Seven secrets of a happy bike commute

Today’s blog by my friend Gypsybug is a primer on bike commuting.  I have been commuting by bike now for over a decade so I thought I’d add to her thoughts and share some tricks of the trade to those of you who would like to get started or are having troubles.

The Shortest Distance Is Rarely the Best Route

We all know that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but when you’re bike commuting that’s almost beside the point.  After all, when you drive somewhere you don’t always take a straight route. The straight line from my house to Silver Spring is right through the heart of DC, but, when I drive it, I take the Beltway. It’s faster, safer and less stressful.

Think of your bike commute the same way.  I can ride a straight line to work, but this could take me on streets with lots of cars, traffic lights, clueless pedestrians and such.  For example, when I first started commuting to L’Enfant Plaza in DC, I would ride from the 14^th Street Bridge around the Tidal Basin to 15^th Street then take a right on Independence Avenue another right on 12^th Street then a left on D Street.  That route included six traffic lights, all kinds of crazy car and bus traffic, pedestrians going every which way near the Smithsonian Metro station and the Agriculture Department.  And one pretty unpleasant left turn.

After a while I decided that instead of going around the Tidal Basin, I would double back toward the Potomac River and go under the 14^th Street Bridge, taking Ohio Drive along the river (where I would often see Gypsybug and her husband Felkerino) to Buckeye Drive to a protected path on the Case Bridge across the Washington Channel (with sailboats afloat below) and return to the streets at L’Enfant Promenade, about 100 yards from my office.  This route was probably 1/2 mile longer, but it was much less stress, safer, and prettier.  

You should experiment with your commute to determine what route combines a reasonable commute time with safety and a pleasant riding experience.

The Transitions Will Kill You

Triathletes know that the transitions from one stage of the race to another will eat up valuable time.  They go to great pains to minimize time in the staging areas.  Bike commuting works the same way.  When I get home from a bike commute, the first thing I do is unpack and re-pack for the next day. (Unlike Gypsybug, I take my clothes in every day.  Like her, I use Ortlieb panniers.) I get my on-bike clothes laid out.  The idea is that you want to grab and go in the morning not fritter away your time looking for your bike shorts, your keys, your work id, etc..   Make sure that your tires are pumped up and that any mechanical issues are dealt with the night before your commute.  If you don’t do this stuff in advance, you’ll spend a half-hour of your morning wandering around your bedroom and garage looking for things.

Bad Weather Sucks No Matter How You Get to Work

If you wake up in the morning and it’s raining out, don’t give up. Do you really want to stand in your work clothes in the rain waiting for a bus, or drive in incredibly congested car traffic slowed by reduced visibility?   Rain gear these days is more affordable than ever and it can keep you comfortable all the way to and from work.  And if you get wet, so what? It’s water!  Now, it’s true you’ll need to take steps to be more visible and to allow for greater braking distances, but at least you won’t be sitting dripping in a bus or trying to de-fog your windows in vain.

In the summer, I usually skip the rain gear entirely, because getting wet on a hot day is pretty refreshing. Getting wet on a cold day is pretty miserable. My on-bike rain gear is not made for cycling. I wear a Marmot Precip jacket and, in really nasty weather, pants.  It works just fine.

Much of my commute is on multi-use trails. This designation gives the local authoritiwa the excuse to leave them unpaved after snow falls.. I usually don't ride to work until the trails are clear. It simply takes too long to commute 15 miles on snow and ice. Also, I really don’t much like falling.  If you are intrepid, you can put studded tires on your steed and make a go of it. I'd rather use the gym or put my bike on a wind trainer for a few weeks. If I lived in a snowier city, I'd probably go for the studded tires (my friend Charmaine does this), but for a couple of weeks per year it doesn't seem worth it to me.

My biggest problem with cold weather is the fact that my transition times go way up. Adding a layer or two doesn’t sound like much but it can add five minutes to each end of the commute - that’s 20 minutes per day.  Fortunately, in DC, subfreezing weather lasts only a month or so.  I grew up in Albany.  For a week or two every year, it gets below zero. This is why God invented ice skates.

Keeping yourself comfortable in the cold is a conversation for another blog post entirely.  Suffice it to say, wool is your friend.

