MORE CYCLE ISSUES

Some of you may not know this, but in England it tends to rain. A lot. Cambridge actually has a pretty similar climate to Vancouver, but the nature of the rain is different. In Vancouver, the clouds roll in about October 20th and we don't see the sunshine again until, say, April. There have literally been stretches of several weeks in Vancouver when not a single day offered a ray of sunshine to detract from the ongoing rain. It still rains often in Cambridge but the wind is good for something other than messing my hair - it tends to make the clouds move overhead rather quickly, and I've yet to notice an entire day when the rain didn't stop for at least a little while. We even get days when it doesn't rain at all, or perhaps just a sprinkle or two.

You may be wondering how this all relates to cycling. Well, when I get up in the morning and prepare to head into the town centre to go to work, I have to decide whether to cycle (6 minute commute) or to walk (20 minute commute). I should mention that I hate cycling in the rain because I am a wuss, and worse still, a wuss without a helmet so if I ride in the rain my hair is not only windswept but plastered to my head in the shape that the wind has left it. If it's raining when I set out the decision is simple - walk it is! Slightly more risky is the beautiful sun-shiny morning with a stiff breeze: great now, but what sort of clouds is that breeze bringing our way? The real gamble comes on the majority of mornings when it is grey and blustery but not actually raining. We are virtually guaranteed a shower at some point in the day, but will the downpour coincide with those few minutes 9 hours into my future when I am cycling home?

No matter what the weather holds, I always cycle prepared: backup plan for ditching the bike at Darwin College on the way home if it is in fact raining too hard (for my liking) to cycle home, and a cover for my seat in case it rains during the day. Unpleasant is too mild a word to describe forgetting your seat cover and having to cycle home on a cold, wet seat. One's spouse, of course, inevitably finds the wet seat print on one's derriere amusing and giggles when he enquires if one has wetted their trousers. Therefore, it only took a couple of these incidents for me to ALWAYS REMEMBER to take my seat cover with me wherever I go.

The only snag in my plan is that many other folks appear to forget their own seat covers. On multiple occasions I have gone to pick up my cycle at one of the huge bike racks downtown, content in the knowledge that despite the soggy weather at least my seat was still dry, only to find that my cover had been, ahem, borrowed by someone else with less foresight. Left with a wet behind AND no seat cover!

This has happened enough times that I am getting sneaky. In case you are curious, the mystical seat cover is nothing more than a plastic bag - had considered buying a proper cover from a bike shop, but once my simple cover started disappearing there was no way I was going to invest in something valuable to steal. I think the secret to its desirability lies in the fact that I tend to use bags made of heavy plastic rather than any old grocery store bag (have you ever noticed that those bags tend to have holes in the bottom??). So perhaps someone parks their cycle near mine, notices my heavy plastic seat cover and compares it to theirs - holey plastic grocery bag, or no cover at all - and decides that the heavy plastic is the way to go. The sneakiness comes in in that I am now using a dark-coloured plastic bag, rather than a white one which tended to stand out and announce its presence to all. Have yet to have the dark bag swiped (two weeks with the same bag is now a record!) but if it keeps happening my next recourse will be to write a note on the bag itself. Something like:

IF YOU ARE THINKING OF STEALING ME, YOU ARE A MEAN PERSON. DON'T YOU KNOW THAT MEAN PEOPLE SUCK? AND MAYBE NEXT TIME YOU'LL REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR OWN D*MN SEAT COVER.
PS. HAVE A NICE DAY!