yooperbiker

Shocked

You caught me exaggerating, that's for sure. Maybe I spent too much time in the smoke shops while I was there to remember things right.

GovernorSilver

What did you wear when you commuted 19 miles to work?

I have been to Amsterdam. My impression is that "regular clothes"-wearing people ride those bikes short distances between the train station and other location.

I do not think the existence of those guys has been disputed, due to the number of great cyclists who have hailed from Holland.

alan s 

I'm not ashamed of my physique or afraid of what others may think. I wear tight cycling clothes, and frequently go grocery shopping or pick up dinner on the way home.

Tundra_Man 

Any distance over 2 miles and I'm sweating too much to stay in work clothes. During the heat of the summer that's probably more like 1 mile.

However, my cycling clothes are decidedly non-tech: moisture wicking shirt and underwear, running shorts and tube socks. Just something so I don't have to stink up my work clothes.

I don't even own a jersey or a pair of bike shorts. I joke with a friend of mine that I don't buy any clothes that aren't sold in packs of 5.

yooperbiker

Rode my race road bike (didn't have a "commuter" bike) and wore regular bike jersey and shorts. I considered my commute a training ride really. Was fortunate to have a shower and place to store and change clothes at work. This was in San Diego California USA.

GovernorSilver

Oh, I thought you were talking about commuting in the Netherlands.

fietsbob

november 17th

its as good an underwear later as anything else *

since it will be late spring before the temperature warms up enough to have anyone see Your fashion choices ..

* toured for months in Rain Gear , did have Bike shorts on my bottom end.

wunderkind

I used to be decked out in cycling wear. But now that I switched office location (1km each way), I can bike to work faster than the process of changing clothes. The only cycling specific wear I have are pant straps to protect my slacks. Yup... livin' just like the Dutch. There's a certain sense of liberty to just hop on the bike and go....without going through some sort of transformation. It truly becomes a way of life.
Wear what makes sense.

GovernorSilver

I sometimes envy my colleagues who ride only 3 miles to work. They roll into the bike parking room looking clean and sharp with the nice dress shoes and all that..

noglider 

Not that I needed your affirmations, but it's pleasant to have my ideas reinforced. My commute is not typical of what they do in Copenhagen or Amsterdam.

InTheRain

I've gradually moved away from cycling specific clothing for my commute. I don't wear my work clothes, as they would not be comfortable or functional. I have a 2 week wardrobe of work clothes kept at the work site. I have a brooks b-17 special saddle and I find it to be very comfortable as long as I wear briefs as my closest layer to the skin. I'll either wear shorts, a track pant, or my REI mistral pants as the top layer. I've even switched from SPD cycling shoes to waterproof hiking boots for the wet season (but, if I like it, I might just wear running shoes in the dry season.) Smartwool socks. Tech t-shirt. Smartwool quarter zip medium weight sweater (when needed.) Patagonia rain jacket (when needed.) REI waterproof bottoms (when needed.) I still wear a helmet, but I'm thinking of ditching it so that I can wear ski goggles when it's cold. Really the only bike specific piece of clothing that I wear on a regular basis is a high vis yellow softshell rain repellent jacket that has a longer tail and pockets in the back. I haven't found myself using the pockets (everything is in my panniers.) I wear it because it is very breathable and it's high vis.

I still wear cycling specific clothing on my road bike when I go on rides of more than 10 miles.

Jim from Boston

I think I'll switch to cycling clothing

IMO three miles is too short for a (training) cycle commute. Mine is 14 miles, and easily extended. So I wear Spandex shorts, with or without tights, clipless pedals on the road bike, or some kind of shoe coverings on the beater bike, jacket(s) as needed, but no cycling jersey.

What I would consider enviable in my situation is that I wear surgical scrubs all day long. I’m usually clean enough after my ride, though showers are available, because I shower at home. Personally if I need to wear “nice” clothes, I would be uncomfortable without a shower (not just a sponge-down) because I like to start fresh in that circumstance.

I don’t need to transport or launder clothes, just exchange them, and keep a few nice things at work. I even wear a scrub top as my riding shirt. As I have occasionally posted,

GovernorSilver

Well, a lot of my fellow bike-riding coworkers just ride bikes for transportation, just like their counterparts in Netherlands, Denmark, etc. There are a few who are serious about racing, but they are decidedly in the minority. I've counted only 3 guys at work who commute in racing kit.

