Cycling advocate seeks functional yet stylish accessories

Tireless and determined local bike advocate Barb Chamberlain is on a quest to convince women of Spokane that bikes and style are not mutually exclusive. She has dubbed her mission: “Bike Style,” and her tools are a blog, Twitter, Facebook, and wholesale-priced cycling apparel. Chamberlain believes that by introducing women to stylish, comfortable clothing appropriate for both biking and board meetings she can shift biking culture in Spokane towards transportation and away from “just a sport you do in Spandex.” Her passion for two-wheeled transit owes in part to the city, which years ago installed a bike lane in front of her home. An occasional pedal to work soon turned into a daily habit as she accumulated tricks that made her commute more efficient, stylish and comfortable. Though commuting was enjoyable, there were still occasional frustrations, which she would compare notes with other bike commuters online: how to avoid helmet hair, pit-stains, and frozen phalanges; whether there are shoes that are both cute and that won’t slip off pedals; and, how to be visible in the dark but still not looking like a traffic cone. Grateful to these female riders for generously sharing their hard-earned trade secrets, Chamberlain created the Bike Style blog to share her own secrets, and invited the professional women of Spokane to engage in a dialogue about the intersection of bikes and fashion. Her outreach has been well received, and Chamberlain says the Bike Style movement now has a healthy following. Her hope is to eradicate outdated bike-commuting-chaos where women stuff heels and skirts in drab, industrial bike bags and furiously fan their pits in office restrooms as they struggle out of Spandex and lime-green windbreakers into constrictive business attire. Instead, Chamberlain envisions a Spokane where women pedal gracefully to the office on wide bike lanes, dressed in Nordstrom-esque outfits designed not only to avoid snarls with bike chains and to block wind, but to garner respect from professional colleagues. In her free time, the working mom scours the Internet and local shops for clothing that functions for both biking and work. She then orders it at wholesale and sells it to friends through email, home shopping parties, and booths at biking events like SpokeFest. She even offers to do personal shopping for gift-befuddled husbands. Chamberlain plans to eventually get an e-commerce license so that she can sell online, and she’s toying with the idea of designing her own attire, if time allows. And while Chamberlain loves shopping — she describes her personal style as Goodwill meets Nordstrom — she offers that most women already have basics. “All you really need is a bike, a helmet, lights, and gloves,” she said. “The rest you can slowly accumulate over time - that’s what I did.” But when you do decide to buy, she says, start with items that block wind and keep extremities warm. On her wish list is a new pair of lobster claw gloves, which house three fingers in a mitten and keep the pointer finger and thumb separate. She already has an entirely functional pair, but some of her friends’ gloves come with a handy nose-wiping patch. “I’ve been eyeing them with envy,” she admits. Earlier this winter, the thermometer read 25 degrees and Chamberlain had begun her day in the dark, pedaling to a 7 a.m. meeting. “It wasn’t that bad,” she says, adorning wool leggings, a knee length skirt and stylish boots, “but I’ll say this – if you wear a facemask like I do in the winter, remember to put your lipstick on after you get to work.” To add flair, the Director of Communications and Public Affairs at WSU Spokane often sports a decorative helmet cover of black velveteen: “I look like an Englishwoman on my horse.” Chamberlain’s style and commitment to riding in any weather can undoubtedly draw attention, offering further proof that in Spokane biking is still first, a sport, not a mode of transportation. “I get attention for being unusual here,” she says, “whereas I would be totally ignored in a place like Amsterdam [where biking for transportation is the norm]. I would not be special.” Her goal: To no longer being noticeable for what she does. Until she gets there, Chamberlain has received satisfaction from connecting with other like-minded women. Her quest has led her to numerous female-authored biking blogs, which she lists at bikestylespokane.com. “I feel like I could go to any city where there is a woman who writes a bike blog and call her up and say, ‘Hey do you want to go for a ride and grab coffee?’