Bicycle commuting and showering at work.

I must admit I'm lucky. Lucky to work for a company that values personal hygiene in a big way. We have a fairly large, singe person locker room right at the office. I have my own locker to store my stuff in (towel, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, etc.), a nice bench to put my clothes on, roomy shower with plenty of hot water and complete privacy.




Showering at work is mentally a challenge, I mean essentially I'm naked at work. That in and of itself is slightly uncomfortable. Everyday I go in to the locker room I lock the door, double check the lock, start to undress then check the lock again. By the time I'm fully undressed I've checked the lock at least 4 times and have moved the dorm size refrigerator in front of the door. (Why is there a dorm size refrigerator in the locker room you ask? Well the locker room also doubles as the breast feeding room for the new mother's of the company. However at this point all the new mother's no longer work so the "boob room" is just a locker room again).

Bicycle Commuting - the beginning

I recently won a Fuji Crosstown 2.0 Hybrid Commuter bike from Lipton. It's bright yellow with 2 cute Lipton stickers on it. I will be pulling the Lipton stickers off or replacing them with something else at some point. Of course that requires time which I seem to be lacking.

But I digress - I won this great bike and decided that I should begin to commute to work via bike and bus. (This would be when gas was at it's highest, approx. $4.86/gal). It's a 37 mile round trip overall with about 12 miles on the bike. Now those of you that know me know I don't DO public transportation, especially the BUS. Gross! I seriously have a problem sitting that close to strangers - ever! Especially strangers with questionable hygiene. I make a point of sitting in this one very small seat where no on can sit next to me. I'm a scrunched up against a partition with my panniers and bike helmet in my lap praying for a quick end to the 20 minute bus ride.

My challenges so far have been 1) making it to the bus on time and 2) praying a bike rack will be available on the bus, there's only two per bus and sometimes 4 people waiting. I've taken to getting to the bus 15 minutes early just so I'm first in line. Of course then I have to hope that whoever already has their bikes on the bus will exit at my stop.

This whole "alternative" commute thing is a little harder than it seems.

Next blog - being naked at work i.e. showering in the locker room (which equates to being naked at work, eww)