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Cycle commuting mistakes and how to avoid them Feb 2024Cycle commuting mistakes and how to avoid them — our top tips for hassle-free rides to and from work
Commuting to and from work by bike is a cost-effective alternative to driving or using public transport, often resulting in quicker travel times due to less time spent sitting in traffic or trying to find a parking space. It also helps to promote your physical health and contributes to reducing carbon emissions. However, it’s easy to fall into pitfalls that will make your ride less enjoyable and potentially dangerous. Here are some of our top tips for hassle-free rides to and from work.
1. Not carrying spares
Punctures are an unfortunate reality of cycling, and it’s important to be prepared for them, especially during your daily commutes if you have a meeting to get to at 9 am. You need to carry a spare tube, some tyre levers and a pump/CO2 canister to deal with it, even if you’re riding on tubeless tyres.
A multi-tool is also a must-have as it can address various issues that could arise during your commute. When choosing a multi-tool, make sure it has all the functions you need for your bike, including any sneaky Torx heads.
Carrying these essentials doesn’t need to take up a lot of room, especially with compact and lightweight options like TPU inner tubes available. Simply put them in your backpack, saddlebag or pannier and leave them there for whenever you need them.
2. Poor route planning
Image: Simon MacMichael
The route that you take to work will very much depend on where you live and where you’re heading but it’s worth considering the traffic volume, terrain and cycle infrastructure when planning your route to make it as stress-free as possible.
The shortest route may not always be the best choice as it could include the most elevation or the busiest sections. It’s worth familiarising yourself with your planned route, perhaps by riding it at the weekend before your first commute. You can also vary your route from day to day to keep things interesting.
Sites such as Cycle Streets and Komoot are great for helping you plan your route.
3. Hugging the kerb
Not riding defensively and sitting in the gutter increases your vulnerability to accidents and reduces your ability to react effectively in potentially hazardous situations.
There are many reasons not to hug the kerb. It’s where slippery drain covers are positioned, it’s where pedestrians step out and it can also make you less visible and tempt motorists to squeeze past when there’s not enough room for them to do it safely.
Riding too close to parked cars can also be dangerous because those car doors sometimes open…
For these reasons, take up the primary position in the centre of your lane when you feel that's the best option. You're fully entitled to do so and it's often the safest choice.
4. Racing!
It’s a scenario many of us can relate to – finding yourself unexpectedly in a race with a stranger, chasing an imaginary finish line for reasons unknown. The thrill of competition can be hard to resist but it not only risks your safety, it can also leave you hot and sweaty and that’s no good for anybody, particularly if you intend to wear the same clothes for the remainder of the day.
If you’re a Strava user, you probably don’t want to get too obsessed with bagging KoM/QoMs on your daily commute.
5. Wearing everyday jeans for more than a couple of miles
If you wear jeans at work and have ever attempted to ride to work in them, you’ll likely have discovered just how uncomfortable it can be taking the joy out of your commute.
While Lycra cycling shorts will provide plenty of comfort for longer rides, they may feel like overkill for your daily commute. Fortunately, there are plenty of cycle-specific jeans and trousers out there that you can wear both on and off the bike, so there’s no need to change when you get to work.
6. Forgetting a change of clothes
Image: Jamie In Bytown
Forgetting your underwear may happen at least once, and while you can manage a day without it, being without your trousers presents a far greater challenge. Our top tip is to keep an emergency stash of backup clothes at work, just in case.
The same applies to not having dry kit for the ride home, as there’s nothing worse than putting soggy kit back on. If your cycle clothing gets way on the way to work, you’ll either need to dry it out during the day or have a spare set for the journey home. Since there’s no trusting the UK weather forecast, it’s definitely worth keeping some spare kit tucked away at work for when you’re in dire need.
7. Riding without mudguards
You don’t get to pick the time of day you ride to and from work which means you’ll inevitably encounter rain and wet roads from time to time. If you’re riding in cycling clothing you might not be too bothered if you get wet, but if you’re riding in clothes you’re going to wear for the rest of the day, it’s a big deal.
Mudguards make a huge difference and stop spray from your tyres soaking you and the rest of your bike.
8. Skimping on a lock
You might be tempted to buy a cheap lock but it's a false economy if you rock up at the end of the working day to find that your bike is no longer where you left it.
No matter how much you spend, it’ll always be less than the cost of replacing a stolen bike and the hassle of working out how you’re then going to get home. Look for locks with a Sold Secure Gold rating, like the Kryptonite Kryptolok Standard U-Lock (£59.99). If you don’t want to lug a heavy lock on your commute, leave one at work.
