I used to cycle to work when it was just 6 miles along the road. Two years ago I moved jobs and now work in North Bristol, making any potential commute about 20 miles each way. Since moving jobs I have gained nearly two stone and been diagnosed with arthritis (although this is well under control with meds).

I am asking for advice and wisdom on building up to a big 44 mile a day commute. Can it be done? Especially by a 39 year old, 18 stone, bloke with RhA?

That’s not unreasonable if you can car/train one way every now and then.

Obviously this is easiest if you can live without the car for a night/day every now and then. I know a few guys that do that sort of distance and they don’t do it both ways every day or WFH a few days a week.

One has decided to buy and ride a brompton 20 miles to work, so he can get on an earlier train out of London if he doesn’t fancy riding both ways that day.

If the RhA is under control then you’re just as capable as anyone else to ride that every day after building up to it. Not sure i’d want to do it myself, that’s not far off* 10k miles a year if you do it 5 days a week!

*factored in a couple of weeks holiday

Putting it like that it seems a long way. Maybe I need to find a safe place to park the car,perhaps half way as WFH is not an option.

I had a 17 mile commute and did it 3 days a week.

If you’re not used to riding it build up gradually, you don’t want to hate it or fatigue yourself.

I used to be 20 stone, also have RhA slowly eating my hands away. I commute 12 miles each way about 3 times a week on a good week. In 2 years I have lost 4 stone and the arthritis doesn’t seem to be holding me back too much (pain is relative after all).
My advice is to build up slowly. Don’t let the first few commutes put you off, it will not be pleasant at first, but after a few rides it will get easier, even quite fun.
I use 3 different routes to work to keep it interesting (and to avoid/add hills depending on how I feel). Do you have a shower at work?

Yep, shower, bike lockers etc. Glad to see that the theme of these responses is that I’m ambitious rather than delusional.

Fin Hope the RhA is not too painful. Sounds like the bike helps?

Don’t know if it helps, certainly doesn’t do any harm…does hurt like hell sometimes though…

How do you get to work currently?

Can you drive in on a Monday then ride home, ride in on a Tuesday then drive home?

You could start off doing it this way so you’re not overloading yourself too much to begin with. Do that once or twice a week then build up to riding in and out on the same day, then do successive days until you find the point that feels like a good balance of exercise and time spent doing it.

The actual distance is pretty long but it is certainly achievable

When I was doing comparable commutes the biggest issue I had with it was the amount of time it took out of the day to ride that far…

i do a 20mile commute one way every day. Both ways would take too much time out of the day.

It’s certainly doable, not easy to start with but doable.

My commute is 13 miles in (to a train station) and 35 back all the way, I do this 3 times per week, Tuesday to Thursday. It means I have a do to recover from/prepare for the weekends riding and it means I can transport clothes in on a Monday and return the dirties home on Friday.

It is bloody hard work to begin with, it took some getting used to. But. It is well worth it as I am no fitter, stronger and generally in a better mood at work. Ease yourself in if possible, do 2 or 3 days per week then slowly up it from there (or don’t if you feel that is enough) would be my advise, going straight in May be somewhat of a challenge!

I do 20 miles each way one day a week. About 16st.

With panniers for a laptop and a change of clothes, towel etc it isn’t fast. The quickest I’ve done it is 1hr12 for 23 miles. With the 2″ Big Apples on a Singular Gryphon it’s taking 1hr30 for 20 miles. But it’s a lot comfier.

On the other hand after you’ve subtracted the time a car commute would take, it’s 3 hours on the bike for the price of 1.5-2 hours.

I’m 42, reasonably fit, and up until we moved (closer) used to ride an 18 mile each way commute 3-4 days a week. It took a while to build up to it and was a bit nasty through the winter months, but all in all very do-able. With the traffic round these parts it was actually faster to ride in than drive most days.

I think the most important thing is to ensure it doesn’t become a drag, that means a comfortable bike that you love riding and decent kit that will keep you comfortable/dry/cool/whatever.

It’s easy, you lose stones doing it and in turn you’ll be fitter, happier and have loads more energy. I really miss bike commuting. Best way to travel and 20 miles not that bad depends on hills I suppose.

Maybe I need to find a safe place to park the car,perhaps half way

Definitely works for me, if you can find a good spot to park. I’ve tried all kinds of funky combos of car, train and bike, and the best one for me has always just been drive to an appropriate distance away and ride the rest. 🙂

Commuting on a road bike changed my life.

18 months ago I was 110kg. Now I’m 86kg. 😀 Riding into work wasn’t the only part of that change but it was a big part of changing my mind set and getting me to adjust my whole life style, including what and how much I ate.

It’s 37 miles from my house to work so when I started riding I would drive to a point 17 miles from the office and ride in from there.

Then when I felt that was comfortable, I started parking a bit further out and upped the distance to 21miles. The next change was to change the route so that I went in over Box Hill (which at 6.45am in the summer is sublime!) That took the one way distance up to 24miles and added 850m of climbing on there and back journey.

Then a few weeks ago I decided to just ride in the whole way and ride back part of the way and pick up the train for the last 13 mile. Total commute distance is 60 miles when I do this.

I only do this though twice a week combining it with an early morning ride from home on Friday and Sunday.

