Let's play the guess what's in my bag game

So, the question of the day was: What do you keep at work and what do you carry around in the bag?

What's in the bag

Hmm, let's start at 6 o'clock and kind of sweep around counter clockwise.
- generic sudafed
- spare coin batteries for my rear light
- some cord
- spare battery for my AYUP light
- hi-vis orange vest
- rain jacket
- medium weight hat
- pump
- spare 29er tube in an awesome strap
- patch kit
- cable lock
- C02 inflator
- 2 spare road tubes
- tulbag (with tools in it even)
- spare road tire (new)
- another road tube (I think this one needs to be patched)
- House/car/bike lock keys
- I Bike Boston sticker
- Oracle pen
- spare C02
- spare battery for a Blackberry I no longer have
- usb memory thingy
- bicycle accident report
- earphone / mic for the Blackberry I still no longer have
- fob for work
- pocket knife
- name tag from I have no idea where
- A one dollar bill and about 5 lbs in change

Work:

- spare road tube
- Cat's Tongue towel
- spare road tire (used)
- Mad Alchemy chamois creme
- some $$$

What have we learned? I need to go through the crap in my bag more often. Not only do I have stuff for crap I don't even own, I just have some crap for no reason whatsoever. Not to mention I have stuff for the road bike that is currently in my basement on the trainer and probably won't be ridden outside for a couple months. At least I didn't find any rotten bananas. It's happened. It's not pretty.

Why do I have a couple road tires around. I found some short sections of trail on the way to the office that I was hitting on the road bike. It was great until I cut the sidewall in a tire. Then I did it again. Now I don't hit the trail on my road bike. Anyway, one of the tires I currently have on the bike has a patched sidewall and is of questionable integrity. I'm just trying to get every last bit out of it before it goes and I want to be prepared when it does.

 

Part 3: Gear - This might actually be useful

Tonight in my multipart series of things you don't care about I taking a look at some of the gear I use. I've burned through quite a bit of crap over the years and find this stuff works well.

Lights:

If you're only going to have one light facing forward, put in on your helmet. The light on the helmet will shine where you are looking. Lights on the handlebars don't always. This is particularly noticeable turning when there are no street lights around. This light is from AY-UP. I've had it for 5 or 6 years and it's been rock solid the whole time. The run time is 3+ hours and I carry a spare battery so I've got more than enough light for a days commute (or 2 if I forget to charge the battery).

My helmet also has a rear blinking light

It clips onto a special mount that's part of the helmet. It uses coin batteries that I feel tend to not last very long so I don't use this very often. It's more for emergency situations like if my other light dies or I'm in weather conditions (fog, heavy rain) that I feel warrant the visibility. It's also nice to have if I caught out after dark when I wasn't planning on it and don't have another blinky light.

I do have two other lights. Both are from Light & Motion

The urban 550 was given to me. Then I lost it, so I bought another one. Do I need all the light provided by the 550? Not really. It has 4 settings (H, M, L and blinking) and most of the time I have it on low. The only time I have it on high is riding through the woods. Even then it's more of a luxury than a necessity. If I were just getting it for commuting I'd probably get an urban 200. Still, I love the light. It charges quickly on a USB, and is super easy to take on and off the bike. 

The other light is a vis180. It's ok. It doesn't blink so much as fade in and out sort of. It has four settings. 3 of which are not very different. The 4th setting (paceline) is useless IMHO. Don't get me wrong the light is plenty bright and I'm not worried about it's ability to make me visible. It's just after having the urban 550 first, this was a little disappointing. On top of that, the mount broke within just a couple of weeks. To their credit, all it took was one phone call to Light & Motion and they sent out a replacement light with a new and improved bracket. 

So yeah, I have two front and two rear lights. Why??? With the convenience of USB recharger comes the danger of forgetting to recharge it and not being able to just pop a new battery in if it dies mid ride. My other lights can swap batteries and I carry spares so hopefully I won't get caught out in the dark although I've come pretty close.

Helmet:

Besides the semi integrated rear light, my Uvex helmet has another feature that I absolutely love for commuting. 

