Biking In Work Clothes



sunshiney

Active Member
Aug 19, 2015
268
44
18
33
Toronto
When you commute to work, do you have a short enough ride that you're able to wear your work clothes without getting too messed up, or do you have to change?

My coworkers have gotten pretty used to seeing me come in wearing a pair of muddy tights and running shoes with my work clothes in a backpack. The few times I've been in a rush and hopped on my bike wearing my work clothes, I've ended up spending the day with lovely muddy splashes up my pants and wet socks :(

It rains a lot where I live though so I think it's partially due to the fact that most of the year I'm biking to work through mud and rain. During the winter it's salt stains that get me.

I work in fashion retail so I have to look relatively polished, when I used to have a warehouse job I could wear what I came to work in and it didn't matter if I was a little rough.

It's such a minor issue but it's one of my main annoyances with commuting to work, I love being able to ride but I hate that I always arrive disheveled. Am I the only one, or does this bother anyone else?
 
I wear cycling attire to work and have the fortunate circumstance of being able to shower and change when I arrive. I keep a stock of clean clothes there too so I don't have to carry a heavy pack to work. I inevitably have to drive in once a week for a meeting externally so I just swap out dirty for clean on that day pre-planning when my next swap out will be.
 
It's preferable to wear attire that makes it easy to cycle to work. Wearing a suit and a tie is far from ideal if you're commuting to work on a bike. In such a situation it's better to wear cycling attire and change into your work clothes when you arrive at your place of work. Most employers should be reasonable enough to allow to you keep some clothes at the workplace and to allow you to change on arrival.
 
I've seen guys wearing a suit and tie on a bike before. I'm shocked as to how they do it. I'm guessing they need to be clean and all, but how do they not get their suits messed up from the ride over? I would like to think that having it tied up in a suit case would be ideal, or maybe they just figured out hot to do it without making a mess.
 
joshposh said:
I've seen guys wearing a suit and tie on a bike before. I'm shocked as to how they do it. I'm guessing they need to be clean and all, but how do they not get their suits messed up from the ride over? I would like to think that having it tied up in a suit case would be ideal, or maybe they just figured out hot to do it without making a mess.
I remember my husband when he was in London. The mailman was on bike and wearing a suit and tie. Everyone was laughing when he was telling that anecdote. That would be impossible here because of the climate we have. If not too hot, it would be too wet. Although there are days with a cool weather like in December, but it's not guaranteed. You will just get drenched on a bike wearing office clothes. I have a colleague who sometimes commutes on a bike to work but he has extra clothes and he uses the shower room in the office before changing to office clothes.
 
I live in a very polluted area in our country. I don't think I see employees riding their bikes to office in work clothes. I'm pretty sure they will be dusty and dirty even before reaching the office. I do see many construction workers riding their bike to work. Since they are exposed to a dusty environment anyway, it doesn't really matter if they commute with their bike on their way to work. I also see some students commute using their bike. But the school here in our place is very close to our village so it is not that difficult to ride a bike there. I have also seen security guards using their bikes to go to work.
 
I was afraid of riding out today. I even slept late because of this silly job that has me working 6 days a week.
 
The distance between my work place and my home is quite great. So I would not risk riding to work. I would definitely need a bath and a change of clothes.
 
It's a shame you work in an environment where you have to look nice. When I was working from an office, I would have to look somewhere around business casual and in the beginning this was a problem for me because I would get my clothes sweaty and I'd have to carry a change of clothes. Luckily, I soon figured out the company had a dedicated gym with showers in the same building I was working in so that problem sorted itself out.
 
I think a lot also depends on what you actually do fo a living and I used to be a mechanic in a local garage, and I wasn't too fussy about what I rode to work in.

If your based in an office tho, I wouldn't have thought riding to work in a suit would really be an option and a change of clothes would be essential.
 
I've been in both situations. When I worked in retail I rode to the store with my working clothes, since it was a very short ride (~3kms), and esentially I worked in black leggings and a shirt (comfy to ride).

Now I work in an office that's 16kms from where I live, so it's not feasible for me to ride with the same clothes I'll be wearing all day. Fortunately we have showers so I carry a change and a towel in my panniers. I don't have specific "cycling" clothing, just regular workout gear but that's more comfortable to ride in that regular business casual attire.
 
I do not commute to work because I think it's kind of unwise for me. I know I would enjoy the ride to work, it is a decent distance. But I know I'm gonna get all sweaty and I may be unappealing to the girls.
 
I am the worst person to try this,

I am very sweaty and also kind of a starter in commuting to work, so to avoid crazy situations I always have a spare shirt and some wet towelettes in my bag.
 
I don't have a certain dress code at my current work place. Just 'smart casual' I'd say. It's kinda pretty normal way I usually dress. So, that's not a huge issue for me to ride my bike right after the job.
 
cycle93 said:
I am the worst person to try this,

I am very sweaty and also kind of a starter in commuting to work, so to avoid crazy situations I always have a spare shirt and some wet towelettes in my bag.
I have some staff (younger employees below the age of 30) who are thinking of commuting by bike because you see, traffic here is now getting unbearable as days pass it is getting worse. The sweat is the first problem, second is the dirt because our roads are dirty, full of dust and smoke from big vehicles like trucks and buses. Now those young employees are thinking of requesting our company to provide them with a bathroom so they can change to office clothes after the commute. Maybe it's a good idea.
 
I think asking the company to provide a bathroom and changing facilities is a good idea, and I'd certainly make sure there was something in place before they started cycling to work, especially if the roads there are that bad!
 
I think it would be pretty interesting if I could see a guy in his suit riding a bike to work. That does not happen here almost never. I know some guys who cycle to work, but their work is no more than 5km away from where they live, and usually they work in the same clothes they ride in, for the simple fact that they do not work in places that require nice clothes. But, I can totally get you. Having a backpack with clothes for work is a very good thing, and comes in handy. If I were to bike to work, I would always make sure I have additional clothes.
 
mayasupernova said:
I think it would be pretty interesting if I could see a guy in his suit riding a bike to work. That does not happen here almost never. I know some guys who cycle to work, but their work is no more than 5km away from where they live, and usually they work in the same clothes they ride in, for the simple fact that they do not work in places that require nice clothes. But, I can totally get you. Having a backpack with clothes for work is a very good thing, and comes in handy. If I were to bike to work, I would always make sure I have additional clothes.
My husband said that in London, the mailman is delivering the mails on his bike wearing a suit and tie. But admittedly, London is in the frigid zone which has a cool climate (actually cold). But here in the Philippines, this is a tropical country especially during summer, riding a bike even for a few meters would extract some human juice.
 
No matter where you are in the world, and no matter what the climate is, when cycling a person is going to start sweating so ideally a person isn't going to want to cycle to and from work in the same clothes they're wearing all day.
 
I wear a shirt and tie at work and try to bike whenever weather permits. There aren't really any good changing facilities at my job. Generally, I will ride if the dry bulb temp is between 50 and 65 with an RH below 75% when I leave. I just unbutton my shirt 3 buttons and put the tie in my saddle bag. I have a 5 mile ride with a 100' climb over a bridge so I have to take it super slow to avoid getting sweaty on a hot day. I don't really care about getting sweaty on the way home though. I still haven't found a good solution when it gets below 50 degrees as I haven't been able to find a jacket that will keep me warm on the flat parts and not leave me sweaty on the climb.