9. Forgetting to charge your lights
Image: Simon MacMichael
Uh oh, it’s 5:30pm in the middle of winter, you get on your bike to ride home and you find that your bike lights are out of juice. It happens!
One option is to keep a couple of emergency lights squirrelled away in your bag, at all times and leave a charger at work so that you can leave your lights on charge during the day so they are ready for your ride home.
You could also consider investing in dynamo lights that you power as you cycle.
10. Trusting the weather forecast
Image: Simon MacMichael
Weather forecasts can give you a general idea of what to expect, they aren’t always accurate and conditions can change rapidly. To avoid being caught unprepared, it’s worth carrying a small, packable waterproof jacket at all times.
It’s also worth considering investing in cycling-specific clothing that’s designed to handle a range of weather conditions such as windproof and waterproof jackets, waterproof trousers and thermal jerseys.
Having the right gear on hand will help you to stay dry and comfortable on your commute, no matter what the weather throws at you.
Image: Simon MacMichael
What are your top commuting tips? Let us know in the comments section below.
Emily is our track and road racing specialist, having represented Great Britain at the World and European Track Championships. With a National Title up her sleeve, Emily has just completed her Master’s in Sports Psychology at Loughborough University where she raced for Elite Development Team, Loughborough Lightning.
Emily is our go-to for all things training and when not riding or racing bikes, you can find her online shopping or booking flights…the rest of the office is now considering painting their nails to see if that’s the secret to going fast…
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86 comments
Most people I encounter on my daily commute (Brussels area, 10 miles each way, hilly) wear lycra. If you have to ride more than a couple of miles and want to go at a decent clipit's really the only game in town. I suspect that in Amsterdam most commuters that you see in the center don't ride a longer distance than 2 or 3 km, the long distance guys will be on the outskirts and I'm pretty sure they won't wear their suits when cycling to the office. But hey, whatever floats your boat.....
The one thing I never carry when commuting is a repair kit, I prefer using a more sturdy set of tyres, mounted tubeless and -touch wood- no flats so far. When disaster strikes I'll either have to hoof it home or to the office or wait for my bike repair guy to show up (have an insurance package that deal with this sort of thing but I think it might mean a long wait in lousy weather). I do keep stuff in the office and at home to deal with most issues.
Really? I wouldn't leave the house without one...
Some of us treat the commute as exercise, not just as transport.
When I go swimming I wear swimming trunks; when I go running I wear running kit; when I play squash i wear squash kit; when I go dancing I wear a tutu.
If I cycle a few hundred metres to the shops I don't bother changing into cycling kit, but any distance that counts as exercise then I wear Lycra.
I don't really give a shit what people do in Amsterdam.
Exactly. I have only a short commute but I ride as fast as conditions permit to get the exercise. I sweat a lot and shower and change when I get to work.
I did start commuting in office clothes but it was horrible. A suit jacket rides up your wrists and bunches under your armpits and across your shoulders. Suit trousers drag on your knees when pedalling. Suit material does not breathe well, so you get more sweaty. Cycle clips are useless, so you get an oily trouser leg. When it rains, the whole experience is even more horrible.
Cycling in a decent suit is a quick way to ruin it. Far better to buy some cheap cycling clothing for commuting (I've got some Dhb stuff). Makes cycling far more pleasant. It dries out during the day if the weather is wet and you can simply bung it in a washing machine at 40 with some sports wash at the weekend. Far cheaper than dry cleaning.
As for looking ridiculous, many people look ridiculous these days and the great thing about getting older is that you don't give a toss what other people think.
11. Leaving the car at home
If you're more than an hour's ride from work, don't let that stop you from commuting by bike. Drive part of the way, and commute the rest by bike. The beauty of this approach is variety - of distance and of route. You can even look at the wind direction and plan your route accordingly.
@CJSH
If you cycle far enough to need a shower and change of clothes when you get to work, then you may as well wear the most suitable clothes for riding a bike - i.e. lycra.
There's no way I'm making my commute less comfortable for the sake of a few bigots.
The problem is not that Lycra is esthetically offensive, but that it puts off others by making cycling look like an extreme and expensive sport for a few select individuals.
But you make no allowance for the type of commuting. Your post(s) seem to relate to 'urban' commuting. I realise that this probably makes up the (large) majority of cycle commute miles, but there are some of us who commute rurally, and more that just a handful of miles. My commute is 23 miles (by the most direct route) and there's no way I'm doing this in any other gear than the best gear for the job. If that puts anyone else off cycling to work, well, I'll have to live with that.
I also think that if someone really wants to cycle to work, then what other people wear wouldn't put them off. Whereas if they are looking for an excuse not to...
