Bike-to-Work Week, Day Five – I’m All Wet

On the final day of the bike-to-work experiment, I expected no big changes: wore jeans, socks, t-shirt, bike shoes; carried work shirt & sneakers on my back; rode the road bike again on the same route as the day before (so no maps necessary again). It was a little misty as I left the house though.

Turns out that it was no mist, however… it was drizzle, which turned into full-fledged rain about two miles from the house. I was also heading to my church’s Men’s Group meeting before work, so I made a half-mile deviation to IHOP (where we meet) and walked in completely soaked. An hour later, I was mostly dried out, but called a co-worker who lives near my house to ask if he would stop by and pick up some more clothes for me. He did. (Thanks, Dave!) There was a “biker’s breakfast” at Five Points downtown, with coffee and pastries and (most importantly) bike techs from a local shop. I stopped by, had some food and drink, talked to a bunch of other bike-to-workers, and had the techs look over my bike. Rode the rest of the way to work without any issues and changed into wonderfully dry clothes when I got there.

What I didn’t mention above was that my Men’s Group meets at 6:00AM, so, in order to get there on time, I got up at around 4:30, and I hadn’t slept that well the night before. So, as 5:00PM approached, I held a “Twitterpoll” and asked my friends:

TwitterPoll: Biked to work thru rain after 4 hrs of sleep. Wife nearby w/ station wagon. Do I ride , or get a ride home? Need answer quick.
4:05 PM May 15th from web

Three responders all said “ride”, but the final (and only significant) vote came by phone:

TwitterPoll Update: Wife brought no book to daughter’s swim practice, expected to talk with me instead. Looks like I’m getting a ride.
4:30 PM May 15th from web

So, met the wife at a nearby parking lot (there was a Bulls game, so no getting the car anywhere near my office), popped the bike in the back of the car and went home. A fitting end to a very interesting but ultimately unrealistic experiment in greener commuting.

One final thought that occurred to me while riding: when considering the “greenness” of biking to work, do they include the extra electricity needed to (a) wash the increased amount of laundry generated (change at work, change again at home after work) and (b) heat the water for the extra showers taken (one extra at home after work, would have taken one at work if we had a shower in the office)? I understand that the emissions generated by the electrical plants can be treated/scrubbed/whatevered at a central point that would not be possible/feasible to do at every tailpipe and that fossil fuels are a limited resource, but still… I never got the feeling I was saving energy, just spending it differently while taking a lot more time to get back and forth to work.