For a lot of people, riding a bike through a crowded city—or even on suburban avenues—might feel daunting. Should you get an electric or acoustic bicycle? What gear do you need while you ride? How do you avoid getting hit by the great big gas guzzlers that take up most of the road? These are valid questions, and we've got answers. May is national bike month here in the US, and Gadget Lab is ready to get you rolling.
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editor Adrienne So joins us as we cycle through all things bikes: how to start riding more, what to look for in an ebike, and what the best frame color is for your grocery-getter.
Show Notes
Read more about Adrienne’s guide to the best ebikes. Here’s our roundup of our favorite bike accessories.
Recommendations
Adrienne recommends the book A Paradise Built in Hell, by Rebecca Solnit. Mike recommends the Lil Guy hip bag from Road Runner Bags. Lauren recommends Adrienne So’s WIRED story “A Letter to My Fellow Asian Mothers From the Multiverse.”
Adrienne So can be found on Twitter @adriennemso. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
How to Listen
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Transcript
Lauren Goode: Mike.
Michael Calore: Lauren.
Lauren Goode: Mike, this morning, I offered you a ride in my car to the office, so you wouldn't have to ride your bike, but you normally ride your bike. So what made you accept the offer?
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Michael Calore: To spend quality time with you, of course.
Lauren Goode: Oh, stop it. But aren't you supposed to be Bike Calore? I mean, you're a bike guy.
Michael Calore: I have been known to be a bike person, yes.
Lauren Goode: And as much as I want to be a bike person, I'm not totally converted. And maybe I should be.
Michael Calore: I think we will get you there over the next 35 to 45 minutes.
Lauren Goode: I should probably start with an actual bike though, right?
Michael Calore: Yes. We'll work on that too.
Lauren Goode: Let's talk about it.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]
Lauren Goode: Hi everyone. This is Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Goode, I'm a senior writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: And I am Michael Calore. I'm a senior editor at WIRED.
Lauren Goode: Aka Bike Calore.
Michael Calore: It me.
Lauren Goode: And WIRED senior associate reviews editor Adrienne So is here, or at least she's here on Zoom. She joins us from Portland, Oregon. Hey, Adrienne. Welcome back to the show.
Adrienne So: Hi guys.
Lauren Goode: So we've talked a lot about bikes on this pod because we generally like them, a lot. And many of us happen to live in areas where getting around on bikes is possible, but for some people, bikes are daunting, terrifying, expensive, or just not feasible where they live or all of the above. So considering that May is National Bike Month, we thought we would do our annual Bike Calore episode. I really think that's probably what we're going to title it. If they would let us. All right, in the second half of the show, we're going to talk about ebikes, which might be a better solution for some people, and I think people are curious about. But first, let's start with the basics. Should you be commuting by bike? What kind of bike should you look to buy? And what's all the other gear that you need? So Adrienne, what would you say people really need to start rolling or riding?
Adrienne So: So Mike and I have bonded over this in the past, but my own personal road bike is just a complete beater, it's the Surly Cross-Check, and it's the color of newborn diarrhea. And I love it, I love it so much. If you're just peddling around your neighborhood, I say, just go find an absolute banger in the color that you absolutely love. Let it be like steel, get some thicker tires on it so you're not fumbling around all over the place. A couple of the good midrange brands, I guess I'd say Surly, Kona, Marin—I think that's local to you guys. So yeah, I would expect to spend somewhere around $400 or $500. I got my bike off of a Facebook buy/sell trade group, and your best bet is a bike in an absolutely revolting color, so that is my suggestion.
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Lauren Goode: Adrienne, this begs the follow-up question: What color is newborn diarrhea? What is that? Is that brown? Is that chartreuse? What is it? Puke?
Adrienne So: I don't even know if Surly has an official name for it, but it's this very specific shade of brownie green. That is just … So it's not olive, it's not cocoa, it's in between. And when I find another Surly guy who has a bike the same color, you're legally required to high-five, it's so revolting.
Lauren Goode: Mike, what's your go-to road bike?
Michael Calore: Well, I mean, I have a couple, as Adrienne mentioned, I do have a beater, which I use for quick errands. Things like going to the grocery store, going to yoga class, going to the bar to meet a friend. And then I have a bike that is a little nicer, with a little nicer appointments that I use to get to and from the office. Both of them, I spent well under a thousand dollars for. I think the beater I spent like $250 on, and then my road bike, the nicer one, I spent I think $700 or $800 on. And really, I think the thing that you need in addition to a bike is you need a purpose, right? You need a place to go, a reason to ride, because when you're first starting out, I think having a destination and having a good practice of getting to and from that destination is really important.