Radar Isn't Just a Character on M*A*S*H

Around DC you can often avoid the worst of the weather simply by checking the radar on TV or the Internet. Bike commuters are weather junkies.  They check the radar constantly.  It's really a game of Can I Outsmart the Storm. If the storm outsmarts you, venture out into the maelstrom.  Riding in the rain is actually fun. I mean, once you’re wet you’re wet, right? I've ridden with 50 mile per hour winds (including cross winds on the 14th Street Bridge).  A 50 mile per hour tailwind is one mighty fun way to get home. A 50 mile per hour headwind, not so much. (Didn't I hear you say you wanted to get in shape?)

Comedian Ron White tells a story about a friend who decides to tie himself to a pole during a hurricane. Ron points out that his friend learned: "It's not that the wind is blowing, it's what the wind is blowing."  Long story short, look out for tree limbs and other debris from above.

Too Far? Get Creative

My kids were at school on the southern side of an epic highway construction project on the Washington Beltway. I worked ten miles on the northern side. My wife would drive them to school.  I would pick them up, but driving to get them was incredibly stressful.  Sometimes it would take 90 minutes to go 10 miles. And I wasn’t getting any exercise.  My solution was to drive 5 miles and park my car just south of the construction project.  I’d ride my bike the remaining 10 miles to work.  At the end of the day, I’d ride to my car, and then drive to school to get my kids. No traffic. No late fees at after school care, and I got my exercise.

Nowadays you can put you bike on a rack on the front of a bus. This can substantially increase your range.  If you work off-peak hours, you can take your bike on Metrorail.  If you have a folding bike like a Brompton, you can take your bike on and off Metro at any time of the day.  

But What If I Get a Flat?

Oh, stop making excuses, whiner. Flats are easy to fix. Just bring the fixins, find a place to perform the operation and have at it. To learn, go to You Tube and search for a video.  Then, on a rainy Saturday, ask a bike commuting friend to come to your house, give him or her a beer and have them walk you through it.  Just don't use tire levers to put your tire back on the wheel. Nine times out of ten you'll puncture your spare tube. Changing flats when it is bitterly cold outside does suck.  The best solution is to by tires that are puncture resistant. They are more expensive but tubes aren't cheap. Avoiding two or three flats will cover the extra cost of the tires.

This year my chain broke on the way to work. A bike commuter stopped and spent 20 minutes working on my bike.  He got me going again. I thanked him but that seemed pretty lame. So now I always carry two spare tubes. The chances that I'll use both are incredibly small, but the chances that I will encounter a cyclist who needs a spare tube are pretty good. Give them one of your spares. The bike commuting gods will smile down upon you.

Dude, Slow Down

I see people riding hell for leather on their way to work. Son, let's keep this in perspective. You're riding to work!  It will be there whether it takes you 40 minutes or 45.  Nobody's going to care if you take an extra five minutes. After all, Metro and car commuters are always late for work. They get sympathy! 

Mount Vernon Trail Maple

Take your time. Check out the monuments, the trees, the sunrise.  Watch a couple of planes land at the airport. Listen to the birds chirp and twitter. 

Low Light, Pretty Commutes

Riding my bike to work in the summertime is a easy. It's daylight in the morning and the evening. Dressing is a snap.  Once the cooler temperatures start to creep in, dressing becomes a bit of a hassle.  And the darkness starts to creep in on both ends of my day.

The upside to fall is the fact that I get to see the sunrise over the Potomac River.  I am a sunrise junkie. 

Sunrise at Dyke Marsh

The colors of fall are just starting to arrive.  This is such a bittersweet time. We should get about two weeks of fireworks from the maples, sumac and other colorful plants.  Then we get barren trees and cold wind.  The trees along the Mount Vernon Trail are beginning to turn.  The low morning and evening light makes them especially beautiful.

Morning light brings out the yellow

I stopped three times on  my commute today just to take in the show.  You can see these things briefly from a car, but you can't stop and let them wash over you.

Mount Vernon Trail just south of National Airport

They say the best things in life are free. They are wise.

Skyscapes and Tailwinds

Today was quite a day for bike commuting. The ride in featured a tailwind and an awesome sky at sunrise.  These spectacular early morning skyscapes make riding in the fall and spring very special.  They are compensation for the fact that dressing for the commute is often a time consuming affair.  My living room is cluttered with a wide variety of gloves, skull caps, neck gaiters, and such. I often have to bring different outer wear depending on the forecast.

