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4 miles each way, 5 days a week. Sometimes 5 miles in morning in the Summer route home can be anything, especially on a Friday after a half day. Extended XC commutes on a Sunny & Frosty Winter morning are nice.
I think a key factor is what the commute time is vs other methods
I used to commute 16 miles (each way) to work. It took me about an hour by bike, but it was only 35 minutes by car or less by motorbike. Still quicker than the train though! I commuted by bike once a week.
I now commute about 15k (each way) to work. But I've changed direction and now commute into Central London, takes around 40-45 minutes. So driving isn't an option, commuting by tube takes the same amount of time, same as motorbike (due to one way systems). If I have a meeting offsite or I'm going out in the evening I'll take my Brompton and might tube it in/home for part of it
So commuting by bike was more hassle in my previous job, in hindsight though I do wish I'd managed it more than once a week. But in my current job it's a no brainer, doesn't take any more time than any other method
20 miles each way, 5 days a week. Cannock chase to Birmingham city centre, 1000ft of climbing on the way in 1200ft on the way home.
Takes me an hour and 25 mins if I take it slow, an hour and 12mins if I rag it, but I only ever rag it home.
No showers/facilities at work, but it's not caused a heap of bother so far and I've been riding full time since 15/12/15.
the 2 most important things about cycle commuting ( 35 year experience) are, full length mudguards and schwalbe puncture proof tyres. FACT
the 2 most important things on my commute bike are fast tyres (I do more commuting miles than almost anything else, why would I want a dead feeling bike) and good brakes (morons don't look...). I have neither guards or punture proof tyres on my commuter bike. In fact, it's my old summer road bike, drop bars, 25mm tyres, slammed stem. Why bimble when you can go fast. SSSTTTRRRAAAAAVVVVVAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
Why bimble when you can go fast.
my cycling as always been about the journey, rather than speed. i dont ever want to rush something i enjoy so much.
20 miles each way, 5 days a week. Cannock chase to Birmingham city centre, 1000ft of climbing on the way in 1200ft on the way home.Takes me an hour and 25 mins if I take it slow, an hour and 12mins if I rag it, but I only ever rag it home.
No showers/facilities at work, but it's not caused a heap of bother so far and I've been riding full time since 15/12/15.
Flipping heck! You must be fit as a butchers dog!
Do you race? (as in enter races not commuter racing)
Shortest option - 15 miles each way.
Couple of hills and a wee bit of traffic.
Longest - 20 miles each way.
Mostly flat and hardly any traffic.
5 days a week in Summer,3 in Winter.
Love it
People enjoy different things
I like having guards - once the rain's stopped you can still get soaked!
Marathon Plus tyres here, so far so good
Good lights too
Plus rack, and a proper honking horn
9 miles by car each way, 40m each way
12-14miles by bike, 40m ish each way
No idea distance by train, 15 mins each way.
9 miles each way down the canal, 6 if i brave the direct route.
Ive not done the direct route since i got my new bike 3 months ago.
20 seconds from my front door to the train station
13 minutes on the train
5 seconds from the train to my office
Absolute torture 😆
@BoardinBob - I agree, you have to travel with the peasants
@prawny - you cycle 20 miles into work and don't shower when you get there? I'm not sure if that's impressive or gross. I would be a sweaty mess by the time I got in
0.6 miles each way before we moved, I was just too close to work and was constantly there.
I can't say moving 1.2 miles away from work has made much difference (apart from doubling my mileage).
My cycle commute is a minimum of 22 miles each way and I have a system of riding 6 journeys and driving the other 4. Although sometimes I get a little over enthusiastic and take a longer route on the bike. Last night was 46 miles with a 26 mile pedal back in this morning. One of the benefits of being a single living alone man, I can ride as much as I feel like.
25 mile drive to Orpington station, then 15 miles on the bike into Fenchurch st. Have been doing it every day since 2/01/2016.
Drive take around 30 mins, ride takes around 50 mins due to traffic and lights. Have tried most types of bikes, from fixed track bike, gravel bike (shudder) and full on carbon road bike. Currently alternate between disc braked roadie and fixed. Last night I broke a rear spoke and had two punctures, commuting is hard on bikes!