That's an adjustable buckle for the chin strap. Whether I've got a balaclava and heavy winter hat or a light cycling cap, the helmet's on nice and snug without having to futts around with adjusting the strap. It's a little thing, but in the spring and fall I find the head wear you need varies dramatically from day to day. Add to it the fact that you've got the added weight of a light on your helmet and having the easily adjustable fit is a big deal. 

Fenders:

I've got clip on SKS fenders for the SS. 

I told you I don't clean the commuter much

The rear fender is clips onto the seatpost. I happen to have the same dia seatpost on my road bike so it's super easy to swap over when needed. I don't bother with a front fender on the road bike. I just don't find it's needed. On the MTB, between the clearance on the fork and knobby tires, ample water get's thrown up. Not just directly into your face but also in front of you for you to ride into. 

You may notice I've put some reflective tape on the bike as well. Anything you can do to help be seen is usually worth it. I've got more reflective tape strategically placed on my helmet.

Booties:

I've got 3 winters of regular use into my pair of Endura MT500 and they're only starting to show a little wear. They were worth every cent and then some. I've also got a pair of mavic rain booties. They're ok at keeping the outside of the shoe dry. Unfortunately, they aren't tight around the ankle, so the top of my sock gets wet, which leads to my whole sock getting wet which leads to wet shoes (from the inside out). Speaking of wet shoes, I find stuffing them with paper towel the best way to sort of dry them out at work. 

Gloves:

I don't have anything special to say about gloves. I don't own a pair of lobster claws. I imagine they work pretty well. I've gotten by without them.

Backpack:

I mentioned my backpack in part 1. Here's a picture.

It's from Patagonia. I forget the model, but it doesn't matter. They don't make it anymore. Other than being dirty, it's in as good of shape as it was when I bought it 5 yrs ago. You can sort of see the 2 compartment set-up. The main compartment also has a pouch for a laptop in it. It works equally well for any sort of paperwork that you don't want to get all crumpled. 

Tires:

MTB - whatever leftovers there are that still have some tread but no longer work tubeless.

Road - Something in a 25c. I've been having really good luck with Vredestein Tri-comps. Well, except when I take it off road on an old railroad bed and cut the sidewall. 

Cold Weather Stuff:

I have a set of Bar Mitts I use when the temps drop into the teens. I have the flat bar version. It turns out they also work well on drop bars as long as the shifter cable doesn't come out the side of the shifter. These things are fantastic. You can ride comfortably in the teens with just a medium weight glove on. The only negative is you lose a little hand mobility and become less inclined to signal. 

I also have a full face mask and ski goggles for when it's really cold. It's works great. The one issue is the goggles cut down on your side vision. You really have to turn your head to see behind you.

Part 2 of stuff most of you don’t care about

Food: I eat before I leave the house, and then have a bunch of small meals throughout the day. I’d like to say I eat exclusively from the Feed Zone Portables cookbook, but I’m just not that diligent. Occasionally I’ll make some rice cakes or something but motivation has been lacking recently.  It doesn’t hurt that we have a pretty good cafeteria with a descent salad bar and soups that don’t look like they’ll congeal at room temperature. The entrees are usual good too but I find it’s more than I want to eat at once. I know, I don’t have to eat it all at once but it just seems to disappear before I can decide to save some for later. So, what does my normal day look like? I have a bowl of oatmeal before I leave. Some fruit when I get into the office. I had taken up the habit of getting an omelet or breakfast burrito but I’ve decided that was a bad idea. Well at least right now where the weather and road conditions don’t have me riding every day. Sometime around 11 I’ll have some sort of larabar type thing. I tend to eat lunch closer to 1:00. Afternoon is time for the pbj if I brought one from home. Otherwise I have a jar of peanut butter in the office along with a container of oats. I don’t actually make oatmeal. I just mix the peanut butter with the oats in a cup and have at it. Dark chocolate chips are an added bonus, but I haven’t resorted to that at work yet. Oh, and more fruit if I have it. I might go back to the jar of peanut butter around 4:00 if I’m still feeling hungry. I definitely try not to leave work on an empty stomach.

