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I love commuting by bike. I started doing so about four years ago and when for some reason I am unable to ride to work in the morning, my day just does not seem the same. Unfortunately commuting by bike does have a dirty side - lots of dirty laundry to be specific.
Doing laundry is an especially cumbersome task for me as I live in fourth floor walk up apartment and my building does not have laundry facilities. Thus I must schlep my laundry up and down the stairs and a bit down the block to get to the local laundry mat.
When I first started commuting and noticed the large increase in dirty laundry, I knew I had to develop a strategy of some sort. It was painful both physically and financially to deal with the increase in dirty garments. I am not one of those people who rides in my business attire. I am not a Lycra clad commuter either. I generally wear some knickers over bike shorts and layer appropriately on top but loathe bike jerseys. I keep business attire at work and change when I arrive. I will have to address my commuter shower in a future entry since my building does not have shower facilities.
Anyway, my solution to the dirty laundry pile up involved two simple strategies. First, I installed an extra tension rod above my bathtub. Second, I try to commute in clothing that dries very quickly. Each day when I get home and shower, I wash my shorts and shirt in a bucket with a bit of laundry detergent and then hang them to dry. I kill two birds with one stone - clean myself and clean my clothes.
I then hang up my clothing overnight and Whalah! Dry in the morning and ready to go. Not really complicated or expensive.
One product I have had a great deal of success with in my endeavor are adidas climalite t-shirts that are 85% polyester and 15% cotton and dry very quickly. And if for some reason you do wake up and your clothing is still wet, just rotate with another set every other day. It is not an exact science by any means and you can figure out what works for you.
I liked my strategy so much that I decided to incorporate other laundry into the mix as well. For example I started wearing swimming trunks to bed and I just wash them every morning and they are dry when I get home. And I guess you could say I am a total DIY laundry dork because after a camping trip I realized that using a small, specialized camping towel all the time made a whole lot of sense because regular towels are the one laundry item that takes the longest to dry.
Not everyone may face the set of challenges an NYC apartment dweller does, but if you want to cut down on the amount of laundry you do as a commuter, it’s really quite simple.
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Filed Under: commuting
8 comments for this entry ↓
1 jamie // Aug 4, 2008 at 3:51 am
Whalah? You mean:
voilà |vwäˈlä| (also voila )
exclamation
there it is; there you are : “Voilà!” she said, producing a pair of strappy white sandals.
ORIGIN French.
2 Lee // Aug 4, 2008 at 4:36 am
Not original. Read “The Accidental Tourist” …
3 Tom // Aug 4, 2008 at 9:28 am
http://www.laundry-alternative.com/
check out the wonder wash.
4 Dave // Aug 4, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Laundromat, voila (or voilà if we’re being really pedantic).
5 Andy // Aug 5, 2008 at 8:30 am
Matt,
I’m a bike commuter also (in Seattle) and although I work in a very casual place where I don’t have to change to business clothes at the office, I also don’t like showing up all stinky.
I found a fantastic solution for the torso — all-wool clothes! Have you tried this? It seems magical that it would work, because we tend to think of wool as a cold-weather layer, but it does in all seasons.
I found short- and long-sleeve t-shirts from SmartWool, which are a bit expensive, but perfect. The sweat you generate really does not stay in the fabric or on your body, so the stink factor is almost non-existent (unless you race to work).
And, I know this sounds gross, but you can easily wear one of these a few times without it feeling skanky, so it could help your laundry problem also.
I wouldn’t have believed it ’til I tried it myself. I think the old-time Tour de France riders all wore wool, so maybe it works for racing also.
6 Dave // Aug 12, 2008 at 10:48 am
Hi Matt,
Same as Andy, I switched to SmartWool tops. Microweight for me - longsleeved or shortsleeved. I sweat a bunch during my commute - it doesn’t matter. I commute all week in the same shirt typically, and wash it on the weekend. For pants, I wear a pair of nylon shorts or pants - again, I wash ‘em once a week.
After a full week of riding, SmartWool is practically nil. Unbelievable stuff.
7 Dave // Aug 12, 2008 at 10:50 am
Correction:
After a full week of riding, SmartWool odor is practically nil. Unbelievable stuff.
8 Molly, NYC // Aug 15, 2008 at 9:01 am
FWIW: If you lay your clothes out, single-layer, in a towel (camping or regular),
roll them up,
wring them out, and
hang them up,
they will dry ‘way quicker.
(The towel, of course, will be damp, but that’s pretty normal for towels.)
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