Dressing
I was heading home from work for the day when a co-worker saw what I was wearing and remarked on it. I guess it seemed like a silly outfit to bike in.
Yes, it was not a practical outfit for “exercise.” But it was practical for “commuting” which is about efficiency, not sweat. People get too hung up on clothes. From sporty to dressy, it’s okay to wear whatever works for your lifestyle. You can bike in anything. Well, almost…
Yes. People are way-too concerned how one should look…
Especially, it seems, people who themselves do not actually ride. Often, the people who seem most opinionated about how one should dress or behave on a bike are the ones who have not been on a bike since they were a kid.
You can also bike in nothing, as 10,000 Portlanders recently demonstrated… 🙂
Here in TX, where you can drown in your own sweat just standing on a street corner, I take a hybrid approach to dressing for my bike: Regular shorts with pockets for carrying things, and a wicking top, sometimes it’s a bike jersey, usually it’s a road worker’s safety T-shirt. It made from the same stuff as bike jerseys, costs less than 1/10 as much as a typical bike jersey or about 1/6 of the cheapy jerseys, and aside from the loud colors (ANSI Safety Lime and ANSI Safety Orange) it looks like a shirt, not athletic gear.
That’s it, I have to declare my love for your site! I found it through Kara on Knitting Lemonade. Your perspective on biking is very much like my own, though I haven’t commuted by bike in a few years (I stopped when i was 3mos pregnant and the December snow here in Nova Scotia made it too dangerous. Now I’m chomping at the bit to buy a trailer or seat of some sort so my son can make the commute with me this summer.) I was one of those “perpetually late for work” people so for 6 years I biked for speed on my way to the office (spending the first 30 minutes standing behind my closed office door in my undies, just cooling down), but I dream of owning a cruiser and taking things slower… And more than likely, having my son eat his breakfast on the way. Thank you for brightening this former, and hopefully future, bike commuter’s day.
I think the use of the “f” word made a very delightfully funny post tacky. There are many less offensive words in the English language that would have made the point. Just my humble opinion.
I liked it 🙂