The idea that you have to gear up for your commute as if you were tackling the Alpe seems decidedly British. Recommending to wear lycra for a commute does cycling a major disservice. Google "Utrecht Cycling" and look at the videos: the whole town cycles to work, but there's not a single person in Lycra. They just wear their everyday plain clothes. If you want to normalize cycling and bridge the gap between cyclists and non-cyclists, then start by normalizing the gear. No one needs to look like Lance (@Rick_Rude) to cycle to work.
Surely it depends on the distance of your commute. If you've got a ten minute ride, then lycra is going to be overkill, but if you're cycling for an hour or more, then it's going to be a lot more comfortable than cycling in a 3-piece suit.
Search google images for "London cycling commuters" and compare it to "Amsterdam cycling commuters". A quick count of the top 10 images tells me that 80% of London commuters are clad in Lycra*; not a single Amsterdam commuter can be seen wearing Spandex. Surely you cannot explain this by the differences in commute distances, or by London's hors catégorie hills.
*Oh irony: Boris Johnson is one of the few to spoil the stats.
I have doubts about your statistical analysis, but one explanation could be that London is significantly bigger than Amsterdam and thus commuting distances would be greater. Also, living in central London is a lot more expensive than living in the outskirts, so unless you're a banker your commute will be much longer than a typical Amsterdam based commute. From what I can remember of spending a weekend in Amsterdam, you can quite easily walk from one side to another and the city is quite compact.
Also, you need to consider than in the UK, cyclists are nearly always demonised by the media, so it behooves them to show cyclists in different clothing as that makes it easier to identify cyclists as some freakish out-group.
That ratio is not reflected in real life as anyone who has been to London and actually looked at the cyclists could tell you. Here's a random photo I took in London. Not many in lycra.
Lots of dutch cycle for more than ten minutes. That's a short cycle to school for most teens. Some kids are cycling over 10km to school, and then back in the afternoon. All in normal clothes.
I was going to say drop them on UK roads and I guarantee they'd swap to sportier clothes,all clothes are 'normal' imo,but then I realised actually drop them on UK roads and they'd end up not riding a bike at all, and that's the point.
To feel safe on most urban routes commuting in the UK,you have to be able to ride at speeds & sprint to those speeds quickly enough,that are physically demanding enough you'll break into a sweat easily, you may want to spend your whole day at work in sweaty clothes, I prefer to ride in cycling kit and freshen up & change at my destination.
When the UK builds Dutch levels of cycling infrastructure,do let us know.
I'm not sure about that. I do six miles to work then nine miles home (different route). Includes city road cycling, as well as some off-road paths. I wear a plaid shirt and jeans (at the moment - it's not quite warm enough for shorts, IMO). I have never knowingly worn lycra. But, as they say, YMMV
and as for those joggers who wear running shoes to get to and from work. When I was a lad we wore hobnail boots, flat caps and tweed trousers.
Don’t know if you’ve ever been to Utrecht, but it’s pretty small. A 10km cycle ride in each direction would take you from one side of the city to the other so I very much doubt that many school children are doing that every day. The average cycle commute in the Netherlands is just over 4km round trip - you’re comparing apples and oranges.
You wore hobnailed boots? There's posh - we were given boots, a hammer, and a bag of short nails...
It's a chicken / egg situation though because wearing 'sporty' cycle wear is the current normal because the mentality is that cyclists should be maintaining pace with motorised traffic or "they are holding up traffic and shouldnt be on the roads".
To normalise everyday wear for cycling, you need to get a critical mass where people feel unhurried with making their journeys and to get that critical mass you need to have infrastructure that minimises the conflict between different modes of transport as well as makes active transport the more convenient choice.
Surely everyone knows the reasons for this? It's partly that UK cycling conditions demand (at least the capacity for) high speeds, owing to the need to cope with traffic that can be hitting 60mph, and partly it's just selection-effects - that those who are prepared to cycle in those conditions are disproportionately those who like to see it as a sport?
It's a bit unfair to blame it on the personal preferences of the minority who actually cycle. The issue is not that those guys wear lycra, its that those who would be the non-lycra-wearers, aren't cycling at all.
Depends on how long your commute is. Mine is 56km to 72km one way, depending on the route I fancy and I will definetely not cycle that in Jeans and T-shirt. (-; .
I think if my commute was that distance, you'd even get *me* wearing a chamois and shorts
if my commute was that distance I'd get a job closer to home.
(Or I'd take the train.
)
You forgot not having a decent comeback for work colleagues who come up with crap like "who are dressed like, Lance Armstrong?" As if you've never heard it before. Oh how I laugh.
It's always Armstrong though, never Wiggins or Froome. Always Armstrong.
Time to stop wearing that US Postal kit.
Well if you will insist on wearing that USPS kit...
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