Suggestions for Faster Commute Prep in Morning?
 

What do you do to make it easy to get out the door in the morning? I want to improve my efficiency.

When I get home at night, I immediately charge my two front lights. One has a wall charger and charges in less than an hour, but the other has a USB charger that takes 3-5 hours.

In the morning, I prepare lunch and put it in my backpack. Gather all lights (in winter) and put them in backpack. I keep clothes/shoes at the office, but will gather underwear and shirt to pack. I have been wearing tights, a warm base layer, jacket and wool socks on the ride in. Coming home, when it is colder, I add some compression socks under the wool socks and a vest under the jacket for core warmth. So, I pack the extra socks and vest. I bring my cell phone, but sometimes forget it when I am in a rush. A few times I have also forgotten my keys when in a rush, which I need for my desk drawers and bike lock at work...

I try to put some lube on my chain and inflate tires each day, but sometimes skip this when I am in a rush. I have 700 x 28 tires and they seem to loose about 5-10 psi every few days. The Armadillo elite tires I use say 75 - 95 is the recommended psi. I aim to keep the front tire around 85 psi and the rear around 90-95 psi. I figure higher psi helps me to be faster on the road, but I do often take a rail-trail shortcut (for about 1/2 mile) with gravel on my way home and lower psi is helpful there. I usually only have time to put a few dabs of oil on my chain... Last time I brought my bike in for a tune-up, I was told that my chain was too dry.

I prepare lunch the night before and also pack all the clothing, equipment, and other items I'll need for work in my panniers at night. To avoid the forgotten keys problem, I keep a second set in my panniers all the time.

The fewer tasks you leave for the morning, the less of a chance you'll back out of riding because "it's just too much hassle today!"

Dynamo lights permanently attached to bike. I wear normal office clothing under a Gortex long hooded coat and pants and Neos over-boots with Velcro closures. It takes about a minute to throw all the gear on. The chain cover means that I only lube the chain a few times a year. The tires are wide enough that they only need to be pumped every few weeks. Keys are always in my pocket. For lunch, I toss something from the fridge into the panniers or buy something at the cafe near the office. The single best thing I have done to de-hassle things was to get the Neos overshoes -- much faster to put on than rubber ones, and also warmer and drier.

I prep everything the night before. Clothes for work are packed in the panniers. My lunch and breakfast are prepared and put in the fridge. I leave out my outfit I am going to wear on the bike commute. In the morning all I have to do is get dressed put my panniers and lunch on my bike and leave. It only takes a few minutes to get dressed and hop on the bike and leave.

If you're losing up to 10 psi/day, I suspect that new tubes are in order (thick heavy ones). Daily air and lube is excessive for a commuter - and I'll do that the night before, never in the morning. More typically on the weekend only, unless the tires feel mushy. I check, every time, but I almost never have any maintenance. In fact everything is ready in the morning, except for packing a bag with work clothes. I get dressed (10 minutes) grab my clothes (5 minutes), shave etc (15 minutes), roll out the door in half an hour. No coffee, no breakfast, just go.

I don't usually bring my lunch so that's an extra step for you, but when I do it's pre-prepped and in the fridge. Usually based on something I cooked in bulk on Sunday.

If it's wet out I'll usually wipe and lube my chain when I get home so it's good to go the next day. I also prep my lunch the night before. I have a routine for taking my cellphone and keep a credit card and money in my backpack. I don't carry keys and I leave my bike lock at work. I charge my light at work and it's good for a couple of rides.

+1 for prepping as much as possible the night before. The only thing I do in the morning is get into my riding clothes. Change of clothes is already at work. I have a few sets that I rotate and bring home whenever I drive, which is more often now than when it was warm. This way you don't' have to think, and the less thinking the better when it's so darn early.

I ride on 35mm Panaracer Pasela tires and inflate them to only about 65/70 F/R. They need inflation only every three or four weeks.

I also have Dynamo lights as main lights. I have a USB chargeable tail light and charge that every couple of weeks. My spike light needs a new watch battery every month or so.

In the morning, getting dressed takes longer than I like. I put bands around my trouser cuffs and a mirror on my glasses. I mount my GPS on my wrist and put my regular watch in my pocket. I put my pannier on my bike if it's not on already. I put one ear of my headphones on, then my hat, then my helmet.

I could skip the GPS, but I don't know what else I could skip in the interest of speed. If it weren't for prep time, my bike commute would take the same time as my subway commute.

One piece Jump suits?

I charge lights, and pack clothes the night before. The only thing I have to do in the morning is pack iPad/iPhone and fill water bottle.

If I know I need to be out the door on time or early I pack the night before - clothes, lunch and any special items (work stuff or whatever). I also lay out my riding clothes for the morning.

Not cycling related but setting the automatic function on the coffee pot always help get me out of bed.

I never do regular maintenance on my bikes during the week unless I must. On Sundays I lube, inflate the tires to 110% of max rated, tension chains on SSFGs. That way I don't need to do anything during the week.


My recommendations - If it can be done in the night do it, if it can't then prep it for the morning, and do all bike maintenance on weekends.