So I would recommend that you pick one errand that you normally do every week and choose to do that by bicycle instead of driving. So if you normally drive to your tennis game, you can ride your bike to your tennis game. Or if you normally drive to pick up the coffee beans for your weekly espresso machine, coffee bean refill hopper thing, then just ride to the roastery and get your beans by bicycle instead of driving. I feel like if you do that, that's just as important as having a good bike to ride, because otherwise, that good bike that you bought will just sit in the garage.
Lauren Goode: Right? So ultimately what you're going to use it for is going to dictate what kind of bike you need. I'm going to lean really heavily on you both for advice here, because I'm not a big biker, as we've established. I bought a used bike back when I went to grad school because the campus was huge and I was glad I had it. I enjoyed riding it around, and I also briefly trained for a triathlon with that bike. Although the triathlons didn't happen, and that's a whole other story. But then recently, which is several years later at this point, my bike was stolen. So now I'm without a bike, and I'm debating what to do. And it wasn't an expensive bike, it was a beater, as you would describe it, it was used, it was a Raleigh Revenio something or other. Mike, you did some work on it a couple of times.
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Michael Calore: I put air in the tires, Lauren.
Lauren Goode: Oh, it seemed very official. You had a bike kit in the garage, and you were doing things, you were tinkering. Are you telling me you were only putting air in the tires?
Adrienne So: Oh my God. I love getting out my bike tool. I'm like, “I am exactly like Angelina Jolie in Gone in 60 Seconds.” Or whatever. I'm like, “Yeah, I'm just going to tighten up this bolt. I'm 2 Fast 2 Furious right now.” It's awesome.
Lauren Goode: But then recently a friend of mine came over to my house, and she had just done a very, very long bike ride. She rode from down in Silicon Valley to where I am in San Francisco. And I noticed that her bike had, it was a partial road bike, a partial gravel bike.
Michael Calore: Yeah. I think the thing that you're talking about is something that you can use on multiple different kinds of terrain. People usually just call that a hybrid.
Lauren Goode: OK. Hybrid. OK. So, at what point would you say that someone needs to consider a hybrid?
Michael Calore: I mean, if that's your first bike, I think that's fine. If that's your second bike, that may be more appropriate. It really just depends on where you live, what the riding conditions are like, what the infrastructure is like in the place that you ride. If there are a lot of bike lanes and a lot of people out cycling all the time, then you probably don't need to spend the money that you would need to do in order to outfit a bike to ride off-road or to ride on rough roads. However, if there is not a lot of infrastructure, or if your riding is mostly going to be like, you know you want to go riding off-road or you know that you're going to be riding on fire roads or on the path that's next to the road, which isn't always in the best condition. Then that might be a reason that you would want to get a bike that is a hybrid. Something that can handle more than just pavement.
Adrienne So: As Mike mentioned, a lot of bike people tend to have bike quivers, bikes for different purposes, but figuring out those purposes is pretty key. And I think a hybrid is really good if you do not intend to become a crazy bike person with a dozen bikes in your garage. If you had the gravel bike or a hybrid bike, that's awesome if you are combining commuting and a gentle weekend trail ride. But that's absolutely true what Mike was saying about finding a purpose, because finding safe routes, it shouldn't be an issue, but it totally is. Before you go anywhere on your bike, you really have to plot it out so you don't find yourself in a place with no shoulder or 18-wheelers or something. I wish that wasn't such a big issue in a lot of places, but it really is.
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Lauren Goode: So how concerned are both of you about safety? I think that's my number one hang-up about cycling around San Francisco.
Adrienne So: I mean, I'm not in San Francisco, I'm in Portland. It has a reputation as being a really bike-friendly city. Our Bureau of Transportation publishes local bike maps with safe routes. But those tend to highlight commuter routes or someplace you might drive to with your kids, like bike along the river or something. I find that Google Maps and Apple Maps are actually a lot better to check against each other. I think Google Maps has a bicycling layer so that it plots out the route, not only the routes but the grade and …
Michael Calore: Difficulty.
