#cycle commute

[alice-makes-things]

The continuing adventures of Dyspraxia Girl and her amazing 3-way folding bike:

- I feel sweaty but happy

- central London needs more cycle lanes

- Regents Park at 8am is lovely

[foldingfittedsheets]

I hate sales. It’s not a surprise, I went back to school to try to avoid working retail and the game industry is shitting itself so here I am once again in retail. But the fucking worst part is how much worse I’m getting paid.

When I sold mattresses last time I was making incredible money because the company I worked for was employee owned. I got bonuses, I never made base pay, I always sold enough to get commission. Then a mega corporation bought it and fucked everyone over.

So no more bonuses, lower commission, less benefits. All the evils of capitalism and no union.

I’ve been forced into trainings over and over being like, “If you do a good job and add on accessories and bases you’ll get paid so much more!”

But guess what? I’m great at my job. I fit people for the right pillow and sell protectors because I believe those things are important. I haven’t made commission in months. Deliveries are spaced out, I’m stuck too often in the little store. My sales numbers look incredible, I’m in every way a model employee. Except that I’m getting paid shit to be a model employee and it makes me furious.

[bluedesignwall]

I have a new bike. I have named her Ruby. We have just returned from a bit of a test ride. It is just so easy. I much prefer to do all the work but this will mean I can ride home from work and still fit in a run. I can ride to Mum's and not arrive a sweaty mess. I can ride further faster and that easterly wind is no longer a battle.

[broken-clover]

Living in a red area of a blue state is fucking bizarre because legally there's all kinds of anti-discrimination policies and you can listen to locally-run radio stations from just a few towns away about queer pride and social issues and everyone puts on this nice veneer about being progressive but every local newspaper constantly leads with headlines about how immigrants invented crime and the LGBTQ's are ruining American society, every third house across my town is advocating for politicians that think I should be dead and I've seen about five different people wearing iron crosses in the past couple of weeks

[an-ruraiocht]

the post i reblogged about fast fashion just reminded me that

a) i have had my raincoat since 2016

b) my raincoat is significantly past its best in ways that cannot be solved with additional waterproofing spray, and also doesn't fit me very well anymore

c) my winter coat, while reasonably warm, is not waterproof, and also doesn't fit very well in a completely different way, and is black which is not good when you are a cycle commuter cos they can't see you

d) all of these combine to mean i keep looking covetously at waterproof insulated coats in tesco even though they are definitely unsustainably produced and also not that good bc that's where my substandard winter coat is from

concluded i should thoughtfully invest in a new, warmer raincoat before i get tempted into buying another shit coat or spend the whole winter cold and wet

went to passenger bc i bought a fleece and trousers from them a few months back and have basically not worn anything else all summer (and thy seem to have reasonably good sustainability credentials, as far as is possible with mostly-synthetic outdoor clothing). found an insulated raincoat in their outlet section discounted 60% to make it almost affordable. and it's partially ORANGE

remembered my rucksack also sucks because it's too small, black, and not waterproof (and doesn't have side pockets for my cane or my water bottle), and my old one that was not too small or black but also not waterproof has well and truly fallen apart after serving me faithfully since i was about 16. well, since i'm here... oh look they have a rucksack in the outlet section as well. AND IT'S ORANGE

god i love it when i can get things that are orange

anyway that's my clothing/accessory purchases for the rest of the year. i hope they're good.

[mennyitmentem]

31.5 km, commuting

gravel on road

[allthingscycling]

Got caught in a storm and took my bike for a swim

[youmaycallmesuperman]

I don’t often share many details about myself, but I find this paradigm that I adopt to be quite unfortunately unique. I have for years now cycled to and from work on my bicycle doing usually 10 miles a day. I have no drivers license and no intention on getting one, save maybe if I were to obtain an EV that isn’t very destructive to the environment.

Anyways, my unique paradigm is this - I would rather die to a car collision than to have polluted the earth with gasoline vehicles. I could not live with myself knowing I had left a negative impact on the planet, to me this is incredibly selfish if one can avoid it. More shockingly, I have met nobody who feels the same way and it’s incredibly scary to me how little is being done to prevent the death of this planet.

I speak from an American perspective, of course, because I know that other countries are more compact and better designed for such commutes to be viable most likely due to lack of gasoline or the ability to afford it, but hopefully also for care of the environment.

[fuzzyimages]

Hauling options.

[asiancatboy]

for a sedentary twink who doesn't have the time or energy to work out, my legs and thighs really are beefy

[theelementaryparticles]

Night rider 🌒

[haxxy]

The weather is getting warmer, and I've seen a lot more people out on motorcycles/bikes/scooters lately. It seems like there's a good mix of people who wear helmets vs those who don't*, so I wanted to see what sort of results I'd get if I polled in it.

Feel free to discuss the reasons for your answer if you want in the tags/replies. Reblogs are helpful for getting more answers, but no sweat if you'd rather not.

[detragefietser]

bicyclist - Chicago, IL by ricky shore Via Flickr: Clark Avenue - Chicago

[strang3lov3]

OMG YESSS I WATCHED HIS YOUTUBE LISTENING PARTY whole new album hiiiiits im so excited!!!!

also a god’s fav customer song being ur first is soooooooo unbelievably real

-fjm anon

SHUT UP!!!! Awwwh man I’m jealous BUUUT we can still have our chitchat about it in a few days 🩷

[snatching-ishidates-wig]

Gunny Update 4.0:

Good news! Test results came back, & nothing there is too out of the ordinary. She's getting Hydrated™ and fed right now, so I'll pick her up later. (She has hypothermia/low body temp)

Apparently all the various health problems she's been having lately are consistent with elderly senior cats - her teeth aren't consistent with that but it could still be that she's secretly an old lady in actuality and not just spirit.