Costs

In case you missed it, here's a link to part 1 of my commuting experience.

It's too boring to write about cycling as a cheap, effortless, and effective hobby, let's count the bucks. It all started when my rear tire ended unexpectedly. I managed to borrow 'a grandpa's bike' from my friend for free till the new tire arrived in three days, but for the few past weeks there were some costs:

1. So, the tire
2. For one day I bought a ticket to the train
3. My dog destroyed my pants and my windbreaker, which was only 15 years old, so I had to buy a new stuff
4. The new tire required pressure of 6-8 bar, I managed to make 6 and damaged my pump, so I had to buy a new one
5. I decided to buy a front rack for my backpack
6. To keep my back clean, I had to buy a mudguard
7. I bought grease for the bearings and a degreaser to wash the bike
8. I also bought a chain cleaning kit
9. As my new pants fell off, I bought a belt
10. Chain grease

You see, it's not cheap – and all that in less than a month! The truth is that you have to keep a lot of tools just to keep your bike rolling. I didn't expect that, but it was too late to surrender... The service doesn't work in the evening, it's expensive and the next day I have to go, but I don't like the train.

Fitting the stuff

To fit the front rack I had to disassemble my front brake partially, but even after that, the handlebar is not turning well. That's the price of being stylish and not liking the back pannier rack. My backpack fits the rack only when the backpack is flat. Life is a pain, and I try to embrace it.

The mudguard was designed to fit only on bikes with disk brakes, and that's not my case. I managed to fit it from the inside of the frame, and it works great with a weight of only 20 grams. I don't get any mud from the front wheel and I get only minor mud on the lower part of my pants from my rear wheel now, so now they let me go to decent places after the ride.

I bought a back jacket with a tight fit, and it's so much better than the windbreaker. For the pants, my demands are quite high, because I don't like lycra and I'd like to have a tight fit, a civil look, and a durable material. I've seen slim-fit jeans on some BMX riders and I had some doubts, but they worked great. These jeans are stretchy and they don't touch the chain. Maybe I attract some more attention – I don't know as there are mostly old ladies in my town. And I don't care.

Surpise

In Germany, you can get compensation for riding a bike, so I got 132 € for riding 600 km per month. Why's that?

• You get healthy, and that's important here
• You need to buy some stuff for the bike (please see the list above), and for electric bikes, the costs are higher
• The cars are compensated as 0.2 € per km, and as Germany supports clean transport, maybe that would be strange to pay less for riding the bike

For this amount of money, you can get a (very nice) used bike every month, but nobody would ride 30 km every day on such a bike. How does it feel? Well, not so nice, especially because of the saddle. I rode a 'grandpa's bike' which I borrowed for three days, so I put the saddle high and my arms as low as possible. It took me 1 hour to ride the same distance, which took 40-45 minutes on my bike (50 minutes in relaxed mode). And I was so happy to get my bike back!

Disassembly

After a few showers of rain, I felt that there was no grease in the bearings inside the hubs, so I decided to disassemble them. It took me 3 hours to wash the bike, wash the chain twice (as it was too dirty), disassemble the hubs, grease the hubs, grease the chain, and after all that clean my flat of all the mess. By the way, I had some more things to do that day.

I found several issues during the disassembly:

• The chain was in a bad condition, it was stretched and twisted
• The rear hub was damaged because of my riding style, there were clear impact marks from the bearings

We'll talk a bit about the root causes for that below, but I'd like to outline two points here:

• After the rain, my bike is covered with sand, maybe because I'm near the sea
• Proper chain grease makes a huge difference under the rain, as a cheap one gets washed out during the first 5 minutes

All of that might sound sad, but after the assembly, the bike runs surprisingly well, smoothly, and effortlessly. Especially without the wind of 95 km/h. I think it will die soon though, just because it's a singlespeed.

Consistency

OK, but what does it take to ride a bike 30 km per day? From my viewpoint it's all about consistency:

• Eating habits
• Sleeping habits
• Cleaning and greasing the bike
• Stretching and massaging

The bad scenario looks like this: you forget to check the bike, get late to sleep, have no time to stretch and eat in the morning, and at the end, you struggle, although this 30 km ride can be quite enjoyable. The bike works well in a narrow range of setups, and so does the body, if you want optimal performance.

I wipe the chain every day because otherwise, the chain gets greasy, then the sand sticks to it and the sand destroys the chain very quickly. Now I started to see the point in kevlar belts instead of the chain. And I also try to get a healthy breakfast every morning.

Is signlespeed good for commuting?

What's wrong with the bike though? I think, a singlespeed is just not designed to fit commuting of my type and my riding style:

• The winds make me push the chain harder, as I don't have a lower gear
• High tire pressure and a rough city terrain hit the hub, and it also makes riding uncomfortable

So, I'm going to change the bike. See you in the next part, where I'll share some findings from exploring the market.