The Bike Commuter’s Checklist
What you need to consider, from someone who’s been doing this nearly 10 years.
In some ways, the barrier to entry for bike commuting is very low. Do you have a bike? A way to carry your laptop or other necessities? You probably do!
In other ways, however, the logistics can be overwhelming. Where do I shower? Will my bike be safe? How can I carry all the clothes, toiletries, and more that I’ll need? What DO I need?
So let me try to help by breaking this into a checklist of key considerations.
Here’s what we’ll be covering below:
Shower
Towel
Toiletries
Sweat Management
Sweaty Clothing
Carrying Capacity
Wet Weather Protection
Bike Storage
Shower
I sweat a lot. This means it has almost never been practical for me to try to pedal slow and get wherever I’m going without pit stains.
A place to shower and change is likely to be either the easiest or the hardest part of this whole endeavor. If you’re lucky, your office or building will have showers and a locker room available. If not, you’re on the hunt for the nearest gym or community center. Yeah, you might have to pay for a full membership just to use the shower, but chances are that you’ll be saving at least that much on gas if you’re swapping over from a car commute. Specialized athletic facilities, physical therapy offices, even country clubs can be worth checking out. Don’t be shy about asking, and emphasize how limited your disruption will be. (“I’ll only be there in the mornings from about 8 to 8:30.”). The worst they can say is no.
The goal here is to find a place to shower within a mile of your ultimate destination. Usually despite any heat or cold, it’s possible to make it a mile in normal (rather than cycling) clothing with minimal discomfort.
My Current Solution
I’m lucky in that there’s an Anytime Fitness within a mile of my office, another location within a mile of my home, and membership at Anytime grants access to all locations. What started as only shower access also is my solution for weight training. Lucky me!
Towel
After that shower, you’re going to need a way to dry off. If you have enough space to bring a towel you already have, do that. There isn’t a secret towel just for bike commuting.
Except there sort of is! Microfiber camping towels can fold up very small and dry more quickly than normal towels. Because they’re so absorbent, you can also get away with a smaller size if you want to (or need to due to space constraints). As long as it’s not freezing or raining outside, they’ll also dry easily during the day draped across your handlebars, and many versions have clips in the corner to keep them from blowing away.
My Current Solution
I’ve had one of the REI microfiber towels I linked to above for years now. I’m pretty sure mine is a size medium, which has proven to be just enough drying capacity for my body plus long-ish hair. (Although my hair does quite a bit of air drying, too.) And it folds down to roughly the size of my phone.
Toiletries
In most cases, the shower at the end of your commute ride means you need to bring everything with you that you’d normally start your day with at home. Deodorant, toothbrush, medicines, even jewelry – you’ve got to bring it with you.
Forgetting something important will make you feel crazy, so I advise getting a second one of as many things as possible. A second deodorant. A travel toothpaste. Maybe a little bottle of shampoo or cosmetics. The fewer things you have to transfer back and forth between your at-home kit and your commuter kit, the harder it is to forget something.
My Current Solution
I have a little bag where I do exactly the above. I have a separate deodorant and toothbrush that stay in my commuter bag. I have separate pill bottles at home and in my commuter bag. I have a little container of shampoo in my commuter bag. I even add things I don’t ever need at home, like my clean cap (read the next section) and work ID badge. It all stays in my commuter bag so that pretty much the only thing I have to add on office days is my watch and wedding ring (since I don’t like riding with those on).
Sweat Management
This is mostly going to be taken care of by showering and changing clothes, and if your shower is at your office, this isn’t a consideration. If you’re riding to your office after your shower, however, you do need to consider the few pieces of clothing and equipment you might need to re-use.
Primarily, this means your helmet. Helmet linings are made to be absorbent. That makes them pretty gross, and there’s a good chance it won’t even have dried from your sweaty commute by the time you’re out of the shower. Considering this, wearing a cycling cap under your helmet and bringing a different cycling cap to wear after your shower is a good strategy.
Similarly, if you’re riding in the cold, you may need to consider the fact that your jacket, earband, and gloves may get sweaty. Sometimes it’s easiest to just deal with cold hands and ears on the short jaunt from the gym to the office, but if it’s cold enough, you’ll want clean backups.
My Current Solution
I have one cycling cap that is designated as my clean cap. The only time I ever use it is from my shower to my office. I also normally like riding with a cycling cap, so using a different one during my long commute helps me minimize the amount of sweat transferred to my helmet.
In the fall, I’ll generally just let my hands and ears get a little cold, but if I’m going to be out below 40 Fahrenheit, I’ll usually bring spare gloves and ear coverings, even if they’re thinner that the ones I’m commuting in. I also wear a layer inside my outer jacket so that it captures any sweat and my jacket stays clean (since a second big, bulky jacket would be a royal pain to bring).
Sweaty Clothing
If you don’t care about getting sweaty during your commute, you’re going to arrive at your shower (whether that’s at your office or elsewhere) with wet, sweaty clothes that you need to store for the duration of your workday. In a perfect world, this is a locker room where you can hang your things to get them at least somewhat dry by the time you need to put them back on for your commute home.
