by Emily Smith | The seasons are changing, warm wooly sweaters are looking awfully appealing, and it’s about that time of year that we all get into hibernation mode. But before you put your bike in storage, I’d like to encourage you to think twice, specifically to think about how you can adapt your set up to endure the elements.
The biggest challenge that I’ve found as a bicycle commuter is that the weather is just so unpredictable. It’s important to be ready for the inevitable. A full rain suit can add up to be quite a bit of cargo, so if there’s a way to minimize the amount of material for portability while maximizing coverage, that would be ideal.
If you’ve got access to a sewing machine, and some weather-resistant fabric, I’ve put together some really great DIY tutorials out there that utilize materials like velcro and elastics to make them easy to take off and on.
Make your own shoe covers with a really simple pattern. By having a shoe cover, it means that you don’t have to bring a change of shoes, but can rather protect whatever you’re wearing. You save room in that bag and can avoid any serious damage to your favourite work shoes.
Make your own bike chaps – either from scratch or you can adapt an old pair of rain pants. To make them more portable, I like the idea of them being knee-length. Because really, the lower part of your legs get the least wet.
And of course, a rain jacket. If you’re a super-duper seamstress and want to try making your own, it’s worth a shot. However, it may prove to be a bit of a frustrating exercise, and if you’re a Vancouverite, you probably have an MEC jacket already.
Rain gear is of absolutely no use if you don’t have it on you when it rains. So, thinking about a storage solution that is on your bag is key. This solution may be a bit too small, but might prove really great for the booties. Alternatively, you can convert a messenger bag into a pannier.
Emily Smith is a graphic designer, crafter, technical writer, life-hacker, and bicycle lover. She is passionate about DIY, open-source geekery, and facilitating collaborative and creative workspaces. She is an active member of the Vancouver Hack Space (VHS) and enjoys foraging for unlikely materials and increasing bicycle safety. In her off time you can catch her spinning on a drop spindle, dyeing with found materials or knitting half a day away.
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No one should wear chaps off of Davie Street if you’re not on a horse.
Also, water runs down so the lower part of your legs does, in face, get fairly wet. Despite the fact I wear snug fitting shoe covers my shoes get damp–in part because a little bit of water creeps in over the top.
If you are already willing to buy a super expensive rain jacket from MEC, why are you hand making shoe covers?
Also – it’s funny that Scout Magazine will vilify a (admittedly stupid) restaurant for using the term “Social Dining Experience” (see: http://scoutmagazine.ca/2011/09/06/diner-dear-restaurants-for-the-love-of-god-enough-with-the-word-social-already/) – and yet will fully be behind someone using the term “life-hacker” which is about the stupidest phrase I’ve heard since hipster first entered the popular lexicon….
What’s funny is that while one is a collection of marketing terms designed to attract and accommodate the lowest common denominator and the other is a term used to describe people who make things, you nevertheless find a way in your distinction to simultaneously mock both, misquote me and describe the words hipster and life hacker as “phrases”. You may have found the joy of venturing an unsolicited opinion, but you aren’t in any danger of making sense. Thanks for reading and commenting all the same.
I presume that’s a Sinclair C5, which AFAICT was a good basic idea, let down by many shortcomings in design. A much better vehicle is a velomobile, which combines streamlining, weather protection and speed. Sadly, velomobiles and bicycles need properly segregated infrastructure and better protection by the Law, to be widely accepted as a realistic transport method.
I hope that spiralling fossil-fuel costs encourage more and more people to forsake their car for the bicycle. If they do, they’ll be happier, healthier and perhaps a little wealthier too.
@Scout Magazine
Life hacker sounds just as ridiculous as “Social Dining Lounge” does (which, by the way, was a quotation from the restaurant billboard, not a quotation from Scout Magazine, but who’s checking?) – maybe the use of hipster as an example was an ill-judged evocation of a current day Godwin’s Law but the point still stands And if you want to get nit-picky about whether hipster or life hacker are phrases, I’m sure we can go back and forth posting dictionary definitions of what a phrase is, but your point about that isn’t in any danger of making sense if we do.
It’s very easy to sit back and take pot-shots at, shall we say, less “discerning” restaurant marketers using less than perfect verbiage, but it’s seemingly much less easy for you to acknowledge the ridiculousness of perpetuating such a silly phrase as “Life Hacker” which amounts to very much the same thing. (And yes, I’m fully aware of its place as Gawker spawn)
As an aside, how possible is it for an opinion to be unsolicited if you enable comments on your website? Unless there’s an implied contract when you click submit to provide opinions in line with that of the website…..?
To stay on topic: I find a big waterproof poncho solves the rain problem (other than perhaps shoe covers – “life hack” those with a couple of plastic bags) and easily would fit in the little frame bag suggested.
You comment was very solicited. Sorry for the poor choice of words. I wrote lightly about a collection of terms that bored me in marketing. Your thing with semantics, choice and subculture is a different kind of pot shot, suggesting that people should be ashamed of the way they’re described. To stay on topic: I wear a raincoat, don’t ride a bicycle and never skate in the rain.
It was less aimed at Emily personally and more aimed at what I saw as both a slight double-standard and (actually more in line with your EXP post re: marketing terms) an example of an ever increasingly need for, most prominently, young professionals to inflate their average activities with grandiose descriptions – calling yourself a life hacker when you like DIY and arts and crafts is akin to being a garbage man and calling yourself a refuse collection agent. The activity itself is nothing to be ashamed of, but it seems to me to show a certain insecurity when you have to make up overly technical descriptions. – bloggers are particularly bad for this.
You should try riding a bicycle – it’s pretty fun.
Boooooring flameware.
Anyways, well-timed post, Emily. I just left Different Bikes and stocked up for winter… no fancy rainjacket for me, so I found a $15 plastic jacket to go over my regular riding jersey (cheap and keeps the heat in!), some cheap fenders, cheap booties (well, $40…) and I’m set. Here’s to riding in the rain!
As a newbie to commuting by bike I appreciate this post. It been pretty dry since I started riding to work in July. Not perfect weather, but not November downpour either. It never occurred to me that I could make shoe covers. Thanks.