(Oh, and I don't run guards or big puncture proof tyres as the guards get buggered up taking it in and out the car and I hate slow rolling tyres).
1.6 miles and almost all downhill to get here. Anything from 1.6 to 40 miles to get home. I've got a nice route back with an easy 20 minute scenic pedal along the canal then a bit of fannying around, then a nice steady 20 minute or so climb to get back, lovely.
I find guards are a must. I don't mind water falling onto me from above but water spraying up from the road is an unpleasantness I can live without.
i find the mentality of someone not using guards a bit odd. the keep you clean. they allow you to go in cafe's and pubs and sit down without making seats filthy and wet. standing water being thrown up is far worse than rain.
ton - Memberthe 2 most important things about cycle commuting ( 35 year experience) are, full length mudguards and schwalbe puncture proof tyres. FACT
Fully agree about guards, but I prefer large volume thinner (much lighter) tyres set-up tubeless with some Stans. Schwalbe PP tyres are made so through a layer of Tungsten judging by the weight.
No punctures in 13000 miles of commuting.
~4.5 miles each way, with the time very much influenced by luck with traffic lights on the way in and my energy to ascend on the way home.
Sometimes I despair of the sensor not acknowledging me if I arrive at the Milton Rd/ Hill Lane or the Howard Rd/ Shirley Rd junctions with no car behind me to trigger a green light!
I do 30 mile round trip plus 20 miles by bus. Thinking about replacing the bus with scooter. For me I view the 3 hours I spend a day as cycling + reading time - not commuting.
I like having guards - once the rain's stopped you can still get soaked!
Highly antisocial not having mudguards, you spray shit at a rider behind you.....
When I cycled 8 minutes. Most of the rest of the time between 60 and 90 minutes by public transport (walk, train, tube/bus)
16 miles each way if it's not raining. A couple of times a week. The train is easy enough that I mix up cycling with going in by train or I work from home. I wish I could say hand on heart three times a week but that's more an aspiration than what actually happens. I ride it on the cross bike, and thought that was to give me off and on road options but rode it yesterday on the road bike and realised the road surfaces are far nicer ridden on the cross bike. Things you just ride through on the cross bike, the road bike makes you want to swerve round and with the volume of traffic that's not an entirely good choice.
@trickydisco - No racing for me, I'm far too tired 😆 I don't really ride socially either, so it's tricky knowing if I'm fast or not, I don't think so - I'm still fat, and there's plenty of people quicker than me on Strava, but I'm never really going for it the whole time due to traffic.
@benp1 - I wear a HR monitor on every ride, so I really take it easy in the morning generally I don't go over z2 and for the last 3-4 miles I really back off.
Full guards, Schwalbe Durano Plus (rear only at the mo) and disc brakes on my commuter - gear goes in a carradice SQR slim, I'd be curious how I'd go on a nice bike now, this one is a tank.
3 miles to and from, going to work its all downhill, I'm not even sure I would call it a cycle, tend to not bother changing into commuting clothes stick to my work trousers/shirt. Coming home sometimes I go down the canals add another 10 miles but tend to go home change and take the road bike out. I was walking but 40min walk cut down to a 10 min pootle.
Full guards, Schwalbe Durano Plus (rear only at the mo) and disc brakes on my commuter - gear goes in a carradice SQR slim, I'd be curious how I'd go on a nice bike now, this one is a tank.
I've found it make surprisingly little difference on a commute.
18 miles on the Niner with guards, racks and panniers - 55mins
18 miles on the Pickenflick with nothing - 50 mins.
I do have to put [u]much[/u] more effort into the climbs on the Niner as it weighs around 10lbs more with the bags.
7 miles each way across Plymouth; hilly and treat it as a workout so smash the rides. I have an acceptable shower at work however which is essential in my (humble) opinion.
I think a key factor is what the commute time is vs other methods
For me, its anywhere from 45mins to 1h15mins on the bus, or consistently 40 mins on the bike.
I think a key factor is what the commute time is vs other methods
90 mins door to door on the train, 60 in the car, 120 on the bike.