The sunrise was so pretty I had to stop, but the evening sky was impressive in its own right. During the afternoon a weather front moved through the area.  Usually these thing are gradual affairs but today's have a sharp edge to it. And embedded in it were some thunderheads, one of which was parked above the Lincoln Memorial as I rode on the opposite side of the Potomac River along the Mount Vernon Trail.

I knew that eventually these clouds would unload buckets of rain on me, but it never happened. Oh, it did rain a bit, particularly during the last six miles of my commute but the rain was light and the air was still warm so it was really quite pleasant.

I swore I heard a voice say, "Noah!"

Charlton Heston, phone home

DCA was still operating

The Wilson Bridge and the Storm

And to top it off, the weather front turned the wind direction around so that I had a two-tailwind commute.  I'd say that makes for a pretty decent start to the work week and a nice way to celebrate 120 bike commutes in 2012..

Red Sky at Morning

Red Sky at Morning, a photo by Rootchopper on Flickr.

Today is my 120th bike commute of the year. Usually, Monday mornings are something I don't much look forward to. Despite the good weather, I didn't ride yesterday. I just relaxed around the house. In the previous six days I had ridden more than 150 miles, so this day of sloth gave my legs a chance to rest. With fresh legs and red sky, I headed out. My bonus was a nice tailwind. Pretty good way to start a workweek, I do believe.

Coffeeneuring #3: Cannons and Coffee

Other than a pretty nice bike commute in the dark, last night was a sports disaster.  Our high school football and volleyball teams lost casting a pall on homecoming.  After biking home in the dark, I leaerned that the Orioles had been eliminated from the baseball playoffs by the hated Yankees. (Okay, it was nice to see A-Rod moping in the dugout after being benched.) Then the Nationals who were ahead 6-0 when I turned on the game went down to defeat. Suddenly, it feels like Boston around here..

During the game I received a tweet asking if I was interesting in doing a coffeeneuring ride this weekend. I thought it was odd that an attractive young woman who lives 20 miles or so from my house and is at least 30 years younger than me would single me out for a cuppa joe. I mean she's nice and we get along fine, but I'm not exactly in her demographic. Anyway,  I said I'd join her and told her to tweet me in the morning.

The morning broke cold, near freezing in fact. I wasn't going anywhere until things warmed up a bit.  I tweeted back and forth who seemed oddly disinterested in my coffee shop recommendation.  Finally, she said that she had to wrote a paper and would take a rain check. All I could think of was, "Wasn't this your idea?"

Then, I checked my Twitter history. In the chaos of the volleyball game, my brain had registered only Rachel's last name, Cannon, and the first initial of her first name. Robert Cannon who lives much closer and is also of the middle aged cohort had actually been the twitterer. (I'm not sure if that's the correct noun, but "twit" could be misconstrued.)  So I tweeted Bob to no avail.

The sun was up and I had errands to run so off I rode on Big Nellie. I made it to the supermarket bank then backtracked to our local pastry stop for coffee and an eclair. I wanted a chocolate chip cookie but they didn't have any. Fail. Well, the coffee was only so-so (if you want Swings coffee, go to Swings) but the eclair was pretty awesome.

I texted my friend Charmaine who was in my neck of the woods riding her Brompton with her friend Gordon.  We met up for a chat at a rest area on the Mount Vernon Trail. She and Gordon headed into Old Town Alexandria for lunch and I headed to the hardware store for more weekend fun.

I didn't realize that coffeeneuring and the Twitterverse could be so confusing, but I remain undaunted in my pursuit of the Coffeeneuring Challenge.

Coffee, Eclair, Big Nellie and Appropriate Reading Material

Hollin Hall Pastry Shop with Big Nellie

ICWT (In Coffee We Trust).  

Gnats, Nats, and Another Pet Peeve

Since this is a blog mostly about bicycling, I feel compelled to report that this morning's bike commute was the bees knees.  A real knee slapper (as long as you didn't slap the bees on your knees, that is.) Perfect weather. A tailwind. Sunlight twinkling off the Potomac River.

