Cycling in a long skirt

There are, to the best of my knowledge, three main ways to bicycle in a long flowing skirt.

Method 1

Undertake a complex piece of sartorial origami, using your backside as a final anchor point, allowing your legs to remain gracefully covered and yet still effortlessly mobile. This works perfectly for the first 300 yards, until such time as your backside moves out of the saddle by as much as a quarter of a millimetre, at which point the entire ensemble spills forth from between your legs like satin incontinence. At which point you are back to where you started, but flailing around in the middle of the road, hoping nobody has noticed. If you were a cat you'd start nonchalantly licking yourself clean.

Method 2

Do nothing. Your skirt gets caught in the chain or the wheel, and either you part company with your bicycle, your skirt parts company with you, or, in the worst case scenario, both events occur simultaneously.

Method 3

Grab part of your skirt in one hand, and pinion it to the handlebars. This has the downside of potentially flashing your knickers at the rest of the world, but it keeps you, your skirt and your bicycle all working together as smoothly as the Spanish football team.

This morning, I cycled into the village to acquire some fresh bread for lunch. Being a lady of elegance and refinement, never troubled by wardrobe malfunctions or afflicted with a failure to plan, I was wearing a long, floaty skirt. I think you can guess which of these methods I adopted. I can only apologise to the residents of the village for any surprising views they were afforded and feel relieved that I was wearing my favourite knickers.