Since this is one of the most common questions I get, I took a moment to snap a picture of my setup on a recent grocery run.

In my panniers I have about 35 lbs of groceries, including frozen items and almond milk. Since I don’t eat meat I can’t attest to hauling home any steaks etc, but if it’s hot out or I have longer than a 10-15 minute ride home, I pop cold items into an insulated bag inside my pannier. I usually disperse the weight on both sides but with the weight behind you, it doesn’t affect the handling of the bike all that much.

If I wanted to haul more home (or were going on tour), I could add a bag to the top of my rear rack, a frame pack, and front panniers. For groceries however, I find that just two panniers at a time has me spending less on groceries and wasting less food, while paying more attention to what I eat and thus eating better as a result.

Also, I cheat. I order things like cat food and litter on Amazon, and sometimes bulk foods on groupon goods. I did that even when I had a car, because lugging things around using what little upper body strength I have is just not my jam. I also will go with friends to Trader Joes on the opposite side of town, because.. Have you been there? Then I need not explain. It’s Trader Joe’s. When the bike network here expands to reach it safely, and I get a trailer attachment for my bike, my life will be complete.

An unexpected (although looking back, seemingly obvious) result of living by bike is the minimalism brought into my life by going from four wheels to two.

As with the sense of no longer owning a giant physical liability of a hunk of rotting metal (I’ll explain all the particular traumas in another post), living by bike has freed up a lot of other physical space by limiting random shopping. 

Don’t get me wrong, I can and do still go shopping when I have access to a car. My last ikea trip is a testament to my love for stuff. 

But this article really spoke to me, and when it came to “purposeful buying” I suddenly recalled a phenomenon that used to hit me when I lived in Charleston. Stuck in traffic between jobs, or finished with work early, I would pull into a TJ Maxx, an Old Navy, or a thrift store and blow off steam by shopping for deals.

Friends and family will tell you, I love a good sale. I can always find something that needs to come home with me, and as a result when I lived in Charleston I found myself in bigger and bigger apartments.

When I moved to Greenville I sold about half of our furniture, clothing and “stuff” to go from a 1400 square feet to 850. And I loved it. But I think had I kept the habit of driving and shopping whenever the urge hit me, I’d have wound up in the same “stuff” rut. 

Living by bike, you take what you can carry with you. I have rigged up some creative solutions to this, such as when I took this framed necklace display to a shop where I consign handmade jewelry:

  
I’ve also put together my classroom at work bit by bit, bringing in books, supplies, even unassembled ikea furniture pieces in my panniers and bags. 

(As an aside, I am glad that I don’t craft and sell furniture or sculptures, and I hope I can stay in my current work location forever).

But having to pause to consider where it will go on my bike, or having to decide to wait and come back later for an item, has often led to the realization of “I don’t need this after all”. Instead of shopping to relieve stress, I pedal. Rather than thoughtlessly throwing an item in my cart and a trunk, I place it in my basket and nestle it carefully in my bag. And most often, instead of feeling that something has to come home with me, I observe it, appreciate it, and let it be.  

 Yep, I’m pretty sure that’s how the song goes. 

Note to self, cover your drivetrain when random bursts of snow are in the forecast. Thankfully this melted off quickly, but it could have gotten pretty interesting had it been a hair colder. 
 

  

The struggle is.. really totally manageable. Damn I wish I had a couple of these tube buffs in middle school. Instead, Come November I would whine to my parents that my face was cold and thus they had to drive me to school. Oh, how times have changed. My coworkers tell me I’m crazy for biking “in this cold”, but a) we’re in South Carolina, it’s manageable and b) nothing compared to standing still for 45 minutes at bus duty in the morning. So, so much worse. 

 

Because I just went 50 miles on two packets of Gu.

I came across this meme on facebook today and it reminded me that one of my biggest frustrations with my car towards the end of its run with me was how much work it suddenly needed after 3 years of average use and regular maintenance.

I was raised by a stay at home dad who passed on to me a lot of “quirky” little habits gained from his own mother, who grew up in the Great Depression. As a result, I grew up with the “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” mindset, and I never got used to the idea of buying something just to throw it away. Marketers now literally sell us trash in the form of paper towels, fancy plastic packaging, disposable ____ (razors, wipes, dishes, you name it).. and we buy these things in an effort to make our lives easier.

