"How the heck are you typing if you are riding a bike," you may ask?
Well for starters, I'm just that awesome. But truthfully, I'm not on a bike. I'm on a bus. It was rainier than I had anticipated this morning, so I decided to bike only the .5 miles to the bus stop, and let public transit carry me the rest of the way.
Is it cheating? Not exactly, as I hadn't promised, vowed, or sworn myself to commuting only via bike. And if you will, let today's experience be a lesson to new or aspiring TraVeloers - accessorize. And I'm not talking about fancy bracelets, hats, or a spiffy new pair of those all-in-one sunglasses with the built-in headphones, GPS-receiver, and espresso-maker to make you look cool while riding your bike. I'm referring to simple, usually-not-too-expensive gadgets that can make your morning commute MUCH more comfortable and sometimes safer. In my current case: fenders. Without them, you can arrive at your destination with a very wet butt and very wet feet. Fenders not only protect you, but also your bike and can cut down on the recovery cleaning you have to do after a rainy ride. They come in all shapes and sizes; you can get a pair of plastic easy on/easy off Eleven81 fenders for roughly $15, or you can go all out and spend the $55 on the more durable Planet Bike Cascadia fenders, or anywhere in between.
Among other accessories that can help ease your ride are gloves. Last week my gloves disappeared (okay fine, I lost them), and in the late-fall/winters of Michigan, gloves can be essential to prevent finger loss to frostbite, particularly when it's wet and/or windy. I searched for a full week and suffered with red, stiff fingers during each ride. If I had these bar mitts
found at barmitts.com, I may not have been so miserable (I might get these for the winter). But I finally gave up last Friday and just bought a new pair of gloves. Not only was it uncomfortable to go without gloves last week, but at times it was unsafe, too; I lost some dexterity and found it difficult to grip the even colder metal brake levers when I needed to stop. So I'd pull my hands toward my mouth to breathe warm air over them or shove them in my jacket pocket, but then my hands weren't on the handlebars where they should be, again endangering me. Moral of the story: if you do a lot of cold-weather riding, get some gloves. Thank yourself later.
And finally, lights. Due to both daylight savings and Michigan's northern latitude, it gets dark around 5:00pm this time of year. That means the evening rush hour is in dusk or darkness, making it that much more difficult for drivers to see cyclists of any sort. The batteries in my headlamp died a couple months ago, so I've been relying on the extended daylight and my reflective vest to shout "BIKE!" at car drivers (though I still always wear my Blinky Super Flash from Planet Bike). But now that it's so dark, I need more to improve my visibility. A couple weeks ago, during my ride home at night, a car coming from the other direction was turning left across my lane onto a road I was soon to pass. I didn't have my light, so I wasn't as visible as I could have been. By the time the car began to turn, I was precisely where it was trying to be and things nearly ended tragically. Luckily the driver saw me at the last second and stopped abruptly, thanks to either my reflective vest or bright lime green helmet. Either way, I know I need to replace the batteries on my forward-facing white light to maximize my visibility, aside from Michigan law requiring that I have one. So even though we all want to be Harry Potter, sometimes taking off the invisibility cloak is better for our health. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment