It’s getting cold here in the Northwest — cold enough that yesterday when I went out for a ride, I only made it as far as the end of the block before I turned around and came back into the house, hunting for another layer up top, and some warmer gloves for my hands.

I started by looking on the shelf in the garage I have for ultra-stinky biking clothes (gloves, shoes, helmets, shoe covers). Nope, not there. I then went on to my dresser in the bedroom. The two bottom drawers are reserved for biking clothes. I found a good thick long-sleeved jersey to wear, and became hopeful that the gloves would have the good sense to hang out near the jersey.

No luck.

OK, I was getting a little annoyed. I moved over to the bottom three drawers of my wife’s dresser — yes, she has ceded the bottom three drawers of her dresser to my bike clothes stuff. The warm glove liners and one of the gloves I wanted were in the first drawer I checked; the final glove I wanted was in the second. So, in a way, this constituted a minor victory: I had found everything I wanted, but hadn’t had to check all of the drawers. This victory is augmented by the fact that I hadn’t needed to go into my "last resort" bike stuff spot: the closet.

To recap: I have a garage shelf, five drawers, and a closet shelf dedicated to bike clothes. Clearly, I have too much stuff.

What Do I Have? How Did I Get So Much of It?

It’s tempting to say I don’t know how I wound up with so much bike clothing, but that would be a lie. And as everyone who reads this blog knows, I never lie. (Unless I think it would be funny or self-serving to lie, in which case of course I’ll lie.)

Here are the highlights of what I’ve got, bike clothing-wise:

• 3 RLX Bib Shorts: These are my favorite bike shorts for warm weather riding. They’ve seen heavy use for years and years. I don’t feel at all bad about owning three pair.
• More than 30 Jerseys: Why do I have an obscene number of jerseys? Well, because bike jerseys have a number of unique properties that, combined, have led to what is known in scientific circles as the Infinite Jersey Accumulation Syndrome (IJAS). To wit:

• Many races and events give jerseys away either for starting or completing. You don’t have to buy jerseys to accumulate them.
• Occasionally, you’ll buy jerseys anyway, because you like the way they look, or you want to look like you’re sponsored, or because you want to look like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.
• You need many different kinds of jerseys to suit the weather: long sleeved, short sleeved, sleeveless.
• Sometimes, a marketing campaign hornswoggles you into believing that their jersey material will actually make you warmer, or cooler, or whatever — even though it’s really just another minor variation of polyesther.
• Jerseys never wear out, so you feel bad throwing them away.
• Old jerseys cannot be converted into rags, the way cotton t-shirts can, so you can’t get rid of them that way either.
• As discussed before, jerseys get permanently stinky, so you can’t exactly give them away.

In short, there’s nothing you can do to stop accumulating jerseys, and there’s no practical way to get rid of them. As the number of cyclists increases, IJAS is becoming a serious problem. Top scientists predict that by the year 2018, the entire world will be waist-deep in cycling jerseys. That should smell nice.

• Biking Shorts I Never Wear: I have three or four pair of old Pearl Izumi biking shorts. I have not worn them since I started wearing bib shorts. I do not have any idea why I keep these.
• Knickers: I have a pair of biking knickers, too. I believe my thinking was that these would be useful on the days when it was too cold for shorts, but not cold enough for tights. The thing is, days like that come once every three or four years. Plus, if I recall correctly, these knickers have the worst chamois in the world.
• Too-Tight Tights: I bought a pair of Cannondale (Coda brand) bib tights about two years ago. This is the only cycling item I have ever bought that shrunk. Over the course of five wearings, these tights went from fitting well to being waaaaay too short for me. Cannondale has not earned many loyalty points from me this way.
• More Biking Shorts I Never Wear: I bought a pair of baggy mountain bike shorts, about two years before they became popular. My early-adopter attitude was rewarded by a pair of shorts that rode low, and had a wimpy chamois that does not stay put. These are, to tell the truth, not my favorite shorts. And yet, I still have them. What is wrong with me?
• "Lobster" Gloves: The idea for these cold-weather gloves was pretty sensible: Keep as many fingers together as possible, but have splits where necessary, so you can shift. The result? The goofiest-looking mitten/gloves in the world, keeping your hands in a permanent Star Trek "Live Long and Prosper" salute. They’re not warm, either. And yet, I still have them.
• Lots and Lots of "Air-E-Aetor" Socks With Holes in the Big Toe: I really like Air-E-Aetor brand socks. They’re cool and comfortable in the summer, and warm enough to use into moderately cool weather. But I wear through the big toe well before I wear through the rest of the sock. And for some reason, I don’t throw them away. This is especially stupid, because I am constantly putting on a sock, finding it has a hole in it, and having to find a different sock. And then I do and extra-double-stupid thing: I put the sock I just took off back in the sock drawer. I need help.
• Five or Six Windbreaker Jackets / Vests: I never wear vests. Why do I have any at all? And do I need more than 2 jackets (one to keep at work, one to keep at home)?