In our imperfect world, you might have to improvise. Maybe your gym has little storage lockers you can rent for the day. Your clothes might not get fully dry, but at least you won’t carry their stink with you during the day. Or perhaps you can use your bike as a drying rack after you’ve arrived at your office. Maybe there’s an unused room where no one would mind you setting up a drying rack for unwashed clothing.
In any case, finding somewhere for smelly garments that is not right next to you – and hopefully somewhere they have a chance of drying out – is worth some legwork.
My Current Solution
Because I don’t want to transport all my dirty cycling clothes from my gym to my office, nor do I want to risk things blowing away while using my bike as a drying rack, I choose to use the little lockers at my gym to store my clothes through the day. No, they usually don’t dry out all the way, and yes, that means they feel a little gross to put back on for the return trip, but that feeling goes away pretty quickly once you start riding. It’s not the most hygienic solution, but I don’t wear bibs multiple days before washing them, so it feels like a reasonable compromise to me.
Carrying Capacity
Everyone has a backpack, and backpacks work fine. Especially if you aren’t going that far, don’t overthink this one.
That said, backpacks quickly make your back really hot. If you’re going more than five miles, it might be time to look at some other options.
First among these is a cheap rear rack. It’s easy to strap all manner of backpacks, duffels, and more onto a rack. (I like ski straps/voile straps as a retention method, they hold things very tightly.) You can, of course, go the pannier route for plenty volume. Smaller rack options like a Carradice Bagman Support or a Jack the Rack can also be good, depending on your needs.
If you need more space, distributing the weight is a good idea. (Too much extra weight on the rear wheel will make a bike feel very unstable.) Just about every company who makes backpacking bags offers a handlebar harness; a rolltop dry bag and sufficiently long voile straps can also work.
For cargo in both the front and rear, waterproof bags are often an essential component. Trash bags tear too easily for my liking except as maybe a backpack liner, so investing in a couple dry bags might be worth it. Waterproof laptop sleeves are also a good decision.
My Current Solution
I have a cheap rear rack that I’ve padded with some foam pipe insulation (the kind that looks like a pool noodle). Onto that I put my laptop in a waterproof sleeve and sometimes shoes, books, or other bulky items wrapped up on a waterproof backpack cover, all strapped down with voile straps. In the front I carry everything else (clothes, toiletries) in a dry bag and a Topeak Frontloader harness.
Wet-Weather Protection
Your tolerance for commuting in actual rain may vary, but every bike commuter should have the ability to protect themselves (as well as their things, but we covered that above with waterproof bags) from a wet road and a little rain.
If you have a shower at your office, this is a lower priority item. If you get soaked on your way to the office (or on your way home) that might be unpleasant, but it’s not going to negatively impact your whole day.
If, however, you still need to get to your office after you shower and change clothes, you need a plan of action for wet roads and drizzle.
Mud guards, of course, can help limit the spray coming up from your wheels, but my essential kit is a waterproof jacket and waterproof overpants. Cheap ones get very hot very quick, but if you’ve got your shower sorted then you don’t have far to go anyways, so it’s rarely an issue. Depending on your work, some sort of shoe cover might be in order as well; you could also wait to change shoes (and probably socks with them) until you’re at your office.
My Current Solution
Exactly what I said above – waterproof bags and laptop sleeve for my things, waterproof jacket and pants, when necessary, to protect my office clothes. The shoes I wear at work are either sufficiently waterproof or dry fast enough for my needs, so I choose not to worry about waterproof shoe covers.
Bike Storage/Parking
Lastly, the worst thing that can happen to a bike commuter (short of being hit in the road, I guess) is for their bike to be stolen. How much of a risk this is will depend greatly on where you live and where you work.
For example, at some of my previous offices, there have been bike racks (either outdoor or indoor) within a controlled access point. When no one but coworkers could possibly have access to your bike, it’s going to be a lot safer. On the flipside, if you have to park your bike on a busy public street, there’s a lot more risk that a random person might tamper with your bike.
So there are two principles I follow to mitigate the chance of theft.
One: Park your bike in the least visible, most controlled location you can. Maybe that’s in a back alley. Maybe that’s within sight of a reception desk. If you’re really lucky there could even be spaces indoors you could use.
Two: Get a big, sturdy lock that will go through both wheels and the frame. This can sometimes be achieved by the lock itself, but will often require a U-lock plus a cable. Don’t cheap out here. The skinny cable lock you picked up from Walmart is easy to cut, and the locking mechanism itself probably isn’t actually that secure, either. Make things hard on potential thieves! Run your cable through the rails of your saddle if you can (especially if you have to lock up in a public place), and make sure the U-lock runs around your frame and possibly also your back wheel. A bike thief doesn’t want to damage your bike, and that will make it more difficult for them to cut your lock away.
Also, don’t forget to bring in bike lights and similar things that are easy for someone to grab off your bike. You want to escape as much notice as possible.
My Current Solution
My office is on a small road that only has a few office buildings along it, and while the bike rack isn’t quite in view of reception, it is well back of the street and hard to see due to the cars in the office parking lot. Between that and the good U-lock plus a steel cable, I feel pretty comfortable about leaving my bike outside all day.
Go For It! Bike Commuting is Awesome.
If you’ve been considering bike commuting, hopefully this can be a resource for you and give you the push you need to get started. It really is a lot more fun than being stuck in traffic.