Adrienne So: Yeah. Grade and difficulty. And then Strava has heat maps, which are awesome if you live in a more populated area, because I realize that I happen to live next to a really popular bike route, so the best protection that you have are other bikers.
Michael Calore: I would add that if you're concerned about safety and you live in a relatively big city, look for your local bike coalition or your bike advocacy group, because they usually offer introductory street safety courses, which cover all the basics, the dos and don'ts, and the basics of the laws of riding on a road, whether or not there's a bike lane or not. Here in California, if there's no bike lane, you're allowed to ride in the normal lane of traffic. And when you do that, even though it's within the law, all of the cars are honking at you, people are yelling at you, people are throwing things. It makes you feel really unsafe, but you are riding within the letter of the law.
So there is this weird disconnect between what is allowed and what is proper and what is safe. And what is safe is going to be determined by your own comfort level. Whether or not you have nerves of steel, which in some cities you need in order to ride on the streets. But I think, to Adrienne's point, if you do a little bit of research and you find the good routes, you'll meet other people to ride with. If you ride as a group, it's safer than riding on your own, usually. But also your local bike organization or your local bike advocacy group can be a big asset.
Adrienne So: Something that I really love that has started in Portland is the advent of bike buses. So the schools have started helping kids and parents who want to bike to school band together. And I've seen some really incredible pictures of 15 or 20 kids just biking to school together. I love it.
Lauren Goode: I have to say the vitriol aimed at cyclists always shocks me. I don't understand why drivers get so mad at cyclists, because cyclists are literally helping to make the planet a more habitable place. It's fewer cars on the road.
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Michael Calore: That is a whole separate episode.
Lauren Goode: It's a whole podcast. Let's put a pin in that. All right, I have a question about the gear you need to get started aside on a bike. Because you're not just buying the bike, right, you need locks or a helmet or lights. And then I also have a question about cargo. What do you buy if you're, I don't know, toting your kids around or lots of grocery bags or a surfboard?
Michael Calore: I would say yes to a helmet, lights, a lock, a pump, and a very basic bike tool, which is just a tool that has all of the wrenches that you would typically need to fix just about any bike. It's three or four hex wrenches and a couple of screwdrivers, the different heads of screwdrivers. You can also get a patch kit, something like that if you want to make your own repairs, or you just ask somebody to make repairs for you. It's usually pretty easy to find either a bike shop or a neighbor who can do something like fix a flat tire or fix your chain. Lube is also important—you need to lubricate your machine in order to make it work properly.
Lauren Goode: This is a family-friendly podcast, Mike.
Michael Calore: Yes. Lube is very, very important. The thing that I think you don't need to worry about is the fancy clothes. You don't necessarily—
Lauren Goode: You need a kit.
Michael Calore: You don't need any of that stuff. You can just ride in the shoes that you wear every day, provided they're flats and not heels. You can ride in jeans, you can ride in shorts, you can ride in a T-shirt—just ride. When you were a kid and you rode a bike, you didn't get dressed up in spandex and clicky shoes, right? You didn't put on the $400 sunglasses. You just literally hopped on your bike and went. The closest you can get to that, I think is ideal. Especially if you're just starting out and you just want to get around.
Adrienne So: Yeah. The idea is to have it be fun. That's why I started on my summer of jorts for sports. So, this is going to be the summer where I jort it up.
Lauren Goode: And Adrienne, what do you use for cargo?
Adrienne So: Oh man, the thing I love about bikes and bike people is the endless willingness to customize literally everything. I have a rear rack; I've got the padded seats and the steel safety bar cage around our rear rack. I recently installed double-wide foot decks. So I can start latching more things to the bottom of our rack. But mine is what you would call a mid-tail or a long tail. The butt sticks out more so that I can fit both my kids riding on the back behind me.
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Michael Calore: You can also clip bags to it if you want.
Lauren Goode: Oh, wow.
Adrienne So: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or 50-pound bags of cement or dog food or mulch. I've done that too.
Michael Calore: Yeah. I think if you want to get to and from the grocery store, just start with a really good backpack. Something that's comfortable to ride your bike with under load. So test a backpack, put a bunch of stuff in it, ride around the block a couple of times. If it feels OK, it's going to be fine. You'll know when you need more.
Adrienne So: When I was biking around San Francisco or Berkeley, I would just dangle the bags of groceries from my handlebars—which I really don't recommend if you have any other options, but it can be done.