Some overenthusiastic racer tried to convince me to get into it too, but he doesn't understand that I just don't feel like putting in the time for that stuff. I'd rather work on my gymnastic ring and parallette skills, as opposed to working on raising my average speed on a bike, top speed, climbing speed and all that other sportive cycling stuff.

So obviously, I don't treat my commute ride as "training" either, even when I do ride 14 miles (happens sometimes).

I got the cycling specific shorts (I guess they'd be considered "mountain bike shorts" rather than road bike shorts) because they came with the chamois pad, pockets, and reflective striping - pretty convenient for commuting. I got the cycling specific socks because they were on sale for cheap and had one feature that I thought would be useful for commuting - they dry real fast! I got the jacket because it was on sale for a good deal, and had the cycling specific features that I thought would be useful for commuting (eg. vents). I didn't get any of these things because I thought they'd make me a competitive racer!

"enviable"??? I know people who work in the medical profession. While I respect what you all do for a living - truly noble professions imo - I don't envy any of you at all. You guys and gals have crazy schedules and other crap that you deal with that I'm glad I don't deal with in my day job.

When I said I envy some coworkers, I really mean I envy them being able to roll in, park their bikes, and go straight to work, whereas I want to take a shower and all that because of the accumulated sweat. Where you see a 3-mile commute as a disadvantage, I see no disadvantage all all. I'd probably just do more sets of pistol (one-leg) squats or something (currently that something is practicing the Tuck Sit to Bent Arm Stand on the parallettes), shower at home, then enjoy my leisurely 3-mile ride to work.

GeneO 

That is about my shortest route - 26 mi RT. I can't imagine doing it in street clothes. You can get pretty sweaty in 13 mi even in cool weather.

sotramk

Good luck with your shoulders. Are both acting up ?
I had frozen shoulders over a two year period. First year was the right shoulder, secound year the left....sucked real bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhesi...is_of_shoulder

Geekage

I understand. After my accident where I injured my shoulder, cycling was easier than driving. In cycling, I didn't use a wide range of motion in my shoulders because there's only so far that you can turn the handlebars and you're not really holding your arms up. Vs. with a car steering wheel where your hands can go across your body, need to be lifted up or down a foot, and require you to exert more force than a handlebar.

Yeah, my doctor said not to ride, but what he really meant was not to crash an exacerbate my injury.

GovernorSilver

Sorry to hear that. Good luck with the physical therapy. I went through physical therapy for one of my shoulders after I dropped a kettlebell in the wrong direction. After enough visits to PT, I was able to gradually work back towards regular exercise.

loky1179

Public transportation in the U.P.??? I assume you must mean hopping a passing freight train.

bmthom.gis

The switch to cycling clothes is worth it IMO for anything over a few miles. I am much, much more comfortable in lycra on a road bike and anything more than say, 5-6 miles. I generally do not stop on the way in or home from work - if I need to make a stop or pick something up I will do it during the day, and if that require me to go more than a few blocks I will jump on my Raleigh Sports I leave at the office.

If I multi-mode commute, I'll just ride in my work clothes. In the summer, I get sweaty. I dry up eventually. I wouldn't want to wear those clothes though for a long ride, or on a road bike. For me, for a good fit the saddle is up high enough to be a real pain in anything but lycra, as it can get caught on my inseam of jeans or shorts. Plus, South Carolina gets hot. My city is the screen door to Hell. There's nothing quite so unpleasant as cotton or denim on a hot day, or as anything as annoying as baggy pants in the cold.

Since I already have a decent supply of bike specific clothing, I see no reason to wear gym type clothes instead. If the only riding I did was commuting, maybe that's what I would do, but I am at heart a roadie.

noglider 

You ain't kidding!

Here's something weird. I rode both ways yesterday in my bike clothes plus my jacket. The jacket was too warm, but I kept it on. Now my clothes don't smell at all. That's a surprise.

My shoulders may well be frozen shoulders or whatever it's called. The right one has bothered me for two or three months now. Now the left one is starting to act up. No diagnosis yet, but I feel I'm in good hands. I'm waiting to hear from the doctor. Hmm, I better call. He was supposed to call by now. Why do they promise to call and then not call? I feel like a young woman who just had a date with a handsome and irresponsible man.

