I ride a motorbike 45 mins each way and I find it a bit of a drag. It just seems like dead time out of your life. Walking or bike riding the same time would be fine.

I did a 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hour round trip for four years. How I stuck it for so long i do not know…..it is a waste of your life.

Hacked a 100 mile round trip, 6 days a week, 25000 commuting miles, for a year. Company car, but my own petrol. Never ever again. Then moved to a job where it got worse – right into the middle of Manchester. Yuck. Was permanently knackered from 3-4 hours in the car. Every. Single. Day.

Open question. I presume if you like cycling and you love being out there, fresh air.

Why do you drive diesels and commute/work long distance?

Its at the opposite ends of cycling/thinking about our environment. Or is there something called denial?

Open answer – if you’re capable of riding 122 miles a day five days a week, I guess that could be the answer.

I did do National Cycle To Work day last year – that was a 95 mile day with eight hours of work in the middle. Now THAT my friend was a bloody long day…

I live in the South East and occasionally have to commute 40 miles each way. Unfortunately those 40 miles are up the A3, north bound on M25 and then into Slough. 1hr if I leave at 6:15 am – any later (even 10 minutes), then the commute increases in length and my stress levels rise. On the way home it is a complete lottery and has been up to just under 2 hours plenty of times.

I am lucky in that I don’t have to do it that often, due to traveling with work. A full week in the office is a pain from the travel point of view. I have a child in childcare 2 days a week and my wife works 4 days, so it all needs some planning if I am in the office, as commuting can be unreliable.

My dream is to be able to ride to work, (mainly so I can loose a piece of this lardy arse), but every job I have had requires either train/car travel time.

I totally understand the desire to live away from a city/particular place of employment, so I can only advise that you try and alleviate it by getting as much as possible from this wish list:

1. an automatic (if traffic is ever bad)
2. fuel efficient car – if my journey was shorter I would seriously consider electric, as closet eco hippy
3. DAB radio – makes journeys more interesting
4. seeing if there is any flexibility in the work day hours

I did about an hour’s drive for 6 months. It sucked more than I thought it would tbh. I found it really boring and there were also the regular days when there would be some sort of hold up getting to or from work. Eveyrone is different though, but for me it wasnt do-able. Even thought it was only an hour a day vs my previous commute I found it really ate into my time doing stuff I enjoyed.

I’ve done 18 months of driving Kendal to Manchester 5 days a week. It’s something like 70 miles in each direction.

My old commute was 5 miles. I used to be frequently late, my sleep pattern was similar to a student and I’d get home and watch nonsense on TV for hours on end.

Now, i’m out of the door by 6:30 and in work before 8, knock off at 4:30 listen to the radio on the way (that’s much more pleasant than TV) and back home for a walk or a ride mid week now the light has got better. The best bit is the weekends/days off, I’ve got the Lake District on my doorstep.

I won’t lie, it’s tough at times especially the diesel outlay but the fact I’m child free, it’s 98% motorway, cruise control and Volvo seats help. I’m going to enquire about doing one day a week from home, it’s a saving of around £80 / month.

I have on and off before. My dad did it for years before he retired, around half the M25. I couldn’t do it for long periods, or without WFH at least part of the time.

You really need flexibility. It can work OK if you shift a couple of hours either way from rush hour, but if your boss insists on you being there 9-5 then it can be a problem. Likewise, they need to be understanding that you’re coming a long way and all roads screw up from time to time. Don’t imply or state that you’ll move for the job unless you’re actually wanting to.

Worth asking for work-from-home arrangements, maybe a day a week. It can really help break things up. Get anything agreed in writing, easy to verbally promise something then they decide against it later.

Worth thinking about costs. The AA publish running costs tables you can base that on. It’s somewhere around the 30p/mile mark for 30k/year for something Golf-sized – about £36 a day or £9k of post-tax salary (so even more on your “headline” salary). You can probably do it cheaper, but it’s a good start. Make sure you’re being compensated well enough for that side of things, at the very least enough over the running costs for whatever personal mileage you’ll do (assuming you’d own a car anyway).

It’s not just money, but time – doing higher mileage then services, tyres, etc come round much sooner. Can feel like every month something needs doing. You’re also putting yourself at higher risk of accidents too.

If you’re trying it out, bear in mind that it’s much more pleasant at this time of year. Depending on timing, you can be doing both ways in the dark which can be miserable.

