Bike Commuting with Clothes: Childish Mistakes

I carry the clothes I plan to wear on any given work day with me in my awesome panniers. I leave shoes and several pairs of pants at work, but I carry undies, socks and shirt with me each day. The panniers are just big enough to bring all the pants and my towel and stuff home on Fridays for a wash. It is a system that is working really well for me. Most of the time.

Because every morning is a mad rush, I usually grab these items from piles of recently folded and sorted but not yet put away laundry. This level of disorganization can result in my arriving at work with my son's clothing instead of my own. One day last week I unpacked my things to get changed and found that the pair of socks that looked OK rolled up actually belonged to my 8 year old son. The sock below has been pre-stretched by my putting it on before having the idea for this post. I then removed it and took this picture with my cycling shoe, to give you an idea of its size relative to my foot:

They were quite big for little guy socks, and pretty stretchy, so rather than wear the white sport socks I cycled in with black work shoes, I just stuffed my feet into them anyway. This resulted in somewhat comical ankle socks:

I still think this is better than the dreaded white socks with black shoes look (if you wear white socks with everything, my apologies; keep your own style goin' there, friend). Also please note that I wear long pants at work, so I wasn't laying any of that skin action on my co-workers. This was not the first time I had accidentally brought kid stuff instead of my stuff. When underpants are just lying in an unfolded pile (folding undies is madness, in my opinion), a pair of boy's jockeys look an awful lot like a pair of men's jockeys. Since I did a "scale comparison" with the sock, here's one with underpants!

I chose a pair of cycling shorts because believe it or not, I draw the line at posting pictures of my undies; although it would seem posting pictures of my son's jockeys doesn't bother me at all. It kind of makes sense; little boy undies can be seen as "cute"... something quite impossible for grown man underpants, I'm sure you'll agree.

Some of you may already know something about the size of my butt, so you'll understand when I say that there was no way I could pull anything like the preceding sock trick with these little suckers. Have you ever gone commando at work? I have. I didn't like it, not one little bit.

I will try to write about something more normal and less disturbingly personal next time. Please come back. I'll be normal, I promise!

R A N T W I C K

Shooting a Train Track Drive-By: How Should I Ride This?

When people see the camera mounted on my handlebars, many of them ask, "is that for catching people who cut you off and stuff?" I always respond no, I'm not into taking pictures of everybody who ticks me off... if I were, I would be posting nothing but bad driver videos all the time.

No, the camera is there because you just never know what you'll see, and sometimes just leaving the video cam rolling captures neat or funny stuff, like freaking out girls, cutie pie road hogs and super heroes.

I'm posting this clip, however, because it shows that sometimes, bad situations will happen no matter what you do. This one happened while I was crossing multiple railroad tracks on Egerton Street, in close proximity to where Caleb Losier was killed in November 2008. As that incident makes abundantly clear, these train tracks are no place for riding to the right of traffic, so I didn't. Here's the video:

After reviewing the video, I can see that crossing the first two tracks at the correct angle took me just far enough to the right for the truck to think they could get by. I now approach these tracks on the left edge of the left tire track, so crossing those first two sets of tracks leaves me in the centre of the lane. When I am that far to the left though, I begin worrying about being passed on the right, which I welcome even less than the pass you just saw. It's kind of a no-win situation I guess.

The video doesn't look anywhere near as bad as it felt on the bike. I have a pretty high tolerance for close passing, but this felt way too close. Remembering that the camera is mounted on my handlebars, you can imagine that the stuff attached to the side of the truck came pretty darn close to my head. I was in the centre of the lane, and the driver must have known I had no interest in his squeezing by. To do it while we were crossing multiple train tracks was just stupid. I know that for the cyclists who visit this blog, stuff like this is nothing new; it happens all the time. I just wish it didn't.

If any of you cycling educators out there have opinions on how I could do this crossing more safely, let 'er rip. I am open to all suggestions other than walking the bike or riding on the sidewalk.

Keep it Upright,

R A N T W I C K