Cycling Through the Winter Slowstice ☃️
🎶 Take it eeeeeasy 🎶
'Tis the season for candles and soup
We have reached peak darkness of our turn around the sun, and as we ascend into lighter days, The System™️ still wants me to work consistently like a machine?? Some creatures hibernate the whole winter season (🐻 and 🐸), but thanks to anthropogenic climate change, The Man™️ wants 🐻 and 🐸 to wake up now and get back to work! So lazy.
I wanted to take this moment to propose going with the flow of the solstice, and not against it. Hence, Slowstice.
The Slowstice asks you to take a bit more time to bundle up warm, to be a bit more vigilant when taking corners, and to be a bit nicer to yourself as the season changes.
There are a plethora of benefits to cycling slower year round.
But first, a poll!
🎶 Slow down, you move too fast 🎶
Riding slower means your stopping time increases. So if a wayward child, adult, or animal lurches into your path, you have more time to respond. If a pothole, pile of glass, or (gasp!) push pins appear, you have time to swerve safely (because you have time to be aware of other road users around you.)
DID YOU KNOW (DYK): if you stop pedalling, you slow down? No need to slam on the brakes! (Now someone go tell this to a driver.)
Riding slower means you don't have to brake as hard or as much (see the DYK above). But there are other benefits too! Your brake pads don't wear down as quickly, and neither do your braking surfaces (rim or rotor).
🎶 I ain’t got no worries coz I ain’t in no hurry at allll 🎶
Riding slower also has psychological benefits. You pay more attention to the world around you and can soak in the nice parts of your trip. I have a couple sections of my 1.5 hour commute that I find extreeemely pleasant (sometimes there are dogs!), and I always make sure I am paying attention and enjoying them, because pretty soon a shitty part is coming up 💩
Riding slower means that I don't get sweaty so I don't have to change my clothes or shoes. Maybe I'd save some time by cycling fast, but then that is negated by needing to change or even shower.
Tom Babin over at Shifter did a self test on 3 different types of bike (commuter / road / MTB) cycling in their respective fashions (slow+bike lanes / vehicular cycling / off-road) to see how long a 9k ride to work would be. Of course the road bike came out on top, but not by much, only 2 minutes! The comments on a video he did are also quite telling.
🎶 Slow and low that is the tempo 🎶
I often hear "oh I never change my gears" - this hurts me and hurts your bike even more. Try experimenting with using different gears (if you have them). Low gears are the spinny ones, the ones you'd usually use to climb. High gears are the hard ones, the ones you'd use to go downhill or on a long flat.
DID YOU KNOW: You can brake and downshift at the same time? When coming to a stop, your knees and drivetrain will benefit massively from starting up again in an easier (low) gear. Give your body and bike a break! No need to show off in a big ass macho gear. Who are you trying to impress? (Seriously, ask yourself that question - because the reality is that nobody cares - and this is a good thing.)
I wrote more about gears (and hub gears) here 👇👇👇
Annoyingly our built environment influences how we ride. Because London's infrastructure used to be nil, our cycling forebears championed vehicular cycling (behaving like a car driver). The type of bike that matched this type of cycling was the road bike. Road bike geometry is fairly aggressive, pitching the rider forward so that we can use our butt muscles in a very efficient position so we can ride as fast as a car in the city. But this position also means we can't use our peripheral vision very well, so being aware of your surroundings takes extra effort (and is something some people choose not to do!)
Tiffany Lam talks a lot about our built environment and how we live in it. Alex and I thrice interviewed her for our now defunct Wheel Suckers Podcast - she’s that good.
Thankfully our built environment is slowly changing to prioritise and protect more vulnerable road users, which means other types of bikes can also move through the city more safely than before. A Dutch style 'sit up and beg' cycle has great peripheral vision, and makes it easy to be aware of your surroundings. The position is less efficient, but again - what's the point in going fast if it makes you less safe?
In the grand scheme of things, the only real deadline is death. Everything else can wait 😉
2025 CLASSES ARE UP & RUNNING
And some are sold out already. If you’ve got that burning desire to learn a bit more about your bike, time to take some action!
Introduction to Indexing Gears
How to Change a Chain & Cassette
How to Pack & Rebuild Your Bike for Travel
I will be interviewing journalist and author Laura Laker on Thursday 23 January at Herne Hill Velodrome. Get your tickets here.
🎶 Bonus points and warm fuzzies if you figured out which songs I was talking about in the music note headings! 🎶
I leave you with my new favourite podcast, Bad Hasbara - the only pod that is keeping me from going insane right now. Ex-zionist host Matt Lieb and sometimes host Daniel Maté (Gabor’s son) take down Israel’s terrible marketing through humour and interviews with experts in the field.
Happy New (use your) Gears,
Jenni x
ps. More changes to come in 2025 - for starters I'm thinking of leaving Substack for another platform! If you've got any recommendations HMU (Ghost? Beehiiv? Patreon?)
love the newsletter - thank you!