But, the car means I have to sit on the M40 which I hate so that's out. That leaves the train, which is fine, and the bike which is better but harder.
Mudguards - I'm not sure its antisocial as such ( I don't do club rides on the same bike), plus there seems to be a lot less standing water and general filth on the roads for my current commute. However I'm moving out to the sticks again with my commute involving country lanes - different kettle of fish then.
As I said earlier, at the moment lugging a bike in and out of the car means mudguards soon get bent out of shape which just becomes a pain in the arse.
30 miles each way, 1300ft. Try and do one way each day and there and back on a Friday. I'll be honest though and say that even after 3 months of doing it, I find it hard going and it is too far. Shame as I really enjoy it, but no matter how slow I cycle I always find the ride into work (1hr 50 mins) leaves me feeling rather tired. The ride home is great though.
12.5 miles each way with 1200 ft of climbing on the way in, and 1000 ft on the way home. I try to do it once a week, usually on a Friday, but this morning apathy won, and I stayed in bed for an extra half hour.
I do just under 20 miles each way 3-5 days a week all year round. I have a winter/wet weather commuter, a disc brakes road bike with full guards and summer commuter, doesn't get used much as it's always ****ing raining.
I love it, wouldn't want it any shorter, most of the time. Its a mix of 7.5 miles through town/suburbs and 12 on a cycle path over a moor with only the odd house on it.
@ Daffy - agreed I was more thinking individual segments, the hill up to my house is about 800m @ 7-8%, PR is 2.02 but I can't get under 2.15 on the commute (TBF its at the very end of the return leg so I'm not as fresh as I could be) I'd like to go under 2 mins and nip up the leaderboard a bit
The shortest route is 7 miles and I often ride that way in a morning, although sometimes it gets extended and I do a 30 mile loop to work.
On the way home I never ride the shortest route. I think the shortest I've done is 25 miles and the longest 62.5mi (100k).
I should add that I only commute by bike once a week!
5.1 miles there, 18.8 miles home...
The way there involves a train.
20k each way, I tend to alternate riding and running, although I can take the train or motorbike/car when required/tired!
Cheers, Rich
6 miles each way, mostly cycle track (first 2 miles is pitch black in winter), last 4 miles is a lovely ride along sea front.
Best part of going into work!
41 miles there and back, 3,500ft of climbing. 1hr 20 each way on the bike. 40 mins in the car. Both on the same route, through countryside.
Unfortunately I don't get the option to ride in much as I have to do school runs normally, but tend to do it every so often.
Biked in the last couple of days, and know about it today, just very tired. Not sure I could do that distance more than once / twice a week
10 miles each way at my last client. Enough to feel like a decent ride, and even with SE London's traffic lights can comfortably get from home to office desk via the shower in an hour.
18 miles each way here, I split it so drive/ride then ride/drive. Been doing it twice a week over the summer but other evening stuff changes in winter so it's only practical to do it once a week most of the time. Mainly quiet roads, not too hilly, about an hour hone and a tad more going in.
25 mile each way.
You lot are super quick,I once had a green wave,(all traffic lights green) and I did it in 1hour33.
Normally it takes 1.45/50.
These days I prefer to do a long off road ride home and go like the clappers on the road, the morning after.
~12 miles each way. I do 2 or 3 days a week on a good week, 1 or none on a bad week. Takes about 45-50 minutes, would be quicker on open roads, but junctions slow you down.
TBH a few miles shorter would be good. I drive from town to town rather than through the middle of a city so the bike is 30 minutes slower on a low traffic day (a few minutes on 40mph roads, then onto 70mph DC, then a mile of 40mph, then work), through to equal to driving on a catastrophically bad traffic day.
I like it, but it's a real time sink (15 minutes getting changed/showered at each end, plus an average of 20 minutes added onto each leg of the journey). But then it means I ride a bike during the week, when a MTB ride usually involves loading the car up and driving for 1-3 hours to get somewhere with hills/trails.
EDIT: Daffy, that's bloody quick!
4 miles each way with a few [s]small hills[/s] bumps on the way. Takes me about 15 minutes at each end of the day.
I actually wish it was longer.