Exciting, isn’t it. I might get around to talking about gear (lights, helmets, fenders, etc.) tomorrow. 

Everything you never wanted to know about bike commuting. Part 1

A friend of my asked me for my secrets of bike commuting. I’m not sure there is one secret to bike commuting. Everyone’s circumstances are different. What works for one person might not be feasible for another. However, If I had to offer up a secret it would be this. Stop making excuses for why you’re not riding the bike and just start doing it. I started out small, maybe a day a week in fair weather. Now I ride year round except when road conditions make it a truly stupid idea to be out on a bike. In all that time I’ve made plenty of regrettable decisions related to commuting, but I’ve never regretted a day I spent on the bike. With that said I'll try to offer some words of wisdom from my experience. With any luck you won't have some of the failures that I've had along the way.

Type of bike: Whatever bike you own, unless it’s a tri-bike. I’m sorry, those things are not made for riding in traffic. In my 8 yrs commuting I've seen two cyclists crash. They were both on tri bikes. Don’t do it. I’m a big fan of single speeds for foul weather. They just continue to work no matter what torture you put them through. One thing I have learned, if you’re someone inclined to put their bike away wet don’t let it go unused very long. Bad things happen when a bike sits around, especially in the winter. If you’re not going to ride a bike for a while, clean it.

Carrying Your Stuff:  I read once that it’s better to weight the bike than yourself. I really don’t know. I’ve always used a backpack. I commute on several bikes so it just makes sense. In picking out a backpack you want to make sure it has plenty of room. I’ve got one with two decent sized pockets. The general idea is keep one area nice and clean for your work clothes and use the other pocket for all the other crap. In my case the smaller one contains the stuff (rain jacket, tubes, tools, pump, etc.) that’s in the bag every day. The larger pocket is for clothes and food (if I can’t fit in the smaller pocket).  There’s an external pocket that the bike lock is in, plus a pouch I can put an extra water bottle in. Spring and fall are the toughest time to fit everything in the bag. The mornings tend to be a lot cooler than the afternoons. You might be stuffing that extra morning layer in the bag on the way home so plan accordingly.

Clothing: I assume you know how to dress for various weather conditions so we won't go into that. I think the biggest thing to remember is there are two parts of your trip. Make sure you plan for the ride home just as much as the ride in. Probably the worst scenario for this is warm and raining in the morning and below freezing in the evening. Not only will you need more layers for the ride home, but at least some of what you wore in the morning (socks and gloves) will be wet. Sometimes by the time you stuff all the gear you need for the commute in the bag there isn’t a lot of room to bring in clothes to actually wear at work. So… always have some clothes at work. You can always stuff a clean pair of underwear in the bag. You can’t always fit pants and a shirt. As for clothes for work, take every advantage of empty space in the bag to bring things in or out. That’s especially true if you happen to drive in some days.  

The Route: The shortest route is not necessarily the fastest or the safest. So what if it takes to 10 extra min to avoid that crappy intersection. You’re riding your bike so it’s 10 min well spent. Maybe you avoid a bunch of lights in the process so even though it’s 2 miles longer it takes about the same amount of time.  One thing to avoid if you can is left hand turns onto busy streets where you are not at a stop light.

Riding During Commuter Hours: If you’re commuting by bike, chances are at least one leg of your commute will be when everyone else is also trying to get where they’re going. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is longer lines of cars particularly at stop lights. While it’s very rewarding to just buzz past all of them while they’re stuck in traffic you also have to be extra careful. In particular you need to look out for any gap that has been left in the line. For the most part people are too impatient and just pull up to the car in front of them and will block driveways, side roads or the entrance to some business. Given this, if someone has bothered to leave a gap there’s a better than average chance there’s a car coming through it. If you can’t see them, they can’t see you. Just slow down and make sure you’re not about to get in an accident. The other thing to really watch out for is cars turning left across the road you’re on. It’s not just the first car. It’s the guy behind him who’s just going to follow them through the intersection because they don’t see any cars coming and the first car is blocking their view of you. 

That's all for now. I've got to post this while I still have momentum to write it. If I leave it to tomorrow this isn't making it out.