Lauren Goode: Whenever I see someone biking to and from a market like the farmer's market or grocery stores in the movies, first of all, they always have leafy green stuff sticking out of the tops of their bags. And I don't know anyone who in real life ever has leafy green … Stop it. Mike is raising his hand, stop it. This whole podcast episode is just an episode of Portlandia.
Michael Calore: I bought chard at the grocery store yesterday, and I didn't want to break it to get it into the backpack, so I just stuck it out of the top of the backpack, and I had chard leaves behind my head.
Lauren Goode: OK. So you actually are that person, but then yes, it always seems like people just have one single bag of groceries that is going to sustain the crowd. And they're on this beautiful bike with a basket, and hair is flowing, and everything just looks idyllic.
Michael Calore: Live simply so that others may simply live.
Lauren Goode: All right. On that note, let's wrap up this segment. That's good advice. We'll wrap up this segment, and we're going to take a short break and come back with more on ebikes.
[Break]
Lauren Goode: OK. So we've sold you on road bikes, and I think I've been sold, actually. I really want another bike. I just haven't been able to get one, which is once again, a whole other episode. We should talk about ebikes and ebike shares because, for a lot of people, these are just going to be a better option, because they're powered and they can give you a boost. But they're also heavier, and they tend to be more expensive. I mean, unless you're one of those serious cyclists, who's getting a carbon-fiber multi-thousand-dollar racing bike. If you're comparing the kind of beater bike you guys are talking about with an ebike, an ebike is going to be more expensive.
Michael Calore: Yes.
Lauren Goode: So, Adrienne, what would you say is the threshold for someone to say, “OK, a road bike might not work for me. I should consider an ebike.”
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Adrienne So: I mean, I ride an electric cargo bike to school, and the people who consistently talk to me about it and ask about it are other moms, because I mean, I'm 5'2", there's just no way that somebody my size could carry kids. And the whole reason we got an electric bike in the first place was because I was towing my kids to school in a bike trailer with all their stuff. I was biking so slowly that my husband was really convinced that I would get flattened in the road, because I wouldn't be able to bike out of the road quickly enough with his offspring behind me. So I really think that electric bikes and electric motors are a total game changer if you're older or smaller and you just wouldn't have the ability to do what you wanted to do on a bike without one. So if you are smaller, please think about it.
Michael Calore: And I would say, if you have a longer commute, right? Or if you live in the boonies. I'm pretty lucky in that I have about a 3-mile flat commute across San Francisco from my home to the office.
Lauren Goode: Which is why you accepted my car ride today to the office, right?
Michael Calore: Yes. That's exactly why. So, if I lived 6 miles or 7 miles from the office, and that commute involved a hill or two or three, like a lot of places in San Francisco do, then I would probably be riding an ebike, just because it helps me get to where I'm going without the level of exhaustion that it would otherwise require, right?
Lauren Goode: And sweatiness.
Michael Calore: And the sweatiness. You still do get a pretty decent workout riding an ebike, it just assists you. It doesn't do the whole thing for you. It just assists you. So it makes pedaling more productive is all it is, but you still have to pedal for most ebikes anyway.
Lauren Goode: Can you ride ebikes in bike lanes, or do you ride them on the road alongside all of the four-wheeled gas guzzlers?
Michael Calore: You can ride them in bike lanes.
Adrienne So: You do ride them in bike lanes. There are, I think, three classes of ebikes that are sold in the United States right now, which is something that you should probably check on your local laws. I know that New York City, for example, does not consider electric bikes with a throttle to be bikes; I think those are motor vehicles. I think in most populated places, you'll want a bike that has a speed cap of about 20 miles per hour. And I know that a lot of business bikes are being capped now at 12 miles per hour, so …
Michael Calore: And those would be like delivery bikes?
Adrienne So: Mm-hmm.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
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Adrienne So: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: So, Adrienne, you have mentioned that most people are going to want to look to an affordable DTC bike. What does that mean? What's a DTC bike, and how much can people expect to pay?
Adrienne So: So the most affordable options are going to be from companies like Aventon or Rad Power. This is a direct-to-consumer bike that you can buy directly off their website and have it—
Lauren Goode: Oh, so that's what DTC means, just direct-to-consumer?
Adrienne So: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Like Warby Parker glasses, or a mattress that you get DTC?