Here Comes the Irony

The thing is, I only rarely open these drawers at all. Since I’ve developed the technique of throwing my dirty bike clothes directly into the washing machine, filling the machine up with other clothes from around the house (with four kids, there’s always a load of laundry to do), and starting the machine (I transfer these clothes to the dryer as I put the twins down for bedtime; the drone of the machine helps them go to sleep), I’ve always got a complete set of clean biking clothes in the dryer each morning.

So yes: while I have enough biking clothes that I could wear different stuff each day for about a month, I tend to wear the same thing each day.

A Second Helping of Irony

OK, I’ll say it: there are more bike clothes I really want right now. Specifically, I’d really like to get a couple pair of windproof, water-resistant bib tights for cold-weather commuting.

These would make a terrific Christmas gift, for example (size Medium). 

And Now for the Part You’ve Been Waiting For…

For today’s Banjo Brothers Bike Bag Giveaway, tell me one or more of the following:

• Recommendations for what to do with all this stuff I’ve accumulated
• Impress me with how much bike stuff you have
• Impress me even more with how little you have, in which case by all means, explain your brilliant strategy for keeping your bike stuff from taking over the house

PS: My review of The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles is up on Cyclingnews now.

I love biking. I love mountain biking. I love road biking. I have a sneaking suspicion I’m going to love track racing.

I love getting ready for a big ride. I love the rhythm of riding on the road. I love picking a line on new singletrack. I love riding rocky jeep roads. I love the way I feel after a big workout.

I love the way bikes look. I love the way bikes sound. I love talking about bikes and telling biking stories, and I love hearing other cyclists’ stories.

To recap: I love biking. And yet, there is one inescapable truth about cycling that I do not love:

Practically everything about cycling stinks.

Jerseys

It’s easy to tell whether a person on a bike is a cyclist, or just a person who happens to own a bike. Just look at what he’s wearing. T-shirt? Person. Brightly-colored polyester skintight jersey with a zip-up front and pockets in the back? Cyclist.

The benefits of jerseys are many: they help you be seen by traffic. They give you a place to carry food and a phone. They evaporate sweat, so you don’t feel like you’re riding with a big ol’ soaked sponge for a shirt.

But that last bit — that bit about evaporating sweat — is a two-edged sword. Because while your jersey is doing a fantastic job of getting rid of the water part of the sweat, it’s doing an equally fantastic job of holding on to the stink part of the sweat. The fibers of biking jerseys are, in fact, specially designed to trap every little molecule of stench your upper body excretes, compound it by a factor of seven, and then time-release that smell for the next eon or so.

As a young, naïve cyclist, I used to think washing a jersey would get rid of that smell. It doesn’t. Washing it again doesn’t help, either. And in fact, if you wash the jersey too many times, you’ll just make the washing machine start to stink.

Special Note to everybody who is about to leave a comment describing how they use vinegar, lemon juice ammonia, or sulfuric acid to good effect in combating the “jersey stink” phenomenon: Feel free to go ahead and leave your comment, but please realize that I already know about your so-called remedy, and have the following observations to make:

• Your remedy actually only masks the smell, and an argument can be made that a stinky jersey with a hint of rancid lemon is even worse than plain ol’ stinky jersey.
• Even if your remedy does work, I don’t care. I’m barely organized enough to wash my jerseys at all. There’s no way I’m going to remember to start using time-consuming anti-stink potions every time I do the wash.

Helmet

My head starts sweating well before the rest of my body. And the straps and little pads in my helmet are nowhere near as easy to clean as my jersey. Back in arid Utah, this meant that within a few hours after a ride, my helmet straps would dry out, becoming stiff, crusty, and above all, stinky.

Here in Washington, though, the humidity keeps the straps from drying out so quickly. In fact, if you ride your bike more than twice a week, your helmet straps will never dry out. This means that instead of your straps becoming stiff, crusty, and stinky, they become dank, cold, and above all, stinky.

Interesting aside: You’d think that mildew would grow on constantly damp straps like this, but it doesn’t. My theory is that this is because the stench frightens the mildew monsters away.

Unlike jerseys, it’s possible to clean helmet straps and pads so they don’t stink. Unfortunately, to reap this benefit, you must in fact clean your helmet straps and pads. This is such a time-consuming, awkward process — which is immediately negated the next time you go out on a ride — that nobody in the history of cycling has done it more than once.

