Ever since I started biking, I’ve wondered at some of my fellow riders – the guys who you’ll see pedaling down the street in dockers, dress shirts and loafers, ties cinched around their necks, laptops bungeed to their panniers, heading to (usually) some state or non-profit office.  I asked – how do they manage that and not reek like a bear in the office?

Yesterday’s PiPress has the answer: not always very well:

“There’s a significant number of people who will not bike to work” without a place to keep their bike, store their clothes and clean up, said Billy Binder, a member of bicycle advisory committees for the city of Minneapolis and Hennepin County. “If you’re sweaty, who’s going to sit there in business clothes?”

Yet a growing number of two-wheeled road warriors insist they are doing it without offending their co-workers.

“So far, nobody’s ever said, ‘Eeeewie, go find a shower,’ ” Chuck Laszewski said.

For years, Laszewski has ridden six miles from his home in Falcon Heights to work in downtown St. Paul, previously as a reporter with the Pioneer Press and now as communications director for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

Laszewski changes his clothes at work, but like many bike commuters, he says most summer days it’s cool enough in the morning that a cyclist who isn’t trying to break a time-trial record won’t get too hot and need a shower.

“Most summer days, it’s about 70 degrees when I get to work, so you’re not going to get into a huge sweat,” he said.

On the few days when it’s really steamy, he brings a towel to dry off before he gets to his desk. “God bless Madison Avenue. They do know how to make a good deodorant in this country,”

One hopes so.

And what’s this “if you’re not trying to break a time trial” BS?   Of course  I am.

If you’re pushing it all the way, it’s testing your limits (however feeble your limits may be); you’re pushing yourself.  You’re getting a much better workout.  You’re getting to work or home faster. You’re giving yourself something to live for; that adrenaline rush that comes from passing someone 15 years younger than you wearing lycra and riding a bike that costs more than my car.  It’s the thrill of “Victory”, or at least of blowing other peoples’ cranks off.

Otherwise, you’re just commuting.  And you can do that in a car or on the bus, for crying out loud.

There was a shower at work when Jay Walljasper was editor of the Utne Reader, but Walljasper said he rarely used it after biking to work.”I never had any complaints from my colleagues about my slovenliness or unpleasant odors coming from my direction,” he said.

But then, you were the editor.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 6:30 am and is filed under Geekery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.