Ask Auntie Annabelle: How to be fashionable when bicycling!

Hey, it's a new series! Hot on the heels of Lessons from Bea Danville, Profile of a Home-Based Business, and I Am Terrible With My Money (not really a series, just... all of my posts that don't fit in the previous two categories)

Ask Aunt Annabelle

I recently got this question on the my Facebook page:

"How does a girl, like yourself (and me), who likes to wear cute skirts deal with the bike riding/skirt wearing issues? Do you just go for it? Or do you have a non-flashing system?"

- Bicycling Is Kinda Excellent

Lauren Bacall brings super fabulosity to bike riding.

Dear BIKE,

I'm so glad you asked! Mainly because this gives me a good reason to feature photos from one of my fave random websites, Rides A Bike.

Now, it's widely accepted that bikes are cuter than cars, right? I mean... what part of that is not true?

Would Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward look this cute in a car? Hardly.

So, riding a bike makes you inherently cuter, just by being on the bike. By being on a bike, you are already 100% cuter than people in cars. But, you are also 100% more at risk of flashing your crotch gusset to the world. What to do??

1) Get a girl-style bike, with the open area so your skirt has a place to fall.

2) Wear opaque tights/leggings/bike shorts under your skirt ALWAYS!
No cotton crotch gussets should ever be visible (let alone tights-free nether regions).
(Unless you're Nichelle Nicols, but she's got the super fabulosity to work it out)

3) If you'll be working up a sweat, then put on exercise clothes to bike to work,
and change into your work clothes once you get there.

- ridesabike.tumblr.com

4) Shorts are also a good option, in place of skirt. Not just for circus performing!

5) Do you know why short, tight pants are called pedal pushers?
Because you can wear them riding a bike!

6) Wear pants! Or a skirt! Don't just go biking in a shirt! Oh my god!

7) When wearing a skirt or dress, go with a full skirt. Tight skirts will make it trickier to bike.

8) Flowy fabrics are not ideal. They will get caught in your bike gears.
Also, you should probably wear shoes.

9) Your skirt should be at least knee length. Shorter works only with bike shorts or tights inside.
Longer might get tangled.

10) When biking in pants, wear either tight-fitting pants or roll up the bottoms of your pants.
Audrey Hepburn shows how it's done in cigarette pants.