If you commute every day or nearly every day, in all kinds of atrocious weather, this is for you. For those riders who are Road Grimed Astronauts and use their bikes for daily transportation, errands and last but not least, who commute as much as they can. If you ride mostly for fun, sport, entertainment and relaxation, or if you commute only when the weather is perfect, you may still like - and relate - to some of this, too.
I am one of those everyday commuters. Either via a bicycle, an e-bicycle or my motorcycle. I almost always ride there. All three of these machines are relatively filthy with use, wear and weathering. My commute is an easy five miles, all on surface roads and a few blocks of dense congested traffic with crowds of pedestrians everywhere. My groceries and shopping errands require freeway miles and some steep hills. I choose which machine depending mostly on the weather, and on the time available. The more perfect the day, the more likely it is that I’ll pedal. But throw in a little wind and cold and I’m on the e-bike. Add to the mix a little rain, sleet or even a little snow, or if I’m running really late and then I’m motoring. The protection offered by my R-3 suit, Elkskin gloves and Nolan Xlite modular helmet is just too nice to pass up.
These three machines are far from pristine examples of the latest-greatest models, too. The pedal bike is an ancient 26” wheeled folding bike called a Montague which supposedly was originally developed to be air-dropped with landing troops. I bought this as a basket of parts for $120 from a somewhat shady fellow who may have acquired it dishonestly some time earlier. I’ll never know. All he told me is he’d enjoyed riding it for a few years and then things on it started breaking and he took it apart to fix them and never put it back together. It’s been a fabulous cheap commute bike, and is today covered in a patina of abuse and long wear. It’s on its second fork, third or fourth chain and chainwheels, brake pads and various small parts. When I get to the local grocery co-op and lock it to the bike rack next to all the clean modern bikes there, the younger hipper riders either give it a wide birth or stare at it questioningly. It stands out, it is different, it works great and I really like it. Folded, it fits nicely in the trunk of even a small car or the back of a compact SUV, which is a real bonus. I love riding it.
The e-bike is similar but is only four years and 4,000 miles old. It was bought new from an online selling e-bike company called FLX, and like the Montague it’s a little different looking in its acquired grubbiness. It was delivered in a big box and was easy to set up. Because it is a lower-end machine it’s had its share of mechanical problems, but nothing I haven’t been able deal with. Its aluminum frame was incorrectly designed and cracked after a couple of years where the seat post is connected to the top tube. That has now been repair-welded three times: first badly, the second time well and the third time also well plus a small fabricated stiffing gusset. With the extra long seat post I added, and the nice gusset, I think it now is fixed for good. The semi-crude repair job is unpainted, and I have no plans to change this. The frame mounted 500w motor’s handlebar mounted instrument and control panel had to be replaced at around 3,000 miles to correct a problem and its now on its third or fourth rear cluster and its second front chain wheel and chain. The forks have been apart once to fix a locked-up-solid problem, and the brake pads recently wore out and were easily replaced. Like the other bikes, its grips have worn smooth in places, too. But basically it is a pretty good bike for what it is, and for how I use it. Like the other bicycle, switching this one from its original 1.9 x 27.5 semi-knobbies to smooth treaded and slightly oversize pavement-only tires (Schawble 2.4 x 27.5 Super Moto X) has been a wonderful improvement. This year its original 17a 36v battery has started to fade, but I just bought another one directly from China, thanks to the amazing internet.
The motorcycle is the easiest to describe. It’s a 1994 Honda XR650L which I bought new that year and which is still chugging around just fine on its second piston. There’s a long list of modifications which you can see on this video I made about it in 2021:
When you choose to ride this way, you don’t profile well to both the general public and among other motorcycle and bicycle riders. For example, you’ll walk into a business meeting after riding through terrible rain to get there and water will be pooling around your feet and some otherwise intelligent person will ask: “Did you ride your bike?” The room will get quiet and you’ll just stand there dripping and holding your helmet grinning like a fool. Like the fool everyone in the room thinks you are.
It's not a competition to see who is the hardest-core rider, either. This isn’t a contest. We all want to fit in. And to be popular. To have the approval of others. The only contest is within ourselves. Some of us want to ride as much as possible. For their own psychological, neurological, physiological, environmental and financial reasons. Psychologists have given a name for the universal wanting-to-fit-in stuff: allodoxaphobia. According to this essay in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, it means:
“In the worst cases, anxiety about the approval of others can blow up into a debilitating fear, a diagnosable psychological condition called “allodoxaphobia.” Even if it doesn’t become a mental illness, worrying about the opinions of others can lower your basic competence in ordinary tasks, such as making decisions. When you are thinking about what to do in a particular situation—say, whether to speak up in a group—a network in your brain that psychologists call the “behavioral inhibition system” (BIS) is naturally activated, which allows you to assess the situation and decide how to act (with a particular focus on the costs of acting inappropriately). When you have enough situational awareness, the BIS is deactivated and the “behavioral activation system” (BAS), which focuses on rewards, kicks in.”