Glasses

I just found out about this recently, and admit I was astounded. Yes, my beloved Oakley Racing Jackets — the ones with the expensive frames and super-expensive prescription lenses — stink. I discovered this when my wife asked me to keep my glasses in the garage, because they smelled up our bedroom. Challenging her, I put the frames under my nose and inhaled deeply.

Wow. So I guess thousands of miles-worth of dripping sweat can permeate anything.

More, More, More

Really, I could go on. My messenger bag stinks, which is a problem since that’s what I use to carry my clean clothes to work. My biking shoes stink, which is probably the least surprising thing I’ve ever written. My biking shorts stink, which dogs seem to really appreciate. My Camelbak stinks, although — as near as I can tell — that stench hasn’t yet penetrated the bladder. This may, however, just be because Camelbak bladders have a stink (and taste) of their own.

So I have a theory: the main reason people don’t get into cycling is because they smell us before they ride with us.

Post-Ride Stench

The thing is, this residual stink — the smell that clings to all your cycling stuff — is only a tiny part of the problem. The only thing worse than the smell of a cyclist after a ride is a group of cyclists after a ride. Or at least, that’s what my wife tells me, and my kids won’t come near me when I get home from work ‘til after I clean up.

But you know what’s even worse than a group of cyclists after a ride? A group of cyclists after an epic ride, in a car, for an extended period of time. Why? Well, without getting too explicit, when one is on one’s bike for a long time, eating unusual food, one’s digestive system, well, reacts. And while most people have the most polite intentions in the world, at some point physics takes over.

And, in short, seven stinky guys with gas in a car for an extended period of time can reduce a vehicle’s resale value by 18%.

Danger of Becoming Desensitized

If you’re an avid cyclist, there’s a good chance you haven’t recently thought about the stink you make. This is not a good sign, because it means you have contracted Cycling Stench Desensitization Syndrome (CSDS). Here are common symptoms:

• You think your bike clothes don’t stink
• You keep any of your bike stuff in any place other than the garage
• You wonder why nobody ever wants to be near you

It’s entirely possible that CSDS is incurable, but the symptoms are treatable. You must simply realize that just because you don’t notice the smell doesn’t mean it’s not there. Every bike-related item you own must be isolated from everything else you own, and treated much the same as if it were radioactive waste.

Or at least, that’s what all of you have to do. My bike stuff smells just fine.

Winner of the Banjo Brothers Messenger Bag

OK, I’ve got to admit I’ve got mixed feelings about calling this story the winner. I mean, it’s a great story, and it’s well-told, but what JuvenileTim-D describes himself doing goes way, way, way beyond stupid. Which, I guess, is why he wins with this entry: 

When we were kids, the town we lived in had a marine lake, a boating lake that was separated from the sea by a low wall. Most of the year, this wall was just about at sea level, with the sea just washing over to keep the lake full. It also keeps the wall covered in slimy green algae.

One of the big tests was to ride your bike around the wall. At low tide, you risked either sliding into the lake or sliding off the wall 8 feet down to the rocks. At high tide, the fall was replaced by a dip in the strong currents of the estuary. People drowned here every year, were not talking Bike Mike Bondai rip currents, just strong tidal flows that dragged you out into the main channel. Spring and autumn, we had very high tides coupled with storm force winds. It was always exciting to go down to the sea front and watch the waves crash over the car.

One autumn we had particularly high tides, with very strong winds. Sections of the promenade, large concrete and iron sections, just disappeared. A friend who lived further up the coast woke up to find a large sailboat buried in his living room window. Cars parked on the seafront disappeared.

My friend Dave and I decided we would have to ride the marine lake wall at high tide. We met at the appointed time at the town end of the lake and the wall was already awash and waves were crashing over the promenade where we waited. High tide. I went first, followed by Dave. The first third was the worst. The wall was under about a foot of water, with five and six foot wave crashing over the breakwater just beyond the lake wall.

We got round the first third without mishap, but soaked to the skin. The second third was running with the wind and the tide. We had no idea where the edges of the wall were, only guessing from the changes to the colour and run of the waves. We made it through, with Dave closing. Final third, cutting back across the wind, but with the lake sheltering us from the tide, the easy bit. Half way through, a freak combination of wind and waves caught us both in a torrent of falling water. When did water get so heavy? We were batted into the ground. I went down left, Dave right. I went into the lake, Dave into the sea. I managed to get loose from my toeclips and was just about able to swim to the launch slip and safety. I called out the inshore lifeboat, which went looking unsuccessfully for Dave.

He eventually washed up, literally, about three miles down the estuary, his life saved by an off-duty fireman, who fished his unconscious body out of the water and made sure he was breathing.

We never recovered either bike, but we had to go back and ride the wall.

Congratulations, JuvenileTim-D. And by the way, you are insane.