Adrienne So: Absolutely. Except that you are not pedaling a mattress down the street at 25 miles per hour, which is why I would 100 percent … I know that it's so tempting when you look at the prices of all these DTC bikes, you're like, “OK, the specs are kind of similar, but I'm spending $1,200 versus $2,000 or $2,500.” That really sucks. But it's also, we've tested so many ebikes here. And I just have such a big problem with direct-to-consumer companies. Rad Power is really good at it, but they often don't ship the forks properly. The forks come bent, the displays are cracked. And if you've never assembled a bike before, it could be really dangerous.
I mean, there's a lot of things about assembling an electric bike that could go wrong, which is why I generally recommend that if it's your first bike, you go to a bike shop and get to try out a bunch of different models and have somebody that you can talk to and somebody who will assemble it for you, because the time to find out that something is wrong with your electric bike is not when you've got your kids and your bags on it and you're going 25 miles an hour down the road. You don't want anything to set on fire there, so …
Michael Calore: Also, the folks at your local bike shop will probably be pretty well versed on the local regulations, what's allowed, what isn't. And also what sort of bike would be good for your weight and the types of things you're going to be doing. Like Adrienne was saying, if you carry your two kids to and from school every day on your bike, you're going to need a different style of ebike than the person who just wants to get themself and a 20-pound backpack to and from the office. So I would recommend talking to them. If you don't have a local bike shop, or if you are uncomfortable going in and talking to somebody who's trying to sell you something, just ask the bike person in your life. I'm sure you have one. Even if they're in another city, you can ask that person.
Lauren Goode: Ask your own personal Bike Calore.
Michael Calore: That's right.
Lauren Goode: So what is the battery life like on these ebikes? Both for each individual ride and over the long term, since we know that rechargeable lithium-ion batteries tend to lose their juice over several years.
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Adrienne So: That's another thing that you want to consider when buying a cheaper bike with, say, a Bafang system versus a more expensive, more reliable motor and drivetrain. I personally have a Bosch motor drivetrain; more expensive electric bikes have drive trains by companies like Bosch and Shimano, both of whom I recommend. I think Bosch's standards, they use automotive standards when testing their drivetrains. My colleague Julian Chokkattu and I, he tests more of the lower-end bikes. And he recently had an unpleasant moment when he realized that his bikes have a range of about 12 to 20 miles per charge. And he had to charge his bike every day, versus my personal bike, which has a range of 90 to 120 miles, and I only have to charge my bike once a week, which can also extend the life of the battery.
Michael Calore: Ebikes will always come with a range statement. The manufacturer will tell you, “Oh, this goes 30 to 40 miles per charge.” But you can dial in how much work you want the motor to do. You can ride with almost no assistance or no assistance at all. Or you can ride with the setting that has the motor working really hard to make you go as fast and as efficiently from one place to another as possible. If you ride in that high setting, you're going to drain your battery that much faster, right? If you ride in a low setting, you can conserve your battery.
So the range statements are really guessing, you'll get a good sense of what your range is after you've done your normal rides in your normal style with the settings that you like a few times, you'll get an idea for what it actually is. But if you're worried about range, look for a bike where you can buy a second battery. So you can always have a backup battery charged at home or at the office. Something that, you know, if you run into trouble, you're in a location where you can swap the battery. That's something that eases range anxiety.
Lauren Goode: Mm-hmm. Yeah, fair enough. Are ebikes safer than road bikes? So even if someone isn't ready to invest in their own personal electric bike at this point, should they be looking to ride share bikes or something like that instead of using a road bike when possible?
Michael Calore: Rideshare bikes are a great way into ebikes, because a lot of them are electric now. So you can make a decision about how you feel about riding an ebike. As to whether or not they're safer, that's completely up to the person riding it and the road conditions and the attitudes of the drivers in the location where they're riding it. It's just a huge question mark, because there are so many variables involved. I will say that ebikes make it easier for you to get out of tough situations more quickly, right? So if you're in an uncomfortable situation where you're surrounded by things that feel dangerous, an ebike will help you zip out of there faster than you would be able to if you were under your own power.