- excerpt from Atlantic Monthly article, 'No One Cares' by Arthur C. Brook
The essay says there is a cure: Ignore them. The yahoos. The normal people. Own your sh-t. Here’s what the author recommends:
“1. Remind yourself that no one cares.
2. Rebel against your shame.
3. Stop judging others.”
The full Atlantic Monthly article, ‘No One Cares’ by Arthur C. Brook, is here. It’s not too long and explains all the underlying stuff a lot better than I.
I say only one thing. Ride there if you can. Just ride, if that is what you want to do. Riding will quickly become easier and easier, and safer and safer, because the more you do it the more accomplished and fluent you’ll become. And yes, you’ll be better off for it. Within a week or two, riding for utility transportation will become the best part of your day, no matter what the weather or destination.
- Mr. Subjective, 11-21
PS – I do own a car, two actually. One I bought new and have had for 48 years, maintaining it almost entirely myself. It has just over 100,000 miles and these days carries ‘hobby car’ insurance limited to under 1000 miles of driving a year. The other car is on my homeowner policy and is typical car insurance. On an early summer day about twenty years ago I brought that one in to the usual place for an oil change. They’ve taken care of it for me for many years and at that time they’d recently started keeping computer service records for each of their regular customer’s cars. When I came in to pick it up a day or two later, the service writer looked up from his screen as he handed me the invoice and key and said: “I think your car’s odometer might be broken. Our records show only 136 miles since you brought it in last fall.” I grinned and replied: “No, that’s correct. I just don’t drive it very much.”
PPS - This means I’ve become a comparatively awful car driver. Before coming over to the single-track side (the dark side, Luke), I drove ok. Both cars have manual transmissions and I enjoy driving them, but I’m pretty terrible at it now.
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PPPS - This is what transportation riding during the winter here looks like from one of our webcams. It’s far riskier and less safe than riding the rest of the year. You have to pick your days and ride extra cautiously. An added and constant problem is road salt, which admittedly makes the streets rideable more days. The practice causes two problems: 1.) When it’s warm enough so the salt melts the snow there is a brown runny watery brine everywhere that is messy as hell to ride in. Every passing car (in both directions) leaves a fine mist of it hanging in the air which gets all over the bike, clothing, gloves, helmet, face shield. It’s terrible. 2.) When the temperature drops so the salt stops working, the roads dry up nicely but whenever you are behind any other vehicle the displaced air and tires kick the salt/brine dust into the air and you have to breath it. If you ride any distance in conditions like this when you arrive anywhere you want to take a wet paper towel and wipe the dust accumulation off your face. Using your tongue you can taste the salt dust on your lips. Salting roads where it is not critical is terrible for the environment, buildings, vehicles and people. There is almost nothing good about it. It is a hold-over from the days gone by when snow removal technologies (plows, etc) were not as good, and cars did not have all-wheel drive or snow tires. There is no excuse for it today. Except by the people who mine and ship and apply it, who have an interest in keeping up the costly practice for economic reasons.
PPPPS - Hoping to put up a short vlog post about how this 'winter' bike was set up soon.
I am a 90% year round commuter in the Chicagoland area (won’t ride when the roads are actively slick from snow or ice)…and yes, that leads to a lot of strange looks and “You rode today!?!” comments. There is no reply that satisfies the majority my coworkers which is fine but some of the more entertaining ones:
When it is pouring down rain “I was born mostly waterproof and suit fills in the gaps Mother Nature included.”
When it is 15f “Yeah, I forgot to put on my heated gear so my neck got bit chilly.”
95f and I show up in the full R3 “You are right, it is hot but that is the point…jealous?”
Really want them to question your sanity? Tell your coworkers the reason you asked for 3 days in Mid-November off for 5-day motorcycles ride…to Duluth for fitting of a new Aerostich then on to International Falls after visiting the lost towns of the Iron Range. “Wait, you are riding to coldest town in the Continental US in November!?!” Its not like I am doing it in February…sheesh!
