10 things you can do to make bicycle commuting a super easy transition in your complex, multi-faceted, high demand, no-margin-for-error life
1. Use a dry cleaner that will deliver your clothes to your work. Your clothes laundered or dry cleaned and have them delivered to your work every week.
2. Have the foods that you will eat often delivered to your work either through a CSA program or internet delivery.
3. Don’t try to commute on a Monday morning. Instead, drive in to work on Monday with extra clothes and food for the week and run errands that day. Tuesday through Friday you only have to ride your bike there and back! Easy!
4. Do a trial run. Ride your bike to work on a day off. See how it feels. Make sure your bike works. Make sure you know the way, which leads me to # 5.
5. Plan your route. When I moved to Philadelphia I got tired of waiting for the bus and decided to ride my bike to school. Too bad I didn’t even know how to get there by bike; I missed every one of my morning classes and almost got slaughtered on unsafe roads. Google maps is your friend.
6. Make sure you have basic safety items: a helmet, a rear blinking red light, a front light, a jacket, a phone or phone card, some cash, a tube repair kit and pump, or a bus /metro map and a couple tokens. You may not even normally ride at tonight but if you need to stop to change a flat tire you don’t want to be riding home in total darkness. Which leads me to #7.
7. Make yourself visible, even in daylight. Just buy a couple of tiny lights on your bike and forget about them. It’s not rocket science.
8. Pack extra food or keep some at your desk. You will get hungrier riding a bike then you will sitting on your ass in a car. I like Pro Bars more than most other foods.
9. You are going to save money from not having to buy gas or transit tickets so take yourself out for a good breakfast on the way to work on day a week or a nice lunch. Dream about something killer you want or want to do and…
10. Stuff your saved money into something you really want to do.
Let me put it to you this way — most of my colleagues drive fairly new BMW’s. I own a beat-up old Volvo with a lower-rate of insurance and no monthly payments. I commute on a $50 craigslist bike that is also a classic Bianchi that automatically stops at all coffeehouses.. They spend about a hundred bucks on gas per month commuting from other cities because they say they can’t afford to live in town and THEN they complain about the parking. I live in town and spend $30 a month on gas and never complain about parking. They go on long-weekend vacations to Tahoe. I go to places like Italy and Austria for 23 days. Clearly, commuters win.