It was very tiring to begin with and you need to learn your short cuts to make it easier to bear. For me those were:

– make sure you have everything ready the night before so all you need to do in the morning is get up and get out. If I am driving part of the way in I have everything in the car the night before and sometimes even lock the bike on the roof.
– have as much of your change kit permanently in the office as you can. I have a complete wash/shave set there, shoes, jeans (that I change once a week) towel etc. What makes commuting much harder is having to take a back pack that weighs half a ton.
– Get decent lights, even when commuting in the summer it helps get you seen. A high viz gillet is also a useful investment.
– Get a bike with mudguards and then make sure you still ride in when it’s wet; honestly mud guards make a huge difference.
– Get a comfortable bike not a silly stiff carbon race bike. My Genesis weighs 10kg but it’s like an arm chair comfort wise.
– Use 25c tyres with a high level of puncture protection as a minimum. You’ll still get punctures, but you want to minimise how often it happens as it’s depressing getting one on the way in (especially at 7am in the wet in November). I’ve been using Continental Four Seasons and they are OK, light but perhaps not quite puncture proof enough as I’ve had maybe three in the last 600km.
– Use chamois cream and make sure you have several pairs of good quality shorts. They make the ride more comfortable and you need to be changing them every day so as to avoid saddle sores (self evident I’m sure)
– Don’t be too measley with lunch but for the first few months also bear in mind that you’re going to be able to metabloise a lot of fat and thus bring your weight down. I’m now having maybe 500 calories for lunch on a ride day, but while I was dropping the weight, I was having maybe 300. This was the hardest bit of riding in and out but if you’re losing weight, you’ll remain very motivated.

I’m happy now to ride all the way in and part of the way back but the impact is that it takes quite a lot of time out of the day. I leave the house at 6am and am not back until 7.45pm and that’s hard on the family. I think that I will have to cut that routine back to once a fortnight.

Good luck with it all!

What makes commuting much harder is having to take a back pack that weighs half a ton.

Carradice SQR Slim – big enough to take a mid-sized laptop and A4 folders.
No weight on your back. Clips and unclips in seconds.

+1 on the Carradice, I’ve got a Nelson Saddlebag with SQR rack mount, one of the best things I’ve bought for my bike.

I’m a right big fat biffer, and I do 14 miles each way, up some big hills, twice a week. You soon get used to it. And your times come down consistently. Especially through the summer. I regularly go for extended off road excursions on the way home. If I didn’t do it, I’d look like….

There are few things get you arriving at work feeling perky and smug as a nice ride in, in the sunshine, when everyone else has been stuck in traffic. The best way to start the day*. Or finishing the day and deciding to take a long route home in the sun. Get stuck in and enjoy it! 😀

* There is a price to be paid for this, when you arrive in like a drowned rat. Swings and roundabouts, and all that.

And if you want something a bit smarter for the office then:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut8uvElicZA[/video]

Or use panniers. Point is, don’t carry heavy stuff on your back for long distances. The horse carries the load, not the jockey!

And yeah, for the OP, I’d say +1 to the suggestion of starting off only riding a couple of days a week and taking the car/train part of the way.

20 miles each way every day is A LOT. If you want to do that you’ll need to build up to it.

I am asking for advice and wisdom on building up to a big 44 mile a day commute. Can it be done?

Yes it can be done but you need to build up slowly and doing it every day will be hard going, even after a few years.

Also depends on the route, it might be pan flat or it might be 2000ft of climbing.

I commute 20 miles each way, 3 to 5 days a week all year round, 1000ft climbing one way and 700ft the other – always into a bastard headwind one way.

Monday/Wednesday/Friday is easy – the full 5 days is hard but depends on the weather.

I started 2013 having only ever ridden MTB about 40 miles in a day and always the one at the back.

I moved to Norfolk and got a road bike as well, and went from 17st 8ibs to 15st 4ibs, I was training to do a challenge to rode the 250 miles from Manchester to London in 24 hours which i completed and now reguarly do 100 -150 mile events, no arthritis, but suffered neck and back pain most of my life from rugby and it has improved.

As everyone says, take it steadily, build up your miles and the main thing is to enjoy it.

Also it is great motivation to enter an event, maybe a 50, 70 or 100 miler, gives you something to actually train for and a sense of achievement when completed.

I’m 16.5 stone and I currently commute 23.5km each way 3x a week and there is a chunk of climbing. Of course it’s do-able but I’ve showers and lockers (plus towels etc) at work (along with my PPE clothes), so I can ride with a minimum of gear each way which is a lot more fun than when I was riding with a load of gear “just in case”.

Takes me 50-55 minutes to get to work on a Pompetamine, which is great for reliability but not everyone gets on with the IGH and trying to go distances fast. For me that’s a comfortable time to be soaking wet if it rains so I don’t run mudguards, but I think I’m the odd one out compared to most commuters.

I’m also lucky in that on the rare occasions something happens I can grab a lift home easy enough and my work do flexi hours so are not fussed if I roll into work before 10am (which is a godsend with my kids).

When starting I did a couple of trial runs at the weekend so I knew roughly how much effort I’d need to get into work and the timings. Then as I get my work schedule the week before I’d pick a day that was going to be “easy” and cycle in that day and built on from there. 2x a week is pretty easy to fit into my life, but would take 3-4 weeks before I started to feel fit and be able to push the full way into work (and back), prior to that I was bumbling along not really enjoying it but seeing the improvement. Able to do 3x a week at the mo as the wife isn’t working for summer, so I have less running around to do with the kids in the morning meaning I can get more early starts/long days to make my hours up, don’t under estimate how tired you can be at the end of the week and then having to cycle.

I don’t have the time or inclination to commute 5x a week – I use it as a way to get some fitness cycling (which is quite enjoyable as my commute is in a pretty rural location) in without impacting too much on home life. Used to cycle 5 days a week when it was only 5 miles and much simpler life being single.

Thanks everyone, very useful indeed. I am starting tomorrow. Park and ride security guard said im most welcome to leave car and bike the rest. That should be a good launching point.

Good man, hope it goes well. Might sound daft but if you’re planning on doing it frequently I’d stress the importance of taking it easy. Nice relaxed ride in with no time stress is a lovely way to start the day. 🙂