I also grew up with the notion that something of true quality will be built to last. My parents married in 1978 and we had the same Sony TV until about 2001, beautiful crystal lamps in our living room (my parents did finally replace the shades when they moved last year), and a Eureka vacuum cleaner that I believe still has yet to bite the dust.

So I suppose it’s not surprising that my car drove me absolutely nuts. Something that costs tens of thousands of dollars should be built to last more than a few years before having 3 recalls, 3 flat tires, power steering failure and random software updates required.

When I sold my car I thought that I would be a little stressed out about it. In fact, I felt an enormous weight lifted off of my shoulders. I’ve never felt more liberated than when I got rid of this expensive liability that we’re all told that we have to have. I can’t watch a car commercial anymore without rolling my eyes and wondering why I was ever so infatuated with driving.

Giving up my car commute has been so transformative that it has me looking at what else is in my life just because I’m told that it should be. I’m on a wifi (read: Netflix) detox this week, working on a capsule wardrobe, and paring down odds and ends. It’s pretty amazing what can be gained when giving up things that aren’t in our lives for a good reason.

When the weather is such that you wouldn’t want to venture out in any vehicle, there’s always bicycle themed crafts. This $5 ikea mat has tons of potential for personalizing. I penciled in a design and filled it in using wool yarn and a metal yarn needle over the course of an afternoon. The needle went through the mat easily, but if you try it I would recommend wearing long sleeves to protect your arms from rubbing the mat as it’s something of a wrestling action to cross stitch something this large.

 

This video about a woman’s bamboo bike company in Ghana just restored my faith in humanity.

Here’s the company website if you’d like to learn more.

 

This article on the relative fitness of bike commuters got me thinking.. I spend 40 minutes a day on my bike during the week. Including road riding on weekends that comes to on average 250 minutes/week of exercise in the great outdoors.

For someone who’s been a complete couch potato her whole life, I can say with confidence that never in my life have I spent 4+ hours in a gym per week before. If that sounds like a lot, I challenge you to add up the number of hours you spend per week in a car. Not too long ago, my total was at least 10/week driving to different part time jobs.

It’s taken me about 5 years since that realization, and it served as a pivotal moment and catalyst for changing the course of my life. I got a folding bike and put it in the trunk of my car for running errands in different parts of Charleston. Then I moved closer to my job where I could also ride on bike-friendly suburb streets and wide bike-friendly sidewalks. I started going several weeks at a time without getting in my car. I moved to Greenville, got a 7-speed city bike, and gradually eased into road riding on a touring bike before selling my car to commute full time on two wheels.

On a recent road ride someone told me that they would “love to commute to work, but there’s no way I would make it up those hills”. I tried to convince her that if I could go from single speed beach cruiser with zero elevation gain to doing rides with thousands of feet in elevation gain, she could take her road bike out just one day a week and do that commute. This rider was concerned about packing a change of clothes and a lunch; to me that’s an evening routine I hardly have to think about anymore. But looking back I realize it was a gradual process of learning as I went, and as transformative as this journey has been, it certainly did not happen overnight.

So don’t discount the baby steps. Any time on a bike is time well spent, and you may be surprised where those small changes will lead you.

After a chilly but wonderful road ride yesterday, I came home and got down to business on this project I’ve been mulling over for a little while. I decided against hanging my commuter since I it’s constantly in and out with bags and panniers attached, and I was going for something that would designate a space for my bike and hold some accessories; and most of all, I was tired of painting over the scuff marks that kept collecting on the wall.

I borrowed a friend’s car to pick up a pallet I’d seen nearby, and the rest of the project only took about an hour or so to get done. Best of all, it didn’t cost me anything! I simply sanded down the rough edges, balanced the pallet on a low stool to get the right height, and drilled it into the drywall in about 6 places to even out the weight (using anchors I had on hand plus a few screws from a friend who is building a rad new bike shop in town – more on that soon). I’m going to add a cup hook to one side for hanging keys/sunglasses, but that’s pretty much it.