A series in four parts about riding with nice clothes, a comfortable position, and only the sweat caused by the tropical weather in Manila. This series attempts to cover the minimum anyone needs to not hate biking in the streets. Also discussed: catcalling and the trouble with buying a bike for small women.
I've been riding my bike for errands for almost eight years now, starting at around August 2014. Up until the pandemic (February 2020), I rode to occasionally go to work or for grocery reasons, no more than fourteen kilometers total per ride. In that time I've only had to change the tires, which rotted after months of irregular use during the pandemic.
I've found that people love the idea of riding, especially riding for utility. It's the reality that ruins things: poop on the street, smog in their faces, roadwork and construction, motorcycles running bikes off the street. In my mind, I have to negotiate all of those things with the fact that I simply want to ride my bike... and I want to ride my bike wearing the clothes I wear to work, potential falls and tropical weather be damned.
For me, the concluding argument of that negotiation is that I do ride my bike wearing whatever I feel like wearing, to do whatever errands or work a two-person household needs to do – the tradeoff being that I set a safe distance and route. This treatment of a bike as a tool not unlike an umbrella or shoe is common in the Netherlands, Japan, and the like. In the Netherlands, I'd probably classify myself as a fietser, someone on a bike, as opposed to a wielrenner, a sport cyclist. In Japan, moms, suited up salarymen, and students alike ride a mamachari (mom bike, a Japanese take on the step-through city bike) — without necessarily being labelled a "cyclist". My path to cycling zen is by integrating a bike into my lifestyle, not by integrating myself into cycling culture — the lycra ain't for me. Either path is fine, and it's a spectrum, not a binary.
Even if all you want is to be a casual biker in Manila, the infrastructure demands an experienced riding instinct to navigate it free of crashes in the long term. For that reason, cyclists that are solely interested in riding a bike for a paltry ten kilometer ride are outliers. After all, if you're going to develop the skill to ride, won't you want to ride as a hobby?
(In my case, I just happen to want to do other things on the weekend.)
Other concerns about casual riding include negotiating the weather and the harshness of the ride. There are few factors in anyone's control here, but I can think of three: cutting the number of rides you make in a week, living close to work, or to have a relatively car-free route. We haven't even gotten to the bike yet, and are already hampered by lifestyle nice-to-haves, which most folk can't control!
Most of us have to decide the degree to which these factors will affect our decision to ride. For example, I can wear a short-sleeved button-down to work if work is about seven kilometers away and part of it cuts through the shaded New Manila area (as I did when I went to an office occasionally in 2017). Such a thing was impossible when going to Makati, so I still took a bus.
That being said, if you are considering a bike commute, you likely already live in the city in which you work, or "close enough" in your perception to where you work. Far be it for me to enforce a distance limit, but if you've not ridden a bike since your childhood, perhaps the nearest 7-11 or fast food joint is good practice before a bike commute.
I suspect you've found this post because you want to know how to make informed decisions about your ride, your route, and your rationality (or lack thereof). Maybe your parents are telling you it's unsafe. Maybe your partner is telling you you'll be catcalled (I've heard my share of "good mornings"). Maybe you'll decide that wearing casual or office clothes while riding will remain a European or Japanese phenomenon. Maybe all you need to tip the scales in favor of a bike ride is a shower in your workplace or a slower pace.
I've divided this piece into three other posts, each one going over the three major factors: route, rider, and ride. The biggest deciding factor for new cyclists, in my opinion, is the route, which is why it goes first. An unsafe route will be unforgiving towards our very human errors. All riders must have some space to grow their instincts, and the route determines the odds of your growth.
For quick skimming, each succeeding post will provide a section summarizing the factors (a TLDR box) to consider when riding, buying a bike, and making a route.
This series continues in the following posts:
- The traveling
saleman'srider's problem — Informed route-making and route-taking decisions - A rational rider in an irrational environment — make safer decisions as a rider
- Buying a (folding) ride — make informed first-time bike buying decisions; the case for folding bikes for small living spaces