RidingMatthew

@noglider aka Tom ! i hope that your shoulders are able to heal up quickly.

I ride around 11miles one way and I can not imagine riding without wearing cycling clothes especially during the summer. I look forward to putting on the lycra and riding home.

I dont really do an errands on my commute. I have ridden to a bike advocacy meeting and put some Umbros over my bike shorts basically for the other people in the Restaurant/ grocery store/ coffee spot.

noglider 

I rarely do errands either. I don't carry a lock, as my bike is already much too heavy. I'm thinking of doing something about that, too. Now I understand these "cat 6 commuters" on their racing bikes. The Volpe is perfectly comfortable, but I might arrive a little fresher if I rode a lighter bike more often. A couple of weeks ago, I had a lot of fun commuting on my new Lemond racing bike, largely because it's so darned light.

Marc40a

26 Miles RT here, as well.

I always wear bike short liners: Men's Liner Short - Pearl Izumi

I wear technical shorts (hiking/rock climbing) or tech pants over them. These stretchy pants/shorts are a revelation for all sporting activities.

This time of year, I switch to tights. Again, with tech shorts over them.

Tops are different tech layers (sleeveless baselayer, polartec power dry, fleece vest, etc.) with a biking shell or vest over them.

I will say... the clothes really pile up this time of year.

Jim from Boston

Hi @GovernorSilver,

Thanks for reading and replying to my post. From your reply, you seem to have quite a community of cyclists at your workplace. At my hospital, I know of only one other cycle commuter. In the parlance of the Living Car Free Forum, he would be considered “car-lite,” since he cycles the two miles from the airport to the hospital when he flies his plane in from his Vermont vacation home (he is a serious road cyclist though. but I presume he drives from his vacation home to the airport in VT).

I used your post as a springboard to discuss my own particular (enviable IMO) manner of dressing for cycle commuting and dress at work. In a sense your comments about my post all tie together my cycling lifestyle. I had replied previously to this Living Car Free Forum, "What stops you from riding?"

And to this General Cycling thread,”Embracing my inner slug”

So in summary, I like my Medical job, but it keeps me so busy that it restrict my riding, mostly commuting, my best chance to ride. Cycling is desirable for me mainly for fitness more than recreation so I commute to train, yet my job restricts that training. Yet because training (fitness) is so important to me, I make more time for cycling (away from my busy job, and family life) which gets me on the road far more than fun (or a short 3-mile commute). When asked why I don’t move closer to the hospital, my reply is that 14 miles is a perfect one-way cycle commuting distance.

Furthermore, relevant to this thread is that not having to carry special work clothes makes it easy to ride in spandex on my high end carbon fiber bike which further encourages me to ride.

GovernorSilver

Yes, we have a bike parking room and our own workplace mailing list. When I look around the bike room, I see a variety of bikes: racing road bikes, touring road bikes, a CX bike here or there, and a lot of townie or otherwise "upright" city bikes. There's even a couple that have infant/small child seats attached.

A few months ago, someone organized a workplace group ride from here in DC out to Olney, MD - nearly 30 miles with an elevation gain of 500 ft. When I saw the ride pics posted a few days later, the participation turned out to be low - definitely less than 10 riders. So we have some "serious" (whatever that means) cyclists, but they're in the minority. I didn't participate because they didn't post an average pace (15 mph sustained over 20 miles is too much for me - that or faster would kill me), and there were other things to do that weekend.

Thanks for the clarifications. I can only imagine how busy you must be. My cousin was already working 80 hrs/week as a hospital intern, and the hours got crazier once he "turned pro".

Most of the riders here are more casual as cyclists - "leisurely glide to/from work (because there's no real hills)" types. Our in-house gym seems to be fairly popular - I'm guessing quite a few of my fellow workplace riders go there regularly. In a way, it's a good thing I don't live in the neighborhoods a lot of these leisurely riders live in, because I'd be spending a lot more money at the excellent bars and restaurants in the area. When I arrive home after my 13-ish mile commute ride, I just want to stretch, shower and eat a quickly prepared home-cooked meal, with some glasses of wine.