I’m the brother of “Mad Mick” who commented earlier. I’ve been retired 8 years now and consequently my bike, a CBF1000FGT, just sits in the backyard most of the year doing nothing – I’d sell it, but don’t need the money and nobody will offer a reasonable price for a bike “sound but weathered”. I remember a few years ago, when I was commuting 35 miles each way to work each day on a ratty CG125, me and my brother attending a Honda test day to ride a few bikes neither of us could ever remotely afford and we got chatting to the local Honda dealer who was then, perhaps, in his early 60’s like I am now. As we were talking to him about how he kept his riding up at his age he mused about how bearing the weather was getting harder, then turned to us and said offhandedly “but you two don’t feel the cold…” – obviously we did and do, but it said something I kinda liked the sound of.
I think Mad Mick has, in a nutshell, much of what I have been trying to explain to people for years… Not so much “why” as “why not”… I have been riding for 34 years and commuted and rode for the hell of it for all of that. When I lived in SW UK it was virtually 365 riding if possible and now I’m much further north I get weathered off for a month or so each year but as the saying goes, “a day not riding is a day wasted”… I explain with no real irony that winter riding just makes the summer better… A good ride in the wet just hones your skills doesn’t it… :) The laugh in our household is really, if I’m pushed, I don’t really want to go anywhere very far not on the bike and all bikes must be able to commute, tour, shop and do those without spending a week prepping and polishing…. Yep, I do have a 2 piece Roadcrafter… Just pure practical class and a bit of grime just makes them better… After all, if your riding, the only mirror you need are the ones to see behind you…
Riding a motorbike is an odd thing to some, riding when it looks like rain, stranger still, riding when it’s ‘chucking it down’, freezing cold, icy or snowy.. sheer Madness to most.
They’re not wrong, there’s a certain mindset required to don your kit and step out on some days.
Riding to work on a dimly lit, grime covered dual carriageway at 5:30am, accompanied only by bleary eyed truckers, with hands like ice, a body trying to shrink itself somehow to magically avoid the windchill, and a dew-drop freezing on the end of your nose somehow isn’t attractive to all, yet I found it oddly compelling.
Though rare, (and completely avoidable with cheap cars readily available), the ‘motorsickle commuter syndrome’ affliction, seems a necessity to some of us.
It’s a perverse combination, an inability to ‘conform’, a desire to stand out and be different just ‘because’, a love for the mechanics involved in the whole process, the ritualistic dressing in gear, dragging the bike out, firing it up and riding off into the sunset (or more often the gloom).
In spite (or perhaps because) of the effort, fear, and indeed pain involved on occasion, the sheer joy only a motorcycle can supply through every sensory point on your body, like an injection directly into your soul, demands we keep doing it.
I spent almost 27 years commuting every day on a variety of motorcycles, the choice of bike mostly dependant on the stretched finances that are an inevitably consequence of a ‘loving relationship’ with my wife, (aka being ‘four kids skint’), however all those bikes were bought based on their ability to perform as a tool rather than a toy.
I still work, but no longer commute, instead I usually fly off somewhere for a couple of weeks, or work from home. My current bike, possibly the most competent ‘tool’ I’ve ever owned, a 650 Vstrom, is used mainly for tours in Europe , trips to the Isle of Man TT races, but also, whenever possible, for any/every local trip whatever the weather.
As a motorcycle commuter I would always get confused when ‘biker’ friends would ask if I wanted to go on a ‘rideout’ ..
Eh.? why use up your fuel/time to go somewhere you don’t need to go when you can simply ride your bike to work every day.?
I was mystified, yet now find myself looking for excuses to use my bike, not only because I miss the daily ride, but also because my inactivity has led to a diminished skill set when I do ride.
Like everything, especially for those of us who are of a more ‘mature and experienced’ vintage, continued use is required to maintain both physical and mental ability.
My 2-piece Roadcrafter is 20 years old next year, it has been a wonderful companion, and though in need of a little freshen up to the consumables (Velcro, zips etc are due replacement), I’m confident it will continue to carry my bones on the trips I’ve planned in my head for many years to come.
I don’t miss my commute as such, but I constantly yearn to be out riding more.
So whatever you do, commuter or sunshine rider, for as long as you can, for your body and soul, I urge you to.. ‘keep on keeping on’.
Mad Mick
Grimsby
England.
I’m reading your year end Top 5, so I’m waaay late, but very keen observations here. The salt dust I know from winter training rides on my bicycle. I commute by motorcycle when I can, but I just fixed a fueling problem when the pandemic hit, and now I mainly work from home.
I’m not trying to fool anyone, I don’t and never will ride places as much as you. A motorcycle was my only transport during college, though, so even though I only needed to ride every so often, I do know what it’s like to ride in winter, through pouring rain, and make the necessary bank and grocery runs.
To close, let me just say, “Maybe you have allodoxaphobia, Charlie Brown. Do you know what allodoxaphobia is?”
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