Every time I wear this tee, my boys comment that the drawing actually looks like me a bit-- it's not quite my hair and I do always ride with a helmet, but I wear glasses and yes, I have been known to let long periods go by without shaving my legs (great detail on the shirt that I don't know if you can see in this photo).At some point in school today, I looked down and saw this.
Yes, I was wearing my right pant leg still clipped.
I was spoiled in the past. Given that our bakfiets had a fully enclosed chainguard (and skirt guard), I never needed to worry about what I was wearing while riding. When we switched over to riding the Yuba this summer, I either sported shorts or capri pants so I never thought much about the pants-getting-stuck-in-the-chain thing. Last week, I had a rude awakening within a block of leaving the house when the bottom of my pants caught in the chain. I was lucky that I held on and didn't dump the fellas in the back. I had to quickly pull over, ask the boys to dismount, free my pants from the chain, and tuck and roll the right pants leg so we could continue the ride.
I now clip my pants when riding. Yet when I arrived at school today, I forgot to liberate my pant leg from this oh-so-attractive neon orange binding so was walking around just so.
Bike Geekery at its finest....
p.s. Any Yuba owners out there adapt some sort of chainguard for your bike? Would love to see some examples.
5 comments:
Hi - I love that you love the Bike Geek t-shirt! Thank you for highlighting Lofty Mornings again. :-) I think someone needs to design some stylin' pant leg straps! That way you'll want to wear them all day and you'll look good doing it.
I find the nice thing about being forty-something (fifty something just around the corner!) is that I as much as I like to "look nice" I really don't seem to care as much as I used to. And after ruining a nice white skirt that was flapping against my chain (without me realizing) I'm all for doing whatever it takes to keep clothes away from the chain.
I keep thinking that I'm going to start bike commuting I'm going to start bike commuting (like the little engine that could) and your blog keeps reminding me that I need to start bike commuting!
That does look like you, so happy and free! That is aggravating with the chain, but you might be starting a new style trend (I have been known to get to my car and realize that a. I am still wearing slippers or b. I am not wearing any shoes at all).
We put a chainguard on the Yuba first thing-- this one, from V-O, works great (though not compatible with a front derailleur, which we don't use). http://www.velo-orange.com/voalpoch.html
I experience the bike geek rolled or clipped pant leg constantly. This spring my chain made a pair of my pants into capris, and I've been pretty careful about always keeping the right leg rolled up, but this means I forget about it and don't notice until much later. Like recently while getting off a 6 hour flight and looking down to find I hadn't unrolled it from my ride that morning! It's a good feeling though. :-)
Post a Comment