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However, I think that people driving cars generally have an idea in their head about how fast a bicycle should be able to go. Ebikes kind of break that expectation, because they allow you to go much faster. So somebody may look in the rearview mirror, see you 30 feet behind them on a bike, and say, “Oh, I'm going to change lanes now because there's no way that bike is going to be here by the time I'm changing lanes.” And then do that to find you right next to them because you're on an ebike and you're going 20 miles an hour. So there's an argument to be made that they're less safe because they can go faster. But there's an argument to be made that they are more safe because they can get you out of a sticky situation. So really it's just like, if you keep your head about you, and don't take chances, every bike is safe, no matter what kind of bike.
Adrienne So: I just wanted to stick this in here, as long as we're talking about bike shares and stuff, you can try electric bikes from the shop. You can try electric bikes from a bike share, but you can also try regular bikes from a shop. I'm shopping for a new mountain bike, because you can never have enough mountain bike, and we are … You can never have enough bikes, period.
Michael Calore: Yeah, you can.
Adrienne So: I think the appropriate bike-to-person ratio in our house is maybe 12 to 1, so that's what we're aiming for.
Michael Calore: Our spouses and loved ones are screaming into their EarPods at this.
Adrienne So: But anyway, we're rolling past that, we're rolling forward on our bikes. Any shop, the bike shop, is peopled by bike people who would be totally happy to let you try as many different kinds of bikes as you want. So, that's another point if you are still not sure what kind of bike you want, you can also try regular bikes.
Lauren Goode: Adrienne, thank you for that. I appreciate your 12-to-1 ratio there. I think I could make the same argument for surfboards, right? Yeah. Why not?
Adrienne So: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Lauren Goode: All right.
Adrienne So: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Let's take a break, and then we're going to come back with our recommendations.
[Break]
Lauren Goode: Adrienne, as our guest of honor, what is your recommendation?
Adrienne So: So my recommendation is, I just finished reading Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell. And if anybody just needs a boost in their faith in humanity right now, which I think we might all do, it's basically examining how in the worst of times, people step up and come together, and it's surprisingly great. It's heartwarming about how we all think that when disaster hits, like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake or the Mexico City earthquake, you would think that it would be chaos and just survival of the fittest or whatever.
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But it turns out that's a narrative that's imposed on us by disaster movies or FEMA, and that the people on the ground actually really help each other. And it's just so tear-jerky, all the people who helped each other out of the towers at 9/11 and stuff. If you really need to be able to look around and think that everybody around you is really a good person at heart, I'd recommend it.
Lauren Goode: I picked that up during the pandemic and did not finish it. I admit it's on my list, my Goodreads list with my one friend, Mike Calore, but it is on my list of books to finish. And I was also really bolstered reading about how the community here banded together and tried to support one another after this terrible, terrible crisis, and it does sound like it's a book that's a good tonic for today's day and age. Well, thank you for that excellent recommendation. Mike, what's your recommendation this week?
Michael Calore: I brought a bike-related recommendation this week.
Lauren Goode: Of course you did.
Michael Calore: Yes, it is my favorite cycling bag, it is called the Road Runner Bags Lil Guy, that's L-I-L G-U-Y. It is a hip pack, or as we in the United States say, a fanny pack.
Adrienne So: It's worth noting here that Mike and I both own this bag and totally love it. This is actually my everyday bike bag too.
Michael Calore: Oh, it's so great. OK. So it doesn't hold a lot. It won't hold your laptop; it will barely hold your lunch. But it is a hip bag, you can also wear it as a sling, it's adjustable so it fits any sized person, and it holds basically the essentials that you need for a long ride. So it'll hold your sunglasses, your sunscreen, a little towel, maybe a can of soda or a can of beer, your locks. There are a couple of places to attach locks to the outside of the bag, on the belt or on the back. It'll also hold your lights; it'll hold your bike tool, and it'll hold your phone. So just about everything that you need to get out of the house for six, seven hours, and then come home and shower and eat.
It is $75, which is a lot of money for a bag. However, I will say that it is remarkably well constructed in the United States, by people who live in Los Angeles who make a living wage. And the materials are very high quality, and the company itself is delightful. The zippers last forever, everything is guaranteed. So it's money well spent, even though it is quite a bit of money for a sling bag. I use it when I walk around the neighborhood, I like it so much. It's not just a bike bag for me, but it is the thing that is always on me whenever I'm going for a bike ride.
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Adrienne So: The construction of it is also really ingenious. I don't know if it was clear that the bike lock, it's a loop in the back so you can just slide your U-lock in there. And then there's webbing on the front so you can just clip your lights on there. It's ingeniously made, is one of the reasons I like it.
