My Bike Is My Car

What about my feet? How shall I keep them dry on wet days?

Even on days without rain, if there has been a recent rain and the roads are wet, chances are that dirty water will be splashing up from the road and landing on your feet and ankles, sometimes entering into the shoe or from the top of the sock or spotting your pant cuffs muddy brown.

I’m not sure whether I’ve found the solution to this problem yet, but here’s what I will try this year. Firstly, I’ve decided to switch to clipless. I’ve been riding with toe clips for years now and am comfortable enough with them. The advantage of toe clips on a commute of less than an hour each way is that I don’t have to pack additional work shoes. Yesterday, for instance, there simply was no more room in my bike bags for a pair of shoes. I had books, dvds, lots of papers, change of clothes, inclement weather accessories, and some snack foods. The bags were full! A major benefit of toe clips is wearing street shoes on the commute.

So why would I switch to clipless? Curiosity. I want to find out what it is like. Does it feel better pedalling clipless? Do I get more power and punch out of each revolution? Because this is an experiment, I purchased “multipurpose” platform pedals: on one side they are SPD compatible clipless and on the other side it is a regular platform pedal that takes any street shoe. This will be great for when I want to make a quick trip in the bike to the grocery store or post office but don’t want to change shoes for that purpose. The disadvantage is that if I decided to commute in my street shoes, I won’t have the use of the toe clips for the journey.

Where this choice relates to gearing up for cold and wet riding conditions is in the choice of shoe. After consulting some online discussion forums on the topic, I decided that a cycling sandal could be the best option for cold and wet conditions. It does seem counterintuitive, I know. Here’s what I heard from experienced, year-round sandal commuters: the Keen Commuter sandal is waterproof, first of all. The part of the feet that is exposed, however, benefits from a wool sock that absorbs the wet but stays warm. The sandal, meanwhile, will be quicker to dry out once you get to work because there is really nothing there that soaks up moisture. Now, one can imagine getting the same benefit from a waterproof, fully-enclosed shoe. But there you sacrifice breathability and as I’ve said before, I have never found anything waterproof to be breathable for me. Moreover, my feet are much happier with greater circulation and I have found that of all fabrics, wool keeps them most content of all. What they really prefer (my feet, that is) is ‘to be free’, i.e., no socks at all. Thus with the sandal I can ride without socks MUCH of the year here in northern California, and use various thicknesses of wool socks when the weather is less pristine. I like this idea and am ready to give it a shot. I did talk to some commuters about using a waterproof sock with the sandal or neoprene booty in truly awful conditions and the unanimous response has been: ’sweaty, clammy, uncomfortable, not worth it.’  I think I’m just going to give the sandal + wool combination a shot and see that keeps me steady on rainy/cold days. If I have an extra pair of wool socks in my waterproofed bike bag, I should be fine. (By the way, if it is cheaper to get a bike bag that is NOT classified as a waterproof, do it. Applying a waterproofing spray on a bag is easy and cheap. You can do this yourself at home for less than $10.) 

So that’s my plan for keeping my feet and ankles happy this autumn-winter-spring. I don’t know yet, however, what I’ll do to solve my space problem with packing the work shoes I need. Unfortunately, I work in two locations and cannot leave shoes at either location, so that possibility is out. It looks like I may just have to make room somehow in my bag. I did purchase a cheap ($6.00) handlebar bag that I plan on waterproofing myself with a spray. I could use that for my phone, snacks, pen drive, etc. This might create enough space in my bag for the shoes. We’ll see.