Exactamundo
Plus good brakes & tyres etc. can be more important when dealing everyday with our good friends the frustrated car driver, the behind schedule van driver etc.

Mudguards. Best deterrent to theft I can think of.

Where I work, the guards in full body armour carrying machine guns, don't do any harm either 😀

Nice weather : nice bike
Crap weather : car

Haha! Well yes, alright! I do online ride in 3-4 days a week at most, I'm lazy.

When I used one bike for everything I used to get through 2 pairs of rims, about 30 pairs of brake blocks, 2 changes of cables sets, 6 chains, and 3 changes of cassette/chainrings a year.

WTF, how? I've had my Madone for 5 years now, used it year round for 3 of those, it's had 3 chains and cassettes, original rings, it has had many sets of wheels, but I've never worn a set out. Maybe 5 sets of brake pads. Probably done 15-20000 miles.

You're just not riding hard enough. 🙂

That must be it! I'm clearly not braking enough!

njee – It was an 91 Clockwork Orange – used for commuting/racing/cx/night riding/Sunday riding/touring. I was probably riding it about 20-25 hours a week, with about a 50/50 on/off road split all year round.
With Cantilever brakes, Deore DX/XT drivetrain and Mavic M231 rims – it didn't take long to work your way through stuff in 92/93, oh and probably a set of jockey wheels every 12 months as well!

njee, I too was re-rimming wheels every 6 months, brake blocks every 2 weeks on my SS commuter (and adjusting the damn things every other day cos the wear rate was so high). That's commuting across Bristol everyday, in all weathers. Its very stop:start:stop, even if you have good road craft and can keep rolling most of the time. Plus rubber brake blocks cover EVERYTHING in black gunk, including you if you have to change a puncture. I CBA washing rims twice a day, most I'll do it use any left over water to wash the worst off.

So I went road disc. They're great. Not becuase I was thought I had lack of power with dual pivots (far from it) just to halve my maintainence requirements.

Ah right, that's a bit different then! I don't feel so inadequate.

I still have a set of 10 year old Campag Electron road wheels – they've done at least 30,000 miles although I am a little worried now about how good the sidewalls are…

I think perhaps my idea of commuting differs to other folks on here. Commuting in my mind is 40 to 50 miles a day on a road bike. I guess if I was doing a couple of miles across town I would have a cheap bike to do it on.

I too was re-rimming wheels every 6 months, brake blocks every 2 weeks on my SS commuter (and adjusting the damn things every other day cos the wear rate was so high). That's commuting across Bristol everyday, in all weathers.

I've lived in Bristol for 3 years of the 5 ADH, no way in hell can I wear out pads that fast!

I too was re-rimming wheels every 6 months, brake blocks every 2 weeks on my SS commuter

I commute on road 20 miles each way roughly 4 days a week all year round and I don't go through anywhere near that amount of brake blocks or adjusting faffage and rims last at least a year.

Commuting in my mind is 40 to 50 miles a day on a road bike. I guess if I was doing a couple of miles across town I would have a cheap bike to do it on.

Ur doin' it wrong 😉 . Commuting = 2-3 miles across town on a 7" travel bike, then home the scenic route via Wentwood d/h track 😀 . I love work 😛

I've just got a new work bike on C2W – it's a 'budget' tourer. It cost £700 (i.e. slightly more than my road bike but much less than my mtb) but I think it looks like a 20 year old racer with mudguards and a rack. The hope is it's so uncool that no one would ever want to steal it. On the plus side it's very comfortable, reasonably quick and practical . I must admit I'm a bit of a convert, I just need to grow a beard and buy some sandals now….
😳

Surprised you don't ride in on a road bike, sell it, build something else to ride home on, sell it and repeat.

They're all road bikes. My main commuters have been a CAAD5 'dale, an old holdsworth SS hack and my current disc-ed up Uncle John.

Well, I do 24 miles a day to work, 5 days a week and I have. From the south to the north across town everyday.

When I was doing 40 miles a day from Bath to Bristol, as I didn't have to go across town or get boiled up in the stop:start:stop wheel rims lasted 4 years and brake pad changes were so infrequent I can't recall the time period. Several months in all likely hood.

TBH I couldn't believe just how quickly everything has worn out the past couple of winters either. Its only winter TBH, December and January, sub zero, rivers of crap on the road, utterly trashed kit. This time of year I haven't done anything to the bike other than some chain lube since March.

I love my Cervelo too much to sell it. I am currently in the process of collecting bits for a more winter friendly road bike ie one with mudguards on it which I will sell next spring.

Commuter = old mtb's second life. So it may look crappy as all hell which helps reduce the likelihood of theft, but under the covers is my trusty old Kona with Sunn rims, lx hubs and a P2 fork. I actually really enjoy the ride from it with big wide bars on, it's a great bike to ride but often gets referred to as a 'crappy old bike' by those who don't know's it's past life.

discs are a must here – stops the bike getting covered in crap, and rims last forever, disc pads for years, as opposed to 1-2 years and weeks-months when using rim bnrakes.

This on a bike (then) used for most-weather commuting and training: Southern softies' mileage may vary

The bike i commute to work on is an old now-rigid mountain bike with slicks, full guards and a rack. I also ride it for fun if we aren't going anywhere too muddy or bumpy, but mostly fun rides for me are on proper dirt with proper tyres and at least a bouncy fork.

njee20 – Member

Surprised you don't ride in on a road bike, sell it, build something else to ride home on, sell it and repeat.

Sounds like a plan 😆

So it's mainly down to theft and "wear and tear" that stops people having a better bike to ride on the commute.

If your bike could be secure when parked and the chance of theft reduced would that tempt you to ride a more expensive / decent bike on your commutes?

To some extent, yes.

My commuter is my best bike at the moment, but theft is not an issue.

I pimped my commute, no point in commuting on a shed. If I drive a car in I want top of the range stuff so why not on my bike:

I think some of you might want to think about how some people define best bike and commuter, and that maybe some of us don't really worry ourselves about how concerned you are with defining people.

My commuter's my heaviest, cheapest bike but it's still way better on the road than the mtbs. Though the Soul would be better than it is with slicks and carbon forks on on I guess, but it'd also be £1500 worth of carbon and paranoia in my office bike shed. Nobody's going to nick my Courier in a hurry, it's perfectly maintained and has some nice kit on it but it still looks like s**t, ideal really.

EVERYTHING gets stolen in london

Even your soul.

For me it was maintenance more than anything else. The last thing I want to do after riding to work in the rain, working, and then riding back in the rain, is start doing maintenance on my bike to make sure it's fine for the next day. So fixie/singlespeed/old/crap was the order of the day.

The pompino was the best bike by far, but the humuhumu was good too.