Kiddo and spouse got drenched by a surprise rain shower biking home from school today. Once dry, kiddo expressed more respect for me as a consistent bike commuter but less respect for me as the person who decided today was a bike-to-and-from-school day.

Après un vélotaf sous la pluie, une tisane à la réglisse fait beaucoup de bien.

Le vélotaf exige de l’effort—surtout quand l’ascenseur est en panne au bureau et on doit monter son vélo électrique au 2ème étage par l’escalier.

Le vélotaf, j’aime bien. Arriver au bureau trempé et froid, après avoir survécu à qqs conducteurs inattentifs, ça, j’aime moins.

Je fais du vélotaf depuis des années, mais avec chaque petit changement de température, j’oublie complètement comment bien m’habiller.

Pretty windy this morning, which will add another dimension to bike commute safety.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we’ve reached the season where my colleagues (and students) think I’m crazy for continuing to bike commute. Despite sometimes achey fingers, the cold itself is usually easy to deal with. When I get worried is when there’s ice on the roads.

In 2022, I joined the prescription sunglasses club. It’s great, but it requires making certain I’m packing any glasses I’m not wearing. That failed yesterday, so I’m wearing old, scratched indoor glasses until I can get my good ones from work.

This morning’s freezing bike commute has me dressing like a double-balaclavad bank robber with a love for fluorescent yellow.

I ride an e-bike into work, and because an e-bike is expensive, I bring it into my office rather than lock it up at one of the bike racks on University of Kentucky campus. Because an e-bike is heavy, I also take it up the elevator to get up to the third floor, where my office is. My e-bike takes up a lot of space, but I’ve figured out how to share the elevator with others as I make my way up to my office. I lead my bike in, getting the front wheel as far toward the back of the elevator as I can, and then swing it around to the left as I pick up my rear wheel and try to tuck it in to the opposite (front) corner of the elevator. It takes a little bit of effort, but I know I can get it in there; because I also know it’s going to take some effort to get my bike out, I usually face the rear of the elevator during the ride, which is short enough that there’s no point in turning around to face “the front” of the elevator only to turn back around again to take control of my handlebars and wheel the bike back out.

Je viens de payer une facture assez chère pour faire entretenir et réparer mon vélo, mais la facture annuelle juste pour le droit de garer une voiture chez mon travail coûterait deux fois ça. Je sors donc toujours gagnant.

It is flannel shirt, heavy gloves, and balaclava season for this bike commuter, and I couldn’t be happier.

Passing a car through an intersection or keeping up with it in a roundabout is one of the greatest pleasures of commuting by e-bike.

Five flats between two bikes in six weeks (four in the last two) can’t be a world record, but it’s a personal best that I’m not interested in beating anytime soon. Wishing the bus came closer to my house, even though that commute is even longer.

Spring and fall have the best weather in all respects except for figuring out what to wear for one’s bike commute.

Got on a bike today for the first time in months. COVID has shown the flipside of tying my exercise so closely to my commute.

Bike commuting today for the first time in 5 months, Also, commuting today for the first time in 5 months.

TIL that if you don’t keep an e-bike adequately charged, all of that fancy-but-heavy pedal assist equipment is as much of a liability for your commute as it usually is an asset.

Completed a flat-tire-halfway-to-campus bike commuter’s biathlon today.

Totally blanked on bringing work clothes into the office today, so I’ll be working in the t-shirt and shorts I wore biking in. The t-shirt has an anti-imposter syndrome message, though, so that’s helping.

Bike commuting adventure of the day: Finding all the places in my office where I can discretely hang up wet clothes from a rainy commute (thank goodness for my closet full of dry work clothes).

Sometimes, being a bike commuter means spending the first 30 minutes of your work day fixing a spring clasp on a pannier.

Hard to beat coming into the office with a post-bike commute endorphin rush. Doesn’t happen every morning, but it’s always welcome when it does.

Nothing reinforces my professorial credibility quite like the wet bike gear from my rainy commute draped over the chairs in my office.