7 Hacks To Make Commuting By Bike Work For You | Cycle Commuting Made Easy

whether you're a new beats are commuting by bike or a seasoned diehard all-weather veteran it's always worth thinking about ways you can make your commute easier less stressful and altogether more enjoyable and with a bit of forward planning and preparation you can do just that making sure you get to work feeling fresh looking a million dollars and smelling like smells good bacon weird freshly baked cookies so in this video we're gonna give you loads of tips on how you can make you commute more fun and smell like cookies amongst other things but before we do that we're gonna have a quick poll in the app to see how many of you actually do commute so get involved click on-screen I'll take you through the poll me out and you do that now first up imagine the scenario it's Monday you're tired probably a little bit grumpy because you've got to go to work but you get to ride your bike see you're already winning but wait before you leave the house make sure you pack a bag full of clean clothes that you're gonna need for the rest of the working week that way you won't have to lug a big bag in on your commute for the rest of the week carrying clean clothes everyday genius here's my bag this has got all the clothes I'm gonna need for this week in the office so I brought a GCN t-shirt some GCN club socks and a pair of pants this one is a tough one here at GCN as you've probably gathered many of us commute by bike here and it means that fighting for shower space can often be a daily battle now if you're lucky enough to work in a place where there are showers that can help you freshen up then perhaps consider getting to work a little bit earlier or later so that you can miss the rush in the main peak demand time for the showers trust me if your commute is longer than five minutes long your coworkers are gonna be really thankful that you've freshened up and if your place of work doesn't have shower facilities a lot of them don't then there are other options perhaps there's a gym that's close by to where you work and you can use the shower facilities there the take home message have a shower unless of course you're antisocial and like the idea of having an entire office to yourself [Music] you never know when you're gonna need lights when you're riding to work and if you commute on busy roads then I'd recommend actually using daytime running lights as this is a really sensible thing to do but sometimes you can get delayed and held up meaning that even if you weren't expecting to ride in the dark that's exactly what you can end up doing so always be prepared maybe have a set of emergency lights at work and if you're riding in winter where it's often dark then it's worth putting your lights on charged as soon as you get to the office you don't want to set off in the dark and then realize that actually your batteries have run out another potential solution is to use a dynamo attached on your bike which can charge your lights as you go now there are a number of advantages and disadvantages to using dynamos they're not essential but fortunately if you're not sure what they are we've done a video explaining just that I should probably point out at this moment that I don't actually commute on a Pinarello Dogma f12 with 81 millimeter deep vision wheels in it that would be ridiculous as I'm not an oligarch this just happens to be my bike and my commute at the moment is actually a five minute walk but unless you are an oligarch or a sultan who happens to commute by bike and can afford to replace fancy flash top-of-the-range components on a regular basis I'd suggest you go for something a lot more practical as you have commuter bike because commuter bikes they take a lot of abuse life being life means you're probably not going to be able to clean them as often as you'd like and you know you good chance you're gonna be riding in all weathers and sometimes on dirty roads they take a lot of abuse they're a work horse and these kind of conditions can accelerate whereon components so it's a much better option to go for less expensive components because of this reason kind of do as I say and not as I do I do this will be different for everyone and depend on where your community where you live and how long your commute is now living in bath around here there's lots of quiet lanes and lots of little roads and you can really do some awesome routes but I did actually used to live in London and commute by bike there which was a completely different story consequently I had to get really good at plotting clever and awesome routes in order to avoid riding on like motorways and dual carriageways and stuff now there are lots of different ways you can do this here at GCN we use commute commute is an app that's really useful for plotting routes and it has some great tools in it such as ones that can help you pick quieter roads there well more cyclists friendly also different terrains so perhaps you want the route to work that has the lowest elevation possible or perhaps you want one that has the most elevation possible different road surfaces as well so it can isolate roads that are off-road and gravel if you want to have some mixed surface action on your commute and perhaps if you're lucky enough to have more than one type of bike as well you can have an off-road specific commute and an on-road one we did a great video looking at on-road vs. off-road commuting last year if you're struggling with motivation to ride to work and why not consider riding with someone else ask around work and see who else is commuting by bike even if you end up just meeting them halfway along you come you it'll be worth it because riding with someone else gives you added motivation it's a target someone to chase someone to keep up with and someone else that is going to rely on you to actually turn up and ride in on your bike on the other hand if you're a you know a keen wily veteran of commuting by bike and you know someone at work who's a bit unsure a bit nervous about it and would like some company and could benefit from it then you know why not lend them a hand and help guide them in the ways of commuting it can be incredibly rewarding hi Dan yeah remember yeah pack your pants for the rest of the week yep yeah I've packed mine yep yep nice one see you later why when you're commuting a backpack can be all right sometimes it can be fine on a shorter commute but on longer ones they can get quite uncomfortable and they can make you a bit sort of sweaty and even rides over 20 minutes they can start to get a bit annoying but there is another option you can use panniers or bike packing bags I'd really recommend doing this I mean penny is they kind of be like clothes they come in and go out of fashion on a regular cycle but irrespective of that they're incredibly practical and incredibly useful and having the weight taken off your body and put onto the bike is just you know really freeing you just feel much more comfortable when you're riding along especially if you're going to be doing a longer commute so those were our tips but remember if you're commuting by bike enjoy it it doesn't have to be a race relish your time on the bike it's helping you get healthier and save the planet as well bonus and if you've got any of your own hacks and tips that you want to share fire them down in the comments because we love to hear them and what might include them in a future video and hopefully all the comments won't just be about my pants or my hair that would be nice but I'm gonna go now because I've got a commute back home so I'm gonna put on my GCN casket available in the gcn shop see you next time

Channel: Global Cycling Network

Views: 322,904

Keywords: commuting, commuter, commute, commute by bike, cycle commuting, cycle to work, transport, winter, tips, advice, dark, commuter bike, hybrid bike, weather, rain, spare clothes, shower, bag, bike bags, panniers, public transport, route, planning, plan, office, school, GCN, Global Cycling Network, Sports, Cycling, Bike, Bikes, Bicycle (Product Category), Road Bike, Cyclist, Road Bicycle, Top 10, GCN Cycling, velo, ollie, sec-top-10, gc21s, ិ, gc11shs, ଐ, c1, gc11sas, n1, ඡ, ニ, Ղ, ཋ, ሙ, ସ, ଙ, ホ, パ, ළ, Բ, Ե, Հ, ፕ19, ズ, ዮ, 4021

Id: lWInrzfAf14

Length: 8min 23sec (503 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020