Recently in Commuting Category

With the cold arriving in London, it looks like autumn has lasted all of a couple of days. London Cyclist Blog has got their winter motivating in motion, so I thought it my civic duty to do likewise.

Mudguards

Wet feet, rainwater splash, grit and sundry other forms of road grim are the constant companions of cyclists between November and April. The single best solution to minimising their effect is a set of full-length mudguards.

They may not be sexy but they massively reduce the amount of damp spraying off the frame and onto the rider. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence that they are a highly effective theft deterrent as well.

Clip-on guards will stop the worst of it hitting your back but as much water hits a rider when deflected off the seat and down tubes. I sometimes think that I probably get as wet from water coming up as down.

Cost: 20 pounds or so, plus a bit of labour if you get your local bike shop to fit them. It's cheaper than a pair of overshoes and not much more than waterproof socks but probably just as effective as either overall.

Gloves

There's plenty of cycle specific ones out there but the best pair of winter gloves I've got are some leather ones from M&S with a fleece lining.

I think they're pretty similar to these leather gloves from M&S

Barring torrential rain or extreme cold, I think leather gloves represent the best value protection versus durability for everyday use and you can wear them other than for cycling.

Hat

Finding the right hat makes a world of difference. It needs to be the right balance between warm and comfortable. For me there's one hat that has been fitting the bill for the last two winters: Rapha's winter hat

Jacket

There is no "right" jacket. Some days you want to go slow and keep warm, others you'll want to scream through the streets with the cold making your eyes stream as you get a good sweat on. Pick your jacket depending on the day and your mood.

Reflecting back on Cycle, the London bike show at Earls Court, I was reading Carlton Reid's thoughts over on quickrelease.tv and I think he's right about how the industry is missing a coming trend:

"Don't get me wrong, aspirational bikes are good and a show stuffed with stealth black hybrids and Dutch roadsters would turn off the techies, but if Joe Breeze is right, 'transportation bikes' will become a bigger category than the mountain bike was in the '80s and '90s. If so, the bike trade is in the pre-MTB phase of largely ignoring what's staring them in the face." - quickrelease.tv

But where I disagree is on what constitutes a "transportation bike". For me any bike has the potential to be a transportation bike rather than a specific style of bike, as seems to be the way they are presented at present. The brief that I would put together for one is less a feature of design as an ethic of use:

A transportation bike is any bicycle that can transport the rider and their goods safely between two points without requiring them to adapt their mode of clothing to do so.

Based on that I'd argue that the trend is a change in philosophy of use, rather than the specific type of bike in use. And coming back to Carlton's view that the industry is missing a trick this was most evident in the sector where I think there's scope for huge invention: accessories.

Looking around the show I didn't see many of those things that make life easy for people to use their bike for transportation everywhere: luggage, racks, clothing, lighting, mudguards. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.

There were a few items which I think are already ahead of the curve. For example, the Knog lights which I'm thinking of investing in. They've got what I'd call a "non-proprietary fixing" which I think is their brilliant USP: no need for an annoying bracket that only works with one brand of light and which is a right bugger to replace if it goes missing or gets broken/stolen.

You can buy them from the London Cycle Chic Shop from as little as 7 GBP.

Winter has finally arrived rolling across London with thick morning fog the last couple of days. It's even forced the thick Altura winter jacket out of the closet, although it's gone back in now that I've remembered just how much it makes me sweat. I think I may have to look at a softshell to replace it - Rapha and Howies are top of the list and I think we all know which one I really want. Better start saving then.

More importantly I'd better start training properly. I've noticed I've put on something monumentally stupid like 5kg since the summer and not all of that can be muscle. I've not even been out on my good bike since I flipped the stem and had my cyclefit. I would have gone out on Saturday but there's some last minute Christmas stuff to be done so I might settle for riding down to my mum's on Sunday if I don't go out on a club ride.

From mid-January I won't be doing my daily 30-minute-each-way commute which, ironically, may actually be beneficial as it will mean I'm not going to be too tired to train as a result of commuting. That doesn't mean I won't be cycling to work. Obviously I will be enjoying the five-minute blast up the road to work.

Tomorrow is another chance to commute in thick fog probably which is actually more fun than it should be, just so long as you don't get too distracted by watching your own breath condensing in front of you.

Well, I've moved offices which means I'm having to work on a new route in. Instead of the flat side of High Street Kensington and through Hyde Park I'm now north of the park and go up Holland Park Drive before cutting through Connaught Square and other unfamiliar places to get to Fitzrovia.

I don't think my route is as quick as it should be so I need to sit down wit the A to Z and memorise a quick one. Maybe it's just down to a lack of familiarity once I get past the Lancaster Gate roundabout, but that stretch seems to take forever.

On the way back I keep on finding myself drifting up Oxford Street as I've not figured out a more suitable path out again. It feels like being a small dinghy in one of the great harbours of the world. You ghost along praying that the towering hulks of double deckers don't decide to take against you.

You can gently glide against the side of the stationary ones if you so dare but you do so while praying that they don't decide to move towards you and crush you. It's a ridiculously congested route and I'm deperate to find another route out that isn't too circuitous.

It should have been a day like any other: pedal to work far too fast while half awake, spend the rest of the day regretting not stretching enough; then cycle home slightly tired and try to remember what I actually planned to buy when I find myself at the checkout in Waitrose on High Street Kensington (I never do remember and I never do come home with what I planned to get).

But today's ride home threw up two events which are cause for remark and rejoice at bit that not every driver in London is hellbent on driving cyclists off the road. Actually, I know most aren't but that's the way a certain section of the "cyclists" lobby likes to paint them. Sadly, this is the lobby that likes to make a lot of noise in a way which tars us all with the brush marked "self-righteous pricks".

Firstly, hammering down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace and trying to get across one lane from the kerb the white van behind me slowed and held its position thus giving me room to manoeuvre out after signalling. Heck, if we hadn't been bombing along at around the 35kph mark I would have let him pull alongside and then pinched him to check he was real. Good thing I didn't seeing as it turned out to be a police van.

Secondly, rolling down High Street Kensington, where you have to keep your eyes open as traffic springs from all sides, a black cab found itself on the inside of me. It needed to get round a carelessly parked car on the left. Instead of squeezing me wider to get out he actually looked in his blind spot, waited for me to back off and then moved out.

I'm still baffled at such gentillesse de route. I'm not expecting it to happen again tomorrow but wouldn't it be nice to be surprised?