Two good pieces of kit

Despite the unpleasant weather (40s, drizzle) yesterday I set myself up to bike home. I had my new bags from Swift and loaded them onto the bike to test out.

The first thing I noticed when I got the box a couple of weeks ago was that the bags were beautiful. Swift lets you customize the bags and I couldn't be happier with how they cam out. The attachment is simple - I tossed in a little extra to have a bungie attachment with an S-hook for the bottom so all I did was hook the bungie on the bottom and pull up until I could hook the top bar on the rack. The two bags worked great for what I wanted to carry - my work clothes, computer, and some notebooks. With a second set of bags (which I have) I can easily load enough gear for a short trip (couple of days) without trouble. When the weather turns enough for me to test the bags out with a full tour, I'll let you know.

The other piece of kit I wanted to crow about is my Fat Cyclist woolie (sorry, it's a limited edition and there hasn't been any info on the next version). Like all FC gear it's made by Twin Six, and it's fantastic. Yesterday was the first time I really tested it in poor weather, I'd worn it on cool days before but not in the cold. I was wearing the jersey with a day-glo vest over it and shorts, and within a few minutes I was plenty warm. I will soon be ordering a few more wool jerseys for winter riding.

Clothes make the ride?

I managed to get off my @$$ and ride into work this morning (well, ride to BART and plan to ride home). Most of the time when I've ridden in I've kitted up since that's what I wear to ride home (12 miles - bike shorts are nice). Today I just put on my work clothes since the morning ride is so short. I noticed something odd though - there's one major intersection between my house and BART, and I normally crosswalk it. Today though I just pulled over and turned with the traffic in the left hand turn lane.

I'm perfectly comfortable taking the lane, and traffic isn't so brutal that the crosswalk is safer, so I don't know why I took the lane today instead. My only thought is that most of the time when I kit up I'm doing back road or bike trail riding, and most of the time when I'm in street clothes I'm running errands and commuting. Either way, I was more vehicular in the my riding in my street clothes.

Anyone else find their riding style changed based on what they wear?

Anit-cancer loot

I've mentioned before that I'm doing the LiveStrong ride in San Jose, as a member of Team Fatty (and again, feel free to GO HERE and donate to me). One of the things that our team captain passed on recently was a link to the Team Estrogen site to get a pair of "Cancer Sucks" socks. The idea is that the whole team will show up with the Team Fatty jersey and the Cancer Sucks socks and make a strong statement. Today when I got home from work this is what I found in the mail.

Nothing like having anti-cancer kit for riding. I am going to look like a bit of a frilly bike-ninja though, with my all-black-and-pink ensemble for the ride. Maybe I should find an old helmet to paint...

The test

Monday evening I decided to make a test-run on the ride I'll be doing when I decide to get of my lazy @$$ and get back to biking at least part of the way to work. It's a not overly special ride, a little more than 3 miles each way down a quick (speed limit 40 MPH) well-maintained artery of a road. This was my first ride in months on the Scwhinn and I felt it.

I've mentioned before how sore I get when I switch from one bike to another, mainly because I have a couple of different styles of bikes. My day-to-day commuter is an upright Schwinn that's older than me and almost as heavy. As happened the first time I rode it, I felt most of this trip in my quads. The other thing I noticed is that the new dress shoes I bought last week are very slick on the bottom. I did the ride in my work clothes because I will be doing it that way "for real". The slick shoes led to an odd foot position on the pedals  (all the way back so the heels caught on the back of the pedal) which will really screw me up when I ride clipless on the weekends.

All told it took me about a half an hour (including the pleasant visit with the other commuter I mentioned in my last post) to do the 6+ miles. It will feel great to be doing that on a daily basis again.

Downsides to cycling in kit

I've mentioned before that I don't commute in a lot of bike-specific clothing. That has shifted a little as I have gone to the Trucker as my commuter of choice. I've had to go back to bike shorts (mountain shorts with a removable liner - keep me from looking to Fred) and wearing gloves.

The shorts are a necessity, not for comfort (Brooks B17, is there anything better?), but because the leather of the saddle was coloring my normal shorts. (Note - no lesser an authority than Sheldon Brown indicates that the reason cycling shorts are black has to do with leather saddles - 2/3 down, "Breaking in a leather saddle"). That means I'm back to having to remember all of the necessary underthings for when I change.

The gloves are more about comfort than the shorts. The bar tape is soft and padded and undoubtedly will be great when I start touring, but it can also be a little gummy in the humidity. Wearing gloves helps avoid this. The biggest problem with that is I end up with glove-funky hands, which for some reason even repeated washing doesn't seem to ease. Guess it's a good thing very few people come to visit me.

A final, not overly related issue with wearing cycling-specific clothes comes at the end of the work day. I hit leaving time and want to just go. I'm so brain-burned that even the effort of changing seems like more of a hassle than it's worth. Yeah, too lazy to change but looking forward to a ride home, how addicted am I?

Charity

I will admit that I can be overly generous or stingy when it comes to charities, all based on my mood at the moment. I focus on a few areas of personal interest (mostly outdoorsy stuff) and then give whatever feel right. The more solicitations I get, the less I tend to give because I get annoyed and feel like "punishing" the solicitor. There is one exception to this - Elden, AKA the Fat Cyclist.

I had been reading his blog for a little while before I realized the situation with his wife's battle with cancer. All I knew was that for some reason the really cool swag he sold came in the site colors of orange and black, and (at the time) what I thought was an oddly un-manly pink. The I read about Susan's fight with cancer and it all made sense.

Maybe it's because Fatty has done such an amazing job of personalizing his requests for help (no form letters in the mail), maybe it's because he is so open about what the funds are used for, maybe it's because he comes up with creative ways to ask (yes, the man did a century on rollers), or maybe it's just because he's so darn funny, but whatever the reason I never hesitate to toss my hard earned money his way.

The point of this? If you haven't seen his blog, go now. If you haven't helped out, please think about it.

(This was inspired by a reference at another site to making donations to LIVESTRONG, a group Fatty regularly champions)

Commuting "kit"

Not "kit" as in gear (or "KITT") but cycling kit - clothing.

I've been thinking about commuting clothing for a little while now. Mainly because Baltimore has entered the "do people actually enjoy living in this kind of weather?" part of the year, where it's unpleasant to walk outside in the morning and gets worse all day long. I'll admit it - I'm a wimp when it comes to humidity. I come from the semi-desert North/Central California (east of Berkeley) originally, and when it gets hot there it gets dry. I love that feeling. Walking out at the end of the day into a 95 degree oven and being baked. This whole parboiled thing is for eggs.

During the cooler months here I commuted in my work clothes. I ride an upright bike with a chain guard, so riding in slacks isn't a problem. Since I use full platform pedals, the shoes aren't an issue either. Finally, the ride is a whopping 1.5 miles each way, so it's not like I need the padding of bike shorts to preserve my derriere.

Back in CA, before I moved, I was a spandex warrior. It took some getting used to because while I think I can honestly say I have the lower body for bike shorts I certainly DO NOT have the upper body for a jersey. Snug and gut are a bad combo. But I was also doing 20-30 miles a day on my ride home, much of it in mid to high heat (85-105F) so semi-technical clothing was in order.

Now I ride in normal shorts and a t-shirt. The shirts I use most of the time are the old (now) "HHCMF" (Happy Hardcore Commuting MFs) that I got years back on Bike Forums. They're handy, being ANSI lime, and bike friendly with the "Ride to work/Work to live/Live to ride" triangle on the back. On a commute as short as mine, with an upright bike like mine, and going the pace I go (average around 11 MPH) I just don't see the need for anything else.