I have all dynamo lites so no charging, removing, putting back on, forgetting, etc. Schwalbe Marathon Winter tires only need air about once every month or two. Chain is fully enclosed as are internally geared hub and roller brakes so maybe annual maintenance at best (though many people go 10 or more years). I wear normal clothes (jeans or slacks, oxford, maybe a mock turtle). The only difference when riding instead of driving is I might wear a heavier coat and a hat, otherwise no diff in morning routine.

noglider: Why do you need a gps to get to work? Don't you work in the same place every day? Just curious.

Lay clothes out & organise panniers night before. Charge phone & iPod overnight. In morning check tire pressure, check bike, mount panniers. Food, dress, out.

- Andy

-get new tubes, something is wrong.
-pack work clothes onto bike night before
-lay out wallet and keys on table
-have a big bag of trail mix at work for days i don't have lunch meetings...its surprisingly filling...lunch can be light if you have a good breakfast and dinner.
-lube your chain once a year like me...��

This is what we do in the UK.

I need that AM ritual to stay the same. I'd say to do any bike maintenance the night before and just do a thumb check for PSI in morning.

Just a few minutes ago I posted to this thread on the Winter Cycling Forum, ”How long to get suited up?”:

My lights all take AA batteries and I use rechargeables. I have 3 sets for each light, and keep 1 set on the charger at all times, with 1 set in the lights and the 2nd set in my seat bag as spares, and rotate as needed. I keep spare cell phone batteries on me at all times as well.

Basically the same here,

I just wear my work clothes with rain gear when needed, my wife makes and packs my lunch for me :thumb:, so all I need to do is throw my lunch bag on the rack and go, takes a minute or so to get out the door.

This is almost exactly my situation except that I live in the South -- no snow -- so my tires are Schwalbe Marathon Plus.

What takes me so long is getting the bike out to the street. Because I live in a city with a lot of property crime and in an old house with a detached garage in the backyard, the routine is long. I have to lock the house, arm the alarm, unlock the gate to the backyard, unlock the garage, unlock the bike (locked via cable to a stud in the garage), then re-lock the garage and gate. Then, finally, I'm off.

I don’t like to fumble with too many bags. At one point I was carrying three. One with a change of clothes, one with lunch and bike tools and one for the gym.

Now I carry only a handlebar bag with bike tools and lunch. I leave a change of clothes and towel at work. And if I have to go to the gym, I return home first and drive over. This is a compromise for my wife who didn’t want me to ride home in the dark.

I have about the same commute time whether I have the fast bike or the slow bike because on the fast bike I want to dress out.

I have considered eating a banana and protein bar washed down with k-cup coffee en route, but I like my fried eggs and French press too much for that.

It's not a navigator. It's a tracker.
@john4789, you wear a heavier coat? I wear a lighter one.

+1 for prepping and laying things out the night before.

Also, I don't think you need to lube the chain every day. It's better to do it less often, but do a thorough job: put a dab on every chain link, then wipe off the excess.

My hours are all over the place right now, but when I do have an early start and need to prep as much as possible the night before, this is what I do:

* Lay out clothes to be worn. I usually put them right on the bathroom stand. That way it's quick and easy to put them on after the shower. I wear the same clothes for commuting as I do for work; if you shower and change at work, lay out the commuting clothes by the bed or in some other obvious, convenient place, and pack the work clothes the night before (or even keep a week's supply at work, if you have storage space there).

* Get all the mechanical work done. Lube, pump etc. That's usually done once a week at the most, or even less often.

* Pack everything I'll need for work in the pannier, and clip the pannier onto the rack (the bike lives inside, so that's quick and easy). Things that cannot be packed yet (e.g. lunch) are placed in prominent, hard-to-miss spots (front of the fridge in the big flashy lunch bag, for example). You could probably even do that with lights: if you plug them in right after getting home, they'd be charged by the time you go to bed. Alternatively, if you don't need them for the morning, could you charge them at work, or would that be frowned upon?

* Lay out all the cooking stuff I'll need to prepare breakfast. Yes, I go that far: I'm not a morning person; so everything helps! E.g., if I'm going to make scrambled eggs, I pull out a frying pan, a plate, a knife, a cup and a little sieve I use to make tea. If I'm making oatmeal, I'll measure it out the night before and place the pot on the stove. Seriously, I need to run on autopilot in the morning as much as possible! :D

So, this makes for a pretty hassle-free morning. I can be out the door 20 minutes after I get up -- and that's having showered and eaten a proper breakfast. There are only two things I need to remember to check: one, I make a point of confirming all the stove burners are off just before I walk out, and two, I always check my pockets for three vital things: keys, wallet, cell phone. I never leave home without those three items anyway (unless going across the road to buy a bag of sunflower seeds or for a little sunset walk), so that is automatic by now. Forgetting one of those things is almost as unlikely as forgetting to put on pants in the morning.

I'm curious, btw: how do you forget keys? Don't you lock the door when you leave? And don't you unlock it when you come back home? If you have a separate set of keys for work and don't want to clutter your main keychain with them, why don't you always keep them in your bike pannier or whatever you use to transport things to/from work?