Michael Calore: Yeah. The thing that I appreciate the most about the lock storage is that you don't need to unlock your lock to get it off the bag. You can just pull it out of that loop, but it stays in that loop because you cinch it down with the same strap that keeps it cinched to your body. So, yeah, it's pretty ingenious. Anyway, that's my recommendation. The Lil Guy from Road Runner Bags.
Lauren Goode: I'm looking at the Lil Guy fanny pack right now on the Roadrunnerbags.us website, and it does look very well made. And also there are a handful of colors here you can choose from, including Olive Cordura, which I'm wondering, Adrienne, would you say that this is the color of newborn diarrhea? It looks a little green.
Adrienne So: It looks a little too tasteful. This is a little too attractive, I think. You want it to be really gross.
Lauren Goode: Yeah.
Adrienne So: Yeah. You want to feel a little bit sick when you look at it.
Lauren Goode: OK.
Michael Calore: Oh boy. Enough about vomit-colored bags. Lauren, what is your recommendation?
Lauren Goode: My recommendation this week, I may embarrass Adrienne just a little bit, but Adrienne wrote this gorgeous essay on Wired.com this week titled “A Letter to My Fellow Asian Mothers From the Multiverse.” And before this show started, I think we were all sort of fangirl-ing over Everything Everywhere All at Once, the new movie out that's starring Michelle Yeoh. And in fact, Kara Swisher, when she was on the podcast a few weeks ago, that was her recommendation, that we go see that movie. And I took her advice and I went and saw it, I cried for the whole entire second half of the movie. I was on a date, and I just sat there sobbing and had to explain afterward that sometimes, often I cry during movies, but this one was particularly touching. And then Adrienne did this fantastic essay on Wired.com, not only about that film but also Turning Red. And there was one other film that you referenced in your essay too, Adrienne, right?
Adrienne So: Yeah. It's Umma. It's a movie. Yeah, yeah.
Lauren Goode: Yes, Umma. And Adrienne, I just want to say, I want to give you all the kudos because it really was such a powerful essay. I love, I mean, you're such a great reviewer, and I love reading your reviews, but I also love when you do non-review stories and share personal experiences, and you wrote about your own relationship with your mother and just the experience of being the daughter of an immigrant mother. And yeah, it's just great, and I recommend that everyone go read it.
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Adrienne So: Oh, Lauren. I'm blushing. Thank you.
Lauren Goode: And if I may read one of the passages from it that I thought was really powerful. And once again, I'm just totally embarrassing Adrienne here, but she writes, “To be an immigrant woman means to hold many visions of yourself in your head at once. Not only is there the yawning difference between how we perceive ourselves and how we are perceived by others,” and then in parenthesis, “honestly, sometimes I don’t know about you people.” Noted.
Adrienne So: No one in this room, no one on this Zoom.
Lauren Goode: No. I mean, really, it's lessons we all need to learn. And then you continue, “But there's also the gap between what our lives would have looked like if we'd stayed there instead of coming here.” And then the end, the kicker about raising your own daughter was really, ugh, just, it really got me in the gut. So thank you for writing it, Adrienne.
Adrienne So: Thank you, Lauren. I'm going to lighten the mood here deliberately because I'm so moved right now. But I had a story when I saw Everything Everywhere All At Once. I went out with a bunch of fellow moms, and we went out to the bar before we saw it. And I had to pee so bad about an hour before the movie ended. And I was like, “This is really distracting me. What should I do?” And I just leaped up and vaulted over the back of my seat, I sprinted out of the theater. I have never peed so fast in my life. My friends were completely appalled by my behavior during this movie. And then I vaulted back into my seat, and my friend just leaned over. And she was like, “He said to be kind, did you get that?” And I was like, “Dammit.” So yes, I may see it in the theater again because I almost completely botched it the first time. My recommendation here is to not go to the bar before you go see the movie.
Michael Calore: Wow.
Adrienne So: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: All right, that's our show. Adrienne, thanks so much for joining us.
Adrienne So: Thank you guys for having me.
Lauren Goode: And thanks to all of you for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter, just check the show notes. This show is produced by Boone Ashworth, our very own Charlie Chip Black. We're taking a short break next week for the Memorial Day holiday, but we will be back with more Gadget Lab the first week of June, so tune in then.
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