Miscellany: From a fighter to a freighter

A modern bicycle is one of the most beautifully useful and simple feats of mechanical engineering. Both in terms of the amount of energy expended and the ratio of weight carried to weight of the device, a bicycle is the best of the human-powered vehicles. If you measured the energy efficiency of a typical bike like a car engine, it'd be like getting hundreds of miles to the gallon.

Alas, while cyclocommuting, a number of practical problems arise. This morning, for example, the ride to school was conducted in nauseating smoke from the brushfires that are still being battled up near the Florida-Georgia border. More vexing, though, is the amount of sweat one can generate from a 20-minute, 3 mile ride. I think I may have found a solution...

I used to wear my backpack while riding, but lately I've been using a steel pannier set to hold my books and bike locks. With the backpack on, sweat naturally starts to accumulate on your back (ick). With your bags tucked in the panniers, however, you naturally have the wind to wick away most of the sweat that forms. I have a pair of panniers, taking the form of large steel frame baskets, mounted to the rear of the bike.

The drawback, of course, is that the panniers are heavy and spoil the balance of the bike. They also interfere with my pedaling slightly (I used to pedal with the balls of my feet). In sci-fi starship terms, the bike's changed from a fighter to a freighter.