One of the challenges of women when they’re travelling by bike is finding the right spot to pee when the need arises. TE and Pak discovered the plastic tube you can see in the picture at a Werchter Rock music festival in Belgium, when they saw a woman using a similar item at a men’s urinal, standing side by side with other men. While other women had to queue for half an hour to use a miserable stinky cabin, this Werchter fan was done within seconds.

TE hasn’t needed to use this item much, but she finds it extremely helpful to pee discreetly without bearing much skin –particularly useful in mosquito infested areas!

 

Yesterday the plastic penial thingy took on unusual prominence in an incident in the Highway 17 in Ontario, on the route between Thessalon and Sault Ste. Marie, while TE and Pak were rolling a dozen kilometres apart.

 

It was 1 pm and TE hadn’t had the chance to find a toilet since they left Thessalon. For nearly 40 kilometres there was nothing but a few farms scattered among the vast, empty fields. She deeply regretted not having stopped at the picnic area right after Bruce Mines and now she was looking anxiously to the side of the road, pedalling slowly and fidgeting on the saddle, adamant to find the right spot to hide and squat.

 

But there was no place to hide and she waited and waited –until she could hold it no more!
‘That’s it, I stop right here’, she said to herself. She got off the bike, found the plastic thingy in one of her panniers and went to the unpaved side of the road. Suddenly, a black car pulled over right behind her bike. ‘Really?’, she cried out loud, ‘Did you really have to pull over right here?’. At that precise moment she realized the black car was in fact a police car and an officer –a woman–, got off.

 

‘Good afternoon, Ma’am’, she said. ‘Good afternoon, officer’, answered TE back, giggling a bit, out of sheer embarrassment. ‘I’ve stopped here because I needed to pee’, TE explained, showing discreetly the plastic tube. ‘I hope I’m not in trouble’. The officer looked at the thing in TE’s hand and smiled: ‘Oh, I see, you’ve got one of these things. Well, in fact I’m here because a few drivers have reported a female cyclist on the highway seemed to be in trouble.’

 

TE gasped in surprise. ‘Well, for some kilometres I’ve rolled slowly looking for the right spot and I must have looked a bit anxious’, she admitted. ‘Yes, that’s it: drivers called saying you were very slow and erratic –as if you were having a heat stroke, you know’, confirmed the officer.

 

After some further explanations, laughters and apologies, the officer went back to the car and TE to her bike. Both waved goodbye and that was it, end of the story.

 

But TE hadn’t been able to pee yet so she had to still do a dozen kilometres before finding the perfect hiding spot. And up to Sault Ste. Marie she went, with a forced smile on her face and pedalling vigorously because, you know, people can report you if you look too tired or fidgety on your bike!