The ride home was nice too. Except for one thing. Or maybe I should make that one million things. Gnats were everywhere. I was covered in the little black bugs. I kept wiping them off my arms. They flew into my eyes. Into my mouth. They were having a field day in my hair. I stopped and put my black arm warmers on just so I couldn't see so many.

The ride home would have been nicer if the Nats had won their playoff game. They got clobbered.  They were down 8-0 by the time I stopped checking my iPhone during 6 hour meeting.  They need to win their next two games or they are finished for the season. For me it will feel like all those years living in New England and watching the Sawx annihilate other teams only to become doormats in October. (Oh, but don't get me started about 2004. Sooooo sweeeeet!)

My left knee has a small bruise. I didn't crash or anything. I went to the bathroom. For some reason the geniuses that renovated our building place the metal toilet paper dispenses right where your left knee is supposed to go. So you bang you knee then end up doing your business side saddle. I guess toilet paper dispenser installers don't give a shit.

(Somebody had to say it. I couldn't bear seeing it in the Comments.)

Coffeeneuring #2: Getting My Buzz On

It was a cool and gray morning. Global warning was on holiday. And so was I.  Somehow the Congress has managed to mess up again. The law now says that we celebrate Columbus Day on the second Monday in October.  I think the idea is to give the Supreme Court a day off after a hard week's work.

As we all know Columbus discovered the New World or, at least the source of hundreds of Latino baseball players, on October 12, 1492.  Why we can't celebrate the day on the 12th which would be Friday this year.  This would preserve a three-day weekend for all the government workers and Italian Americans who don't get a day off to celebrate any other famous Italian Americans such as Dean Martin, Al Capone, or Annabella Sciorra.

Rather than ride to work in protest, I decided to go get me a cup of coffee.  My first thought was to ride to Bethesda, but that would be 50 miles round trip. The coffee there is simply not half-century-worthy. So I set out looking for a coffee place in confines of Alexandria City.

The Claw!!!  Bye Coal Pile.

I rode the Mount Vernon Trail to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Underneath the bridge were four or five kids riding their bikes at the Wilson Bridge Bike Academy. I doubt they learned of it from this blog but it was heartening to see this mass of pavement getting used in a constructive way.  I would have stopped to take a picture but I was enjoying the downhill glide from Washington Street.

On the north end of Old Town, I came upon a sight that I never thought I'd see.  A digger (that's what we called them when I was a kid) was loading the pile of coal used by the power plant into a railroad car.  This is the first overt sign of the power plant being put out of its misery.

Buzz on Slaters Lane

I decided to head for Del Ray where coffeehouses abound.  I never made it though. I stopped at Buzz on Slaters Lane.  Inside I ordered my Americano with room and a chocolate chip cookie. The coffee was not as strong as Perks and the cookie was good not great. There was nowhere to sit indoors so I drank and ate outside in the 50 degree chill.  Coffee shops in Alexandria are way too small.  Of course, it would help if half the seats weren't taken by WiFi squatters.

Cuppa & Cookie

The ride home was uneventful. I took Big Nellie up Fort Hunt Road to see how the new seating position felt on a respectable hill.  It passed the test swimmingly. Well, it wasn't raining so let's just say it done good.

Big Nellie Used the Bike Hitchin' Post

Spiffy New Bike Lane on Slaters Lane

About a half mile from home I heard my front tire go PSSSSH!!!!.  "Dang! A Flat," thought I.  (Riding recumbents inverts your sentence structure sometimes.) I looked down expecting to see my front tire flopping to the side of the rim, but it wasn't so. I saw what looked like white foam oozing out from between the tire and the fender instead.  My brain said unto itself, "WTF", because I've been spending too much time on Twitter lately.

Styrofoam "Puncture"

It turned out to be a styrofoam peanut.  No flat, no foam, just a bizzare piece of harmless road debris.

And so ended my Columbus Day ride for caffeine.  I never actually got comfortable. Dressing for riding in cold weather is a trial and error thing and today was mostly error. I broke out my tights, long fingered gloves, rain jacket, a short sleeve base later, and a lightweight cap for my head.  Even with the fairing on Big Nellie, I was just a little chilled for most of the ride.


But I knocked off my second coffeeneuring ride of the weekend. And that's the important thing, right?

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