When I first started here, I couldn’t get a week out of a tankful of fuel from my old Punto, felt like I was filling up all the time. The Corsa will do a week and a bit, and that made a difference for me, mentally. 🙂

simon_g – Member

Worth thinking about costs. The AA publish running costs tables you can base that on. It’s somewhere around the 30p/mile mark for 30k/year for something Golf-sized – about £36 a day or £9k of post-tax salary (so even more on your “headline” salary). You can probably do it cheaper, but it’s a good start. Make sure you’re being compensated well enough for that side of things, at the very least enough over the running costs for whatever personal mileage you’ll do (assuming you’d own a car anyway).

A lot of that depends on the age/depreciation of your car. I worked it out a while ago (including assumed depreciation of my car) and it was about 18p/mile total costs (fuel, service, tyres, mot, insurance etc.). And I’ve kept the car for quite a while longer since I did that calculation, so the cost/mile would have come down more.

I keep a savings fund for car maintenance. It was £125 a month, which I put up to £150 a while back, but might put back down as it’s starting to get quite high. That money covers everything apart from fuel; servicing, MOT’s, insurance, tyres, tax, screenwash……
I find it helpful to do this as it compartmentalises the cost and means I am not having to find fairly large amounts of money at various points in the year.

pondo – Member
When I first started here, I couldn’t get a week out of a tankful of fuel from my old Punto, felt like I was filling up all the time. The Corsa will do a week and a bit, and that made a difference for me, mentally.

This does make a difference. At my last place, I was commuting 60 miles each way, so pretty much 600 miles/week. My 45 litre tank wouldn’t let me get a week of commuting from a single fill-up and it was always on my mind that I was having to fill the car up more than once a week.
Now I am doing 40 miles each way and have reduced my speed to 60mph. It makes almost no difference to my commute time, but I can easily get a full week of commuting from a tank with plenty spare.
Traffic on the commute will make a massive difference to fuel economy.

I’d not even contemplate it in a privately owned car.

It may work out slightly cheaper on a pence per mile but the stress of it will drive you insane. Much better to have a car you still fuel in and for anything else just phone a number to get fixed and if you are without a car for any lenght of time it’s someone elses problem to fix.

Simple things like getting a car serviced are a lot more difficult when you are 60 miles from home all day every day.

Bassically you need to realise that the time in the car is only a very small part of the downsides of comuting long distances.

I used to do Bradford to Sheffield and back. After 3 years it had a negative effect on my health both mental and physical.

Plus you need a nice car to do it.

Never again

+1 on that. not for 3 years, I lasted 8 weeks but that was more to do with, more often than not, not having anything to do when I got there than the journey itself.

I now work from home 4 days a week, 28 mile each way from commute north of Bradford to north of Barnsley (and back again) one day a week & I’m starting to find that a bit of a drag TBH.

My next job will be either WFH 5 days a week OR within 5 miles of home

One thing i learnt from my 128 mile round commute i commented on above, and echoing someone else, get a DAB radio with ipod (or other MP3 player) connectivity.

That way you get 6 music or the station of your choice, you can listen to podcasts, audiobooks or the music of your choice, being stuck with BBC Radio 1 or 2 can make things 10x worse.

Quick recommendation is “We’re Alive” zomebie podcast, it is a ongoing radio play in the style of Walking Dead, about 46 hours back catalogue you can download from their websie or itunes.

63 miles each way for 8 years. (2-3 days per week 1 at home 1-2 days on site/driving even further)

Can now speak speak conversational mandarin and spanish apart from that. Shit.

I used to keep a dictionary in the car. There will always be a dreadful hold up and it is nice to pull out a book you can open at any page.

It is perfectly possible in a private car, IF you choose the car carefully. My costs factored in car loan (£7.5K at £188/month), fuel, servicing, tax and insurance. Being a 1.9 TDI it AVERAGED 56 mpg and with a 55L tank would achieve 600 miles on a tank. It is the frequent heading to refuel that is depressing.

And hora, it wasn’t denial, we’d lived in the same village for a long time, it was not a good opportunity to move to an area with much higher housing costs. When we relocated, work paid but my mortgage doubled. I’ve done 10 years because I liked what I did when I got to work, I’d not do it again. But I don’t regret it.

One final point – I did have a semi-cycling option; 12 mile bike ride to Oxford, bus to London and six miles to office. Was fun, but I could never get the journey below 2hrs and 5 minutes. I also car shared for about two years on and off.

Work on average 3 days in office which requires 3.5 – 4 hour 130 mile round trip. Yes, really. OK for a few months, but really grates thereafter. Knackered if I end up doing it 4 or 5 days. Utter waste of time, energy etc. Avoid if you have viable options.