag

Comfort: Tiny bit warm, easily solved by removing my gloves

There are many kinds of tires; they vary in width, tread, puncture resistance, tubeless or tubed, and accessories. Road racers tend to ride very narrow tires (23 or 25 mm width) and with little to no tread; commuters and bike tourers ride wider tires (28 to 35 mm, sometimes higher) with some tread; mountain bikers ride wide tires (2 inches and up) with moderate to gigantic tread. Almost without exception, in snowy winter road riding, you can get away with a treaded tire, although studs give you the maximum level of safety. I have some 35mm aggressive tread tires which worked wonders last year in the snow, however, they’re useless on trails. I’d love to report on studs, but there’s yet to be any ice or snow worth its salt (har har) this year.

As a transportation biker, the most important thing to me is reliability, which means not having to stop for a flat. I always buy the more expensive tires (around $40 each), which have a Kevlar strip to resist punctures; once the tire tread starts showing little tears and becomes soft (the tire seems to absorb any sand or salt on the road), the its life is almost over. When I’ve gotten a few flats in a short period, then it’s time to replace it. However, the benefit of using these tires is that I get a flat once every six months or so; on my fixed gear bike, I realized recently I haven’t touched the wheels in over a year (granted, it gets less use now that it’s not my commuter).

Despite their reliability, I still carry (and know how to use) a flat fix kit. Most of the time it just takes up space at the bottom of my bag.

Weather

It was a very easy day of riding. I was wearing a suit today (and the weather isn’t crummy!) so I took the commuter, which was an unwelcome change, although I fixed the shifting and cleaned the chain, so it was a very smooth ride.

Temperature: 33 degrees

Road condition: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, rain pants (gotta keep those suit pants clean), Timberland shoes. I had the suit jacket in my panniers, if you’re wondering.

Comfort: It was noticeably warmer on the ride, and I had to go slow up the Longfellow Bridge to stay cool.

I’m going to switch up the post order, putting weather and such at the end now. It’s been pretty repetitive, so I’ll put the variety up front.

If your knees (as opposed to thighs or calves) hurt from pedaling, your chain needs maintenance. If the bike is painfully unresponsive to your pedaling, your tires need inflation.

Weather and clothing

The weather this morning was bracing, despite being a mild 24 degrees. My face was cold, but happily warmed up with riding and collar adjustments.

Temperature: 24 degrees

Road: Dry

Clothing: Heavy winter jacket, wool gloves, Timberland shoes, messenger bag

Comfort: My face and legs took a little while to warm up. It was definitely on the edge of needing additional covering in those places.

Today was another one like the rest: 43 degrees, sunny, dry. Now that I’m at work without my rain pants, I see the weather says “rain” today. It seems like it may stop by the ride home, but that trip may be messy nonetheless. I took it slow because, well, that’s how I felt.

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, wool gloves, Timberland shoes, messenger bag.

There’s an interesting phenomenon after championship games, such as we had yesterday: there’s much less traffic on the road. You may recall yesterday I observed light traffic, but attributed it to an earlier commute time; the trip home was also quite light. On the other hand, the drivers last night were just plain awful. At Charles Circle (by the MGH T Stop), a biker in front of me got yelled at by illegal cross traffic. I had the satisfaction of yelling at him (the driver). Plenty of dangerous cutting off to urgently park in the bike lane was observed. For what it’s worth, back at my usual (tardy) commute time, today had lighter traffic as well.

The more I blog, the more I wish I had a camera on my bike so I could liven up this site. However, I’m also very lazy, and probably wouldn’t use it…

Today may not have been colder, but I did leave much earlier than usual. The temperature was 26 degrees, and there was nothing else notable about the weather or road conditions – it was chilly on my face, but the riding quickly warmed me up. I certainly got into work faster without dodging all of those pesky cars. The ride made me realize how rarely a city cyclist goes without having to stop, turn, merge or dodge, as I did almost none of those things this morning. (That’s right, at 7 am not only is the traffic light, but you can go through buildings and ride on the water. Pretty sweet!)

Clothing: Heavy winter jacket, wool gloves, waterproof shoes.

I have developed a(nother?) pet peeve: quick release. I like them just fine, but I’m pretty sure upwards of 90% of bikers have no idea how to use them. I can actually say that with confidence because up until a few months ago, I had no idea how to use them. Neither did my sister: she once had her front wheel fall off while riding because of an improperly installed quick release.

Wrong way: Use the lever at the end to tighten them. When you have it good and cinched, then you’re good.

Wrong way: Tighten it down all the way with the lever open, then struggle to close it up. Use tools or get a hernia if necessary.

Right way (about halfway down the page): With the lever pointing straight out, tighten the nut until everything is snug and not droopy. Close the lever with it angled in a direction it won’t get caught on anything.

In looking for a guide on this, I think every guide on the internet has a “right way” and a “wrong way” to close your quick release. You’ve been warned.

Here are some of the themes from this month.

Of course, there was the inaugural entry, and a follow-up About entry.

There was a good mix of weather, although everything resembled early spring more than winter. Some of my early entries were more verbose on equipment and comfort. There was a brief glimmer of winter, with slush on a couple occasions; we had rain and wet pavement more often. I continue to struggle with keeping the face and ears warm, although readers had some suggestions. Mostly, though it was dry and in the 30s and 40s, so it was very easy weather to handle.

On the non-commuting front, I recapped my New Years overnight tour.

I also had non-clothing discussions about a variety of equipment and social matters: dealing with a loose fork, riding in traffic (always a conversation starter), choosing between panniers vs. messenger bags, keeping your pants neat and clean (and intact), singing praises  to fenders, building or purchasing dynamo lighting, and maintaining tire pressure.

This morning was the first “cold” morning at about 25 degrees. My face regretted the lack of protection, but otherwise I was nice and warm. It was one of those really borderline days, where a few degrees colder, or a little windier, I would have had to cover more skin. Still on the fixed gear bike.

Clothing: Heavy winter jacket, wool gloves, messenger bag, waterproof shoes.

As a transportation cyclist in a world (at work) nearly devoid of such people, there are often conversations about how awful or dangerous biking must be. I think the attention one draws may be enough to discourage some people; I know walking into the office covered by soaking wet rain gear gets no small amount of unwanted looks and remarks. (I happen to love biking in the rain, for the record.) On windy, stormy, cold, wet, slick, or even hot days there are constant questions “why would you bike?” A few months back my dad called me in a panic to tell me how dangerous cycling is, as a colleague’s son had received brain damage from a crash.

I haven’t found a good way to deflect these unwanted questions, but bland responses of “I take all the precautions” and “It’s a lovely day out” usually diminish the responses; attempting to explain the  philosophy of vehicular cycling may be sometimes useful, but it is always painful. What does anyone else do to deal with the unwanted remarks garnered by your relatively banal choice of transportation?

This morning was a carbon copy of yesterday morning – 38 degrees, clear and dry. Yesterday evening, however, was downright spring-like. It was almost 60 degrees when I rode home, and I have the sweatiness to prove it. Once the temperature gets that high, you have to really start thinking about cooling: if I had thought harder about it, I would have rolled up my sleeves and untucked my shirt, and slowed down.The last part is clutch: if you want to get someplace presentable, add a couple minutes and ride slower. I would have also liked lighter shoes, but that was unreasonable to ask for.

Clothing: Heavy winter coat, messenger bag, waterproof shoes over my normal dress shirt & undershirt; cotton dress pants.

Yesterday’s post spontaneously generated a (small) discussion on eye wear. I know this usually gets short shrift on “what to wear” guides, but the consensus from our three data points were:

1. Eyeglasses are good in the winter: they keep your eyes warmer (especially in the bitter cold and wind) and they keep them protected from debris.

2. Fogging is inevitable. In my experience with ski goggles and eyeglasses, the important thing is to keep your face away from the glasses (good luck!) – facewear that directs warm air from your nose and mouth upward will cause immediate fogging. One other person contributed that he keeps the glasses down at the tip of his nose to get the same effect. Once fogged, I take the glasses off and wave them around: the moisture evaporates in a few seconds.

Many kinds of wipes that prevent fogging exists, and wikipedia tells me some home solutions exist for this purpose:

Home recipes

One method to prevent fogging is to apply a thin film of detergent, but this method is criticized because detergents are designed to be water soluble and they cause smearing.^[5] Divers often use saliva,^[6] which is a commonly known and effective anti-fogging agent.^[7] Other home recipes exist, including the application of white vinegar with hot water,^[8] or a mixture containing sudsy ammonia, alcohol and liquid dishwasher detergent .^[9]

Some other tips I found on the web, which suggest saliva or shaving cream, vinegar, and shampoo. I’ll try to go out and try one of these (probably the shaving cream), and report back at a later date. (Perhaps when it’s actually cold enough to cause fogging!).

Today is supposed to be very warm, so I scaled down from the winter coat to a sweater plus rain jacket. I won’t repeat myself on how the fixed gear causes me to run warmer than usual, but today was another case in point of overheating. The temperature wasn’t actually so high – 37 degrees – but it sure felt warm.

Clothing: Light sweater, waterproof windbreaker, waterproof shoes, messenger bag. Light cotton (?) biking gloves.

If you canvas ten bicycle-inclined people and ask them about maintenance, nine of them will talk about the chain (and the other one will be clever). It bears repeating that if you do any of the following things, you need to clean and oil your chain at least once a month, and probably more often.

1. Ride your bike more than twice a week

2. Ride in rain or snow, even once

3. Store your bike outside

4. Ride off road

As regular transportation cyclists, we all see, and then hear, those bikers who are crawling along, straining their muscles to go five miles an hour, the bike shrieking as though in pain, and the chain recently dredged from the hold of the Titanic. We love to blog about them. I really wanted to make pamphlets to hand to bikers inching up the Longfellow Bridge in spring explaining how to do it (if anyone’s interested, I have other informational ideas, although the whole medium of unsolicited advice is a little obnoxious).  I’ll resist